Sometimes, I feel like the only way I can really communicate is through the work I create. Even as a small kid, I expressed myself through piano playing, then songwriting, poetry and writing, photography and now painting. It’s not like I have a shortage of words… just a shortage of ability to express those words other than in writing or some art form.
Maybe I choose to convey my feelings this way because it doesn’t matter if anyone is listening. These days it appears that we all have a lot to say…but fall short in the listening department. I know I am guilty of this too and have to remind myself to practice listening when I notice that I am not.
How can we communicate, really communicate if we don’t hear each other? It’s a beautiful dance, this dance of listening and speaking when no one leads. We are so quick to want to jump in and justify, explain and reason away why we think the way we do as if it is something to defend.
We all have our point of views. And there are some point of views out there that I strongly disagree with. However, if I don’t, or can’t respect another’s point of view… than I am judging them, and also judging myself as someone who’s point of view is better or right.
Early on in my spiritual journey we were taught, “there is no right or wrong.” And now, in my 60th year, I am questioning that premise. Is it right to lie? To cheat? To vilify? Is it right to deceive, harm or disrespect? If there is no right or wrong, would we turn our cheek and look the other way…and pretend it doesn’t hurt, when it does?
If I don’t believe in right or wrong, what is guiding me to live a meaningful life with good ethics and integrity? Surely, I have been too complacent in my life, as the victim, and also as the offender. I have hurt people’s feelings, whether unknowingly or otherwise, but never with malice because in my mind… that is wrong. How have we come to a place in time where the very essence of right and wrong have become so ineffectual or dismissed? And how do we cope with so much injustice? How do you cope?
I cope by creating artwork, playing my piano, reaching deep in my heart to pull out as much love as possible to diminish the ugliness of dissension and injustice. Sometimes I want to crawl into a hole and hide and then I remember that we are all made up of energy, and if we can emanate that beautiful energy inside into the energy around us, we can overcome the ‘other’ energy.
