On a Spiritual Path...

What does that even mean?

I live in LA and over the years have listened to so many of my friends and acquaintances talk about how they're "not religious, but spiritual."  I even used to describe myself this way for years.  Now, I don't really defend myself.  If people want to think of me as religious, that's fine.  If they want to have a deeper conversation about life, then great.

Diana Nyad said something incredible about atheism about a year ago on an Oprah show.  "Just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I'm not full of wonder."  That has to be the best description of atheism I've ever heard.  Here's a woman who has clearly communed with nature and felt the expanse and wonder of it.  There's a concentration and a tuning out of everything, a testing of one's body's limits, that in another context could be seen as a spiritual sojourn or quest.  Atheism does not mean closed off.  And religious or spiritual does not mean blind or naive or uninformed.  Actually, being native can be a wonderful thing.  It can mean childlike and fresh and full of wonder.

But all of those things are catchphrases.  To experience true naivety or wonder is an amazing thing.  It was naivety that got me on a plane to New York at 24 with no money in my pocket (well $800, but that's not much and I spent 1/4 of it on a dinner my first night in town).  Naivety is responsible for a great many adventures in my life.

I didn't know it at 24 or at 14 or at 30, but I have been on a journey for higher learning, higher understanding and higher consciousness my whole life.  It's even bigger than my worldly ambitions to be a career writer.  I do care more about my personal growth than my financial growth.  Maybe I'm ready to finally come out of the closet about that.

I don't have ambition. I thought for years that I did.  I thought that I was the most ambitious person I knew.  But what I thought was ambition was really curiosity.  I am endlessly curious about people, about life, about how we are the way we are.  I want to have experiences and I don't want to let any part of my life go unloved or my curiosity go unexplored.

When I was young, that curiosity had to do with education and had to do with exploring the world outside of my upbringing. At an early age, I knew I wanted to move to New York.  At an early age, I knew that I would get out of my small suburb.  I really was trying to get out of a consciousness that I could only do so much based on my physical circumstances: where I was from, who I was born to, what the belief system around me was.  I quickly did away with that.

Then as my world got bigger, my curiosity became about my talent.  Exploring that talent and that gift for all that it's worth.  Fortunately, my curiosities don't just go away.  I don't just move on from one to another.  They get compiled and added to the group.  I discovered my talent for writing truly in college and expanded that into graduate school.

Then I became more concerned with life and with gaining experience I didn't feel I had.  As I got older and more attractive, I became obsessed with sexuality.  And not addicted, per se.  I realize now that my curiosity was strong in whatever area I focused on.  And when I started to focus in on pleasure, well that became a real aphrodisiac, if you will.  As a young person in New York in my 20s, I had sex with strangers and I had sex with friends.  I went to sex parties.  I went to sexual bars.  I talked about sex. I thought about sex and I read about it.  I wrote about it. I connected with people through sex and found a real short-lived intimacy with some of these people.  It was all of these things at once: real, short lived and intimate.  None of those things were a contradiction.

And how sexuality lead me to intimacy and how intimacy lead me to myself and how my self lead to spirituality is really the journey of my life thus far.  It's why my plays are alternately and collectively about identity, creativity, sexuality and exploration.  My curiosity has opened me up to write about loss when I'm feeling loss.  Or about fathers and sons when I'm thinking about my own relationship with my father.  This journey has led me back to the place I started at.

I started writing as a way to interpret what I was seeing in the world.  It was a way for me to digest what I was learning.  It was a filter, a microscope, a telescope, binoculars, and a camera.  Sometimes it was my naked eye.

I have been on a part of my journey for the past ten years which led me outside of myself.  Some of that has been seeking approval outwardly.  Some of that has been very dangerous and a threat to my naivety and my curiosity.  But none of that ever went away, it just laid dormant and waited out the storm.  But the effect of the storm is that it decimated everything and forced me to rebuild, to reevaluate and to restore.

The reason I say that now I realize that I am curious and not ambitious is that if I was ambitious I would have said yes to an agent ten years ago.  I would have done everything in my power to climb the ladder of material success.  Ambition is seen purely as positive and as drive.  Curiosity in this instance was easily mistaken for lack of drive or laziness.  Some of it was fear, and fear was the catalyst of my 30s.  But I wanted to have experiences that would make me a deeper person and that is exactly what happened.  I got exactly what I wanted.  It took me to some dark places in my life.  It filled me with doubt and depression and put me in harms way through my own relationships with people who were addicts.

I realize now that my curiosity is what fuels me.  And it's an alternate fuel.  It can have the same power as ambition.  But while ambition is the straight path, curiosity is the scenic route.  Ambition is the plane ride.  Curiosity is the road trip.  It can be longer, but it's fuller.  It's more enriching.  It's taking time to stop at the sights and read the signs.  It's discovering a trail that's not in the guidebooks.

So I will still get to that destination: to being a relevant TV fiction writer.  I will staff on a show and create my own work.  I will be a writer of note.  But the person I am, in the skin I am in, will be different than the youngster who just wanted those things for outside validation.  I don't judge that, but I have always been seeking a fuller existence.  And that is what is right for me.  I believe that having a public presence is vital to living.  We have to share our experiences.  But how big that sphere is really is up to us.  We can expand or contain that sphere based on fear, based on our own needs, based on our need to share.

All of that can be both misguided and ordained.  I now understand the power of words.  A lot of this journey was about understanding the power of my gift.

Years ago my friend Brian said to me, "Oh, you're still at it."  Meaning writing.  And I felt a lot of shame after he said that because I felt like he was staying that I hadn't fulfilled my promise.  I heard him say, "Oh you're still at it."  It took me a long time to get over that.  And knowing Brian like I know him, I know he didn't intend it to come across as a core-shaking judgment.  I took it on that way.

But yes, I will still be at it for the rest of my life.  That's the idea.  It's not a destination that I will reach and then put my feet up.  I'm not done.

I'm still curious.  I haven't lived a life of expanse yet.  Not expense, but expanse.  I have not taken these lessons and curiosities global.  And I believe that's a part of my journey.  If all of this prosperity and gain is just for me, then I don't think it will be mine.  I don't think that's my deep purpose.  The journey is more than that.  My expanse has to benefit everyone.  My material wealth has to have a purpose.  My adventures to countries outside of the U.S. have to carry a greater resonance.  My joy has to mean more than just what benefits me.

So yes, I am still at it.  I am still curious.  And that's what keeps me connected to the fresh soul who arrived here to explore.  I might have more stamps on my passport, but I'm no less excited and curious as I was when I got my first one.

I am grateful for Super Soul Sunday's episode with Shirley Maclaine.  
I am grateful for Oprah.
I am grateful for these words that seemed to explain so much in ways I have not been able to access.
I am grateful for a life well lived and that will continue for years to come.
I am grateful for my curiosity.
I am grateful for the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity even more.
I am grateful for the distinction between curiosity and ambition.
I am grateful for the understanding and the acceptance that comes with that distinction.
I am grateful for the joy that understanding and acceptance bring me.
I am grateful for the peace that comes from that joy.

OWNing it

Yes...I guess I haven't been giving my personal mode of communication much attention lately, my "show" if you will.

My friend Howie said that whenever life is going well for me, I blog less. I suppose some of that's true. But really I kind of feel like I'm done with this blog as I've originally intended it. It has been a great run, much like my relationship, which I have blogged about 167 other times. And it has been 7 months almost since I broke up.

Like my mentor in my mind, Oprah...I'm ready to launch a network. And it's with great humility that I have to let my loyal 14 followers that I am ending my "show" after the next few posts...don't worry, I'll give you plenty of warning. I'm thinking of trying out a few different formats on this blog so I can figure out what the next blog adventure will be. I might even be doing a bunch of different blogs in different areas. A network if you will. One of my OWN. :)

Here's what I'm thinking of...just off the top of my head:

Well, my friend Steve and I talked about creating a blog months ago where we would discuss fashion from two distinct points of view. As someone who LOVES fashion and knows a lot about it and for someone who LIVES it because it's what he does for a living. It would be called LIVE AND LOVE (yes, clever). We were talking about doing this back in the day when I had just broken up with the ex.

I'm working out like a maniac and trying a bunch of different things. So I'm thinking of some sort of fitness and health blog...but from the POV of someone who gets bored all of the time and constantly wants to try out new things.

Dirty sex stories...not sure if they'd be real or made up. Maybe both. Maybe a blog that has sex stories and you have to decide if they're real or not. That could be fun.

Some sort of funny video blog...not sure what THAT would be like either.

Just some thoughts. But in the mean time, I'm going to keep blogging through the month of June...leading up to the grand finale!!!!

Whatever that is.