Tiny Buddha

Author: Tony Collins

  • The Prowler in My Mind: Learning to Live with Depression

    The Prowler in My Mind: Learning to Live with Depression

    “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” ~Leonard Cohen

    When depression comes, I feel it like a prowler gliding through my body. My chest tightens, my head fills with dark whispers, and even the day feels like night. The prowler has no face, no clear shape, but its presence is heavy. Sometimes it circles in silence within me. Other times it presses in until I don’t know how to respond.

    In those moments, I feel caught between two choices: do I lie still, hoping it passes by, or do I rise and face it? Often, I choose lying down—not out of paralysis but patience. Sometimes the only way to coexist with the shadow is to rest, to surrender for a while, to let sleep take me. And sometimes, when I wake, I feel a little lighter. Not free of the prowler but reminded that it is possible to live alongside it.

    Carl Jung once wrote, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in our conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” I know this to be true. The more I try to push my depression away, the heavier it becomes. But when I bring awareness—even reluctant awareness—its power weakens.

    The Shadow as Teacher

    The shadow is not only my enemy. It also serves as a teacher. Depression forces me to face the parts of myself I would rather outrun: shame, grief, fear, anger, discontent. But it also carries hidden truths. Jung suggested that the shadow holds not just what we reject but also forgotten strengths and possibilities.

    For me, the shadow’s message is humility. It reminds me I am not in control, that I can’t polish myself into perfection. It pushes me to listen more deeply—to the pain I carry and the struggles I see in others. It insists that healing doesn’t come from pretending the darkness isn’t there. It comes from being willing to see it.

    Buddhism and the Prowler

    Buddhism gives me another way to see this. The Buddha taught that suffering doesn’t just come from clinging to what we crave; it also comes from turning away from what we don’t want to face. That turning away is called aversion.

    When the prowler moves through me, my instinct is always to turn away. I want to push it out, distract myself, pretend it isn’t there. But each time I run from it, the shadow grows stronger.

    In meditation, I practice staying. I sit and breathe, whispering silently, “May I be free from fear. May I be at peace.” I’ll be honest, sometimes these words feel empty or even silly. They don’t always lift me. But saying them creates a pause—a moment of willingness to stay instead of running. The prowler doesn’t vanish, but it softens a little under the light of compassion.

    Creativity and the Shadow

    I’ve also discovered that my documentary work—filmmaking, writing, teaching—is only authentic when I acknowledge the shadow. My camera becomes a mirror. When I pretend everything is light, the images feel flat. But when I allow the complexity of shadow into my seeing, the work has depth.

    When I sit with people to listen to their stories, I often sense their shadows too—grief unspoken, fear beneath the surface, contradictions in how they see themselves. I can recognize those shadows because I have lived with mine. Facing my own shadow allows me to meet others with greater truth and compassion.

    To create honestly means letting the shadow into the frame. Without it, there’s no contrast, no tension, no truth.

    Caregiving as Light

    One of the greatest gifts in my life now is caregiving for my ninety-six-year-old mother. These small daily acts bring moments of unexpected reprieve.

    I remember one morning, bringing her a simple breakfast—just toast and tea. She looked at me and smiled, her face lighting up with gratitude. In that moment, the prowler loosened its grip. It was such a small thing, yet it fed the part of me that wanted to live.

    Playing her old-time tunes on my Gibson mandolin does the same. When I see her foot tapping or hear her hum along, something shifts inside me. Caregiving sheds light into the darker places of my heart. The simplicity of preparing food or sharing music reminds me that love and service are stronger than despair. These acts don’t erase the shadow, but they bring balance, showing me I am more than my depression.

    Feeding the Shadow, Feeding the Light

    I’ve come to see that I sometimes feed my depression. Not on purpose, but through worry, anxiety, and rumination. Each time I circle the same fears, I am handing the prowler a meal.

    And then there are other times when I feed something else. The words of meditation may feel hollow, the wolf story may sound idealistic, but the simple acts are real: making my mother breakfast, playing her a mandolin tune, writing with honesty, or even just breathing one steady breath.

    It reminds me of the well-known story of two wolves: A grandfather told his grandson that inside each of us are two wolves. One is fierce and destructive, filled with anger, envy, fear, and despair. The other is peaceful and life-giving, filled with compassion, hope, and love. The boy asked, “Which one will win?” The grandfather replied, “The one you feed.”

    For me, both wolves are real. The prowler and the peaceful one live side by side. I don’t deny my depression. I know it is part of me. But I also know I can choose, moment by moment, which one I will feed.

    Presence with the Shadow

    The prowler still comes. I suspect it always will. Some days it circles silently like a vulture. Other days it urges me to lie down and surrender. And sometimes, when I wake, I feel a small relief—a reminder that coexistence is possible.

    This is what presence has come to mean for me. Presence is not escaping into light or denying the dark. Presence is staying with what is—the prowler, the heaviness, the caregiving, the fear. It means breathing with it, resting with it, even sleeping with it, without running away.

    Both Jung and the Buddha point in this direction. Jung says we cannot become whole without making the darkness conscious. The Buddha says we cannot be free if we turn away in aversion. And I have learned that I cannot create or care for others or live fully if I refuse to face the prowler inside me.

    So I continue step by step. I breathe. I stay. I rest. I create. I bring my mother breakfast. I play her mandolin tunes. I feed the peaceful wolf. I coexist. The shadow still prowls, but I am here too—more awake, more human, more present.

  • What I See Clearly Now That I Can’t See Clearly

    What I See Clearly Now That I Can’t See Clearly

    “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen… they must be felt with the heart.” ~Helen Keller

    I didn’t want to admit it—not to myself, not to anyone. But I am slowly going blind.

    That truth is difficult to write, harder still to live. I’m seventy years old. I’ve survived war zones, illness, caregiving, and creative risks. I’ve worked as a documentary filmmaker, teacher, and mentor. But this—this quiet, gradual vanishing of sight—feels like the loneliest struggle of all.

    I have moderate to advanced macular degeneration in both eyes. My right eye is nearly gone, and my left is fading. Every two weeks, I receive injections to try to preserve what vision remains. It’s a routine I now live with—and one I dread.

    Living in a Vision-Centric World

    We live in a world that privileges sight above all other senses.

    From billboards to smartphones, from flashy design to social cues, vision is the dominant sense in American culture. If you can’t see clearly, you fall behind. You’re overlooked. The world stops making space for you.

    Is one sense truly more valuable than another? Philosophically, no. But socially, yes. In this culture, blindness is feared, pitied, or ignored—not understood. And so are most disabilities.

    Accessibility is often an afterthought. Accommodation, a burden. To live in a disabled body in this world is to be reminded—again and again—that your needs are inconvenient.

    I think of people in other countries—millions without access to care or even diagnosis. I thank the deities, ancestors, and forces of compassion that I don’t have something worse. And I remind myself: as painful as this is, I am lucky.

    But it is still bleak and painful to coexist with the physical world when it no longer sees you clearly—and when you can no longer see it.

    How a Filmmaker Faces Blindness

    As my sight fades, one question haunts me: How can I be a filmmaker, writer, and teacher without the eyes I once depended on?

    I often think of Beethoven. He lost his hearing gradually, as I’m losing my sight. A composer who could no longer hear—but still created. Still transmitted music. Still found beauty in silence.

    I understand his despair—and his devotion. No, I’m not Beethoven. But I am someone whose life has been shaped by visual storytelling. And now I must learn to shape it by feel, by memory, by trust.

    I rely on accessibility tools. I listen to every word I write. I use audio cues, screen readers, and my own internal voice. I still write in flow when I can—but more slowly, word by word. I revise by sound. I rebuild by sense. I write proprioceptively—feeling the shape of a sentence in my fingers and breath before it lands on the screen.

    It’s not efficient. But it’s alive. And in some ways, it’s more honest than before.

    Try ordering groceries with low vision. Tiny gray text on a white background. Menus with no labels. Buttons you can’t find. After ten minutes, I give up—not just on the website, but on dinner, on the day.

    This is what disability looks like in the digital age: Not darkness, but exclusion. Not silence, but indifference.

    Even with tools, even with technology, it’s exhausting. The internet—a space with so much potential to empower—too often becomes a maze for those who can’t see clearly. It is bleak to live in a world that offers solutions in theory, but not in practice.

    I still teach. I still mentor. But the way I teach has changed.

    I no longer rely on visual feedback. I ask students to describe their work aloud. I listen closely—for meaning, for emotion, for clarity of purpose. I guide not by looking, but by sensing.

    This isn’t less than—it’s different. Sometimes richer. Teaching has become more relational, more intentional. Not about being the expert, but about being present.

    And still, I miss what I had. Every task takes more time. Every email is a mountain. But I carry on—not out of stubbornness, but because this is who I am. A teacher. A creator. A witness.

    Buddhism, Impermanence, and Grief

    So where do I put this pain?

    Buddhism helps. It teaches that all forms are impermanent. Sight fades. Bodies change. Clinging brings suffering. But letting go—softly, attentively—can bring peace.

    That doesn’t mean I bypass grief. I live with it. I breathe with it.

    There’s a Zen story of a man who lost an arm. Someone asked him how he was coping. He replied, “It is as if I lost a jewel. But the moon still shines.”

    I think of that often.

    I have lost a jewel. But I still see the moon. Sometimes not with my eyes, but with memory, with feeling, with breath.

    The Wisdom of Slowness

    My writing is slow now. Not because I’ve lost my voice, but because I must hear it differently.

    I still experience flow—but not in the old way. I write word by word. Then I listen. Then I rewrite. I move like someone walking across a dark room, hands outstretched—not afraid, but attentive.

    This is how I create now. Deliberately. Tenderly. With presence.

    And in this slow, difficult process, I’ve found something unexpected: a deeper connection to my own language. A deeper longing to make others feel something true.

    Even as I fade from the visual world, I am finding a new way to see.

    What I Still Offer

    If there’s one thing I can offer—through blindness, grief, and slowness—it’s this: We don’t lose ourselves when we lose abilities or roles. We’re not disappearing. We’re still here. Just doing things differently—more slowly, more attentively, and perhaps with a deeper sense of meaning.

    One day, I may not be able to see the screen at all. But I will still be a writer. Still be a teacher. Still be someone who sees, in the ways that matter most.

    Even if the light goes out in my eyes, it does not have to go out in my voice.

    And if you’re reading this, then the effort was worth it.

  • The Invisible Prison Shyness Builds and What Helped Me Walk Free

    The Invisible Prison Shyness Builds and What Helped Me Walk Free

    “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” ~Anaïs Nin

    When I think back on my life, shyness feels like an inner prison I carried with me for years. Not a prison with bars and guards, but a quieter kind—made of hesitation, fear, and silence. It kept me standing still while life moved forward around me.

    One memory stays with me: my eighth-grade dance. The gym was alive with music, kids moving awkwardly but freely on the floor, laughing, bumping into one another, having fun. And there I was in the corner, figuratively stomping paper cups.

    That’s how I remember it—like I was crushing cardboard instead of stepping into life. I can even smile at the image now, but at the time it wasn’t funny. I noticed another girl across the room, also standing alone. She was beautiful. Maybe she was waiting for someone to walk over. But in my mind, she was “out of reach.” My shyness locked me in place, and I never moved.

    It wasn’t a dramatic heartbreak—just another reminder of how many moments slipped by.

    The Pattern of Missed Chances

    That night was only one of many. Over the years I missed far more opportunities than I embraced: the conversations I didn’t start, the invitations I quietly avoided, the women I admired from a distance but never approached.

    Shyness never really served me. I hated it, but it was powerful. I carried it into my adult years, and though I fought hard to loosen its grip, it shaped how I lived and related. Over time I changed; I’d call myself “reserved” now rather than painfully shy. But the shadow is still there.

    Shyness as a Prison

    Shyness isn’t just being quiet. It’s a whole system of fear and self-consciousness: fear in the body, doubt in the mind, and inaction in the world. It feels like safety, but it’s really confinement. It builds walls between you and the very connections you long for.

    I’ve come to see shyness as a kind of “social yips.” Just as an athlete suddenly freezes when overthinking the simplest movement, I froze in moments of connection. I knew what I wanted to do, but my body wouldn’t follow. And like the yips, the more I thought about it, the worse it became. Buddhism later helped me see that the way through wasn’t forcing myself harder but loosening my grip—letting go of self-judgment and stepping into presence.

    Zorba and the Choice to Say Yes

    As I look back, I know not every missed chance would have been good for me. Sometimes the lure of conquest was more about ego than true connection, and saying no spared me mistakes.

    But there’s another kind of moment that still stings. In Zorba the Greek, Kazantzakis has Zorba say, “The worst sin a man can commit is to reject a woman who is beckoning.”

    The point isn’t about conquest—it’s about clinging. If you say yes when life beckons, you can walk away later without wondering forever. You’ve lived it, and it’s complete. But if you turn away, you carry the ghost of what might have been. That ghost clings to you.

    I know that ghost well—the ache of silence, the memory of walking away when I might have stepped forward. Those are the regrets that linger.

    A Buddhist Lens on Shyness

    Buddhism has helped me understand this prison in a new way. The Buddha taught that suffering arises not from life itself but from how we cling to it. My shyness was stitched together from craving, aversion, and delusion.

    The walls of my prison looked solid, but they weren’t. They were only habits of thought.

    Buddhism also teaches dependent origination: everything arises from causes and conditions. My shyness wasn’t my identity. It was the product of temperament, upbringing, culture, and adolescence. If it arose from conditions, it could also fade as conditions changed. It was never “me”—just a pattern I carried.

    And at the heart of it all was attachment to self-image. I was afraid of being judged, of looking foolish, of failing. But meditation taught me that the “self” I was defending was never solid. Thoughts pass, feelings change, identity shifts. When there’s no fixed self to protect, the fear loses its grip.

    Regret Without Clinging

    The memories of shyness still emerge from time to time. They’re not paralyzing anymore—I don’t live locked in that cell—but when they rise, they sting. They make me feel foolish, like a prisoner might feel when looking back on wasted years, replaying choices that can’t be undone.

    What I try to do now is not cling to them. I can see them for what they are: moderately unresolved regrets. They will probably always flicker in my memory. But instead of treating them like permanent failures, I let them pass through. They remind me I am human, that I once hesitated when I longed to act, and that I don’t have to make the same choice now.

    Regret, I’ve learned, can also be a teacher. It shows me what I value most: presence, intimacy, connection. It reminds me not to keep living behind walls of hesitation.

    Buddhism teaches that memory—whether sweet or painful—is something the mind clings to. But the door of the prison has always been unlocked. Freedom comes when we stop pacing the cell and step into the present.

    Saying Yes

    One memory from later in life stands out. I was in my twenties, still shy but trying to push past it. Someone I admired invited me to join a small group heading out after class. Everything in me wanted to retreat, to say no. But that time, I said yes.

    It wasn’t a great romance or life-changing event. We just shared coffee, talked, laughed a little. But what mattered was that I had stepped forward. For once, I wasn’t left haunted by what if. I walked away lighter, without clinging. That small yes gave me a glimpse of freedom.

    I’m still not outgoing. But I am no longer the boy in the corner, stomping cups while everyone else dances. I can step forward, even when my voice shakes. I can risk connection without assuming others are out of reach.

    Shyness may still whisper in my ear, but it no longer holds the keys.

    What I’ve Learned

    • Shyness was my inner prison, but the bars were made of thought, not stone.
    • Not every conquest would have served me—but turning away from true openness creates the sharpest regret.
    • Regret is painful, but it can teach us what matters most.
    • Memories of missed chances still surface, but I don’t have to cling to them.
    • Freedom doesn’t come from rewriting the past, but from choosing differently now.

    I still carry the memory of that eighth-grade dance, the girl across the room, the echo of other missed chances. But I don’t cling to them anymore. They remind me that presence is always possible—because freedom isn’t found in “what if.”

    It’s found in saying yes when life beckons and in stepping out of the prison of hesitation, here and now.

    To anyone reading this who has ever stood in the corner of their own life: the prison you feel around you was never locked. You can step forward, however awkwardly, and find freedom in the present moment.

  • Finding Balance Through the Full Spectrum of Emotion

    Finding Balance Through the Full Spectrum of Emotion

    “As a solid rock is not shaken by the wind, the wise are not shaken by praise or blame.” ~The Dhammapada, Verse 81

    Some moments lift you like moonlight. Others break you like a wave. I’ve lived through both—and I’ve come to believe that the way we move through these emotional thresholds defines who we become.

    By thresholds, I mean the turning points in our lives—experiences so vivid, painful, or awe-filled that they pull us out of our usual routines and bring us face to face with something real. Some come in silence, others with sound and light, but they all leave a mark. And they ask something of us.

    The Night the Frogs Were Singing

    Years ago, I was in San Ignacio, Baja California Sur—a small town nestled in the middle of a vast, harsh desert. But this desert hid a secret: a spring-fed river winding quietly through thick reeds and groves of towering palms.

    One night, I walked alone along the water. The full moon lit everything in silver. The town was asleep, but the frogs were wide awake—thousands of them—and their voices filled the night.

    It sounded like a million. A strong, unstoppable chorus rising into the sky, as if they were singing to the gods in heaven.

    Insects danced in the air like sparks. The river shimmered. I stood in the stillness, listening.

    And then, something in me lifted.

    My breath slowed. My thoughts stopped. I felt unbound—present, light, completely inside the moment.

    I felt like I could fly.

    Not in fantasy—but in my body. As if for one rare instant, the weight of everything had fallen away. I wasn’t watching the world. I was part of it. Connected to the frogs, the moonlight, the pulse of life itself.

    That was a threshold I crossed without knowing. Not a dramatic one, but sacred. A moment of wholeness so complete it continues to echo, years later.

    Not All Thresholds Are Joyful

    That night by the river was one edge of the spectrum. The other is something far harder.

    I recently read about a mother who lost her entire family in the span of a year. Her husband died unexpectedly. Then her son, in a car crash. Then, her only surviving daughter was swept away in the Texas floods.

    From a full home to unbearable silence—in just twelve months.

    I can’t imagine the depth of that grief. But I recognize it as a threshold too—a point from which there is no going back. Loss like that doesn’t just wound—it transforms. It alters the shape of time and identity. It demands a new way of living.

    And it reminds me: thresholds aren’t always moments we choose. Sometimes, they choose us.

    The Man in Ermita

    I also think of a man I used to see every day on a busy street corner in Ermita, Metro Manila. The intersection was chaotic—taxis, vendors, honking horns, kids weaving through traffic. And there, beside the 7-Eleven, was a man rolling back and forth on a small wooden board with wheels.

    He had no legs. His arms were short and deformed. That wooden platform was his only home, his only transportation, his only constant.

    He didn’t shout or beg loudly. He just moved. Quietly. Present. Enduring.

    And I often wondered: What are thresholds for him? What brings him joy? What pain does he carry that none of us see?

    His life taught me something. That some thresholds are lived every single day—without drama, without noise. Some are carved into the body. Into the street. Into the act of continuing on, no matter who notices.

    We each live on our own spectrum of experience. And his presence helped me recognize that my own joys and struggles don’t exist in isolation—they live alongside countless others, equally deep, equally human.

    The Emotional Spectrum We All Move Through

    These three stories—the night of the frogs, the mother’s loss, the man in Ermita—might seem unrelated. But they’re not.

    They’re all thresholds.

    • One is a threshold of awe.
    • One is a threshold of grief.
    • One is a threshold of silent resilience.

    They represent different points on the same emotional spectrum. And the deeper I reflect, the more I understand that we are all moving along that spectrum—back and forth, again and again.

    What Balance Really Means

    We’re often told to seek balance. But I don’t think balance means calm neutrality, or avoiding emotional extremes.

    To me, balance is the ability to stay grounded while being stretched. To remember joy even in sorrow. To hold stillness even when life is loud. To feel everything—and not shut down.

    Wisdom isn’t the absence of intensity. It’s the willingness to stay with whatever life brings—and keep walking.

    Writing has been my way of staying grounded.

    Therapy helped me find the words. But writing gave me a place to live them. It helps me remember what I’ve felt—and understand what it meant. It’s how I make peace with the past. It’s how I reach forward toward something whole.

    When I write, I return to that night in San Ignacio. I also return to the man in Ermita, and to the countless thresholds I’ve passed through quietly—some with joy, some with pain.

    Writing helps me stay with what is real, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

    An Invitation to You

    Maybe you’ve had your own version of that river night—an unexpected moment of beauty or clarity. Or maybe you’re sitting with a threshold you didn’t choose—grief, fear, change, uncertainty. Maybe you’re surviving silently, like the man on the wooden board.

    Wherever you are on the spectrum, I want to say this: The thresholds we pass through don’t make us weaker. They shape us. They wake us up. They teach us presence—not perfection—if we choose to stay with our experience, even when it hurts.

    If you’re writing, reflecting, or simply breathing through it all—you’re already on the path.

    And that path will one day lead you to another threshold somewhere else on the spectrum. So stay open to each transformative moment, and let them shape you into someone more alive, more resilient, and more balanced.

  • The Weight of Regrets and the Choice to Live Better

    The Weight of Regrets and the Choice to Live Better

    “It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes—it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘Well, if I’d known better I’d have done better.’” ~Maya Angelou

    I’ve lived long enough to know the difference between a mistake and a tragedy. Some of what I carry falls in between—moments I wish I could redo, things I said or didn’t say, relationships I mishandled, and opportunities I let slip through my fingers. They don’t scream at me every day, but they visit me quietly. The memory of my mistakes is like a second shadow—one that doesn’t leave when the light changes.

    I’ve done a lot of good in my life. I’ve built meaningful work, taught students with heart, and showed up for people when it counted. I’ve loved deeply, even if clumsily. I’ve also failed—sometimes badly. And it’s the memory of those failures, more than the wins, that lingers.

    The Woman on the Highway, and Others I Left Behind

    I remember the woman on the side of a Mexican highway after our car ran off the road. She touched my forehead and looked into me with a deep compassion and mystical kindness—wordlessly holding space for what had just happened. I never thanked her. I left without saying goodbye, and I still think about her. I wonder if she knew how much that moment meant. I wish I could tell her now.

    That moment wasn’t an isolated one. There have been many like her—friends, lovers, colleagues—people I walked away from too soon or too late. Some I hurt with silence. Others I lost because I couldn’t admit I was wrong. I see now that my pride got in the way. So did fear. So did the misguided belief that being clever or bold or accomplished could make up for emotional messiness.

    It didn’t.

    What I Thought Living Fully Meant

    I used to chase experience and pleasure the way Zorba the Greek did—believing that living fully meant taking what life offered, especially when love or passion knocked. Zorba said the worst sin is to reject a woman when she wants you, because you’ll never stop wondering what could’ve been. There’s a strange truth in that, even if it doesn’t fit with modern ideas of love and consent and mutuality.

    But I also know now: not every yes leads to peace. Sometimes you dive in and still end up alone, or ashamed, or with someone else’s pain on your hands.

    And here’s the truth—I even failed at being a Zorba purist.

    I missed a lot of messages and opportunities, not just because of bad timing or external circumstances, but because of my own blindness. Fear, shyness, and a deep lack of self-confidence got in the way more times than I can count. In that sense, yes, it’s a kind of failure. I didn’t always seize the moment. I didn’t always say yes. Sometimes I watched the boat leave without me.

    But here’s what I’ve learned: sometimes not getting what you wished for is the blessing. I missed out on things that might have done more harm than good. And while I’ll never know for sure, I’ve come to trust the ambiguity.

    My appetite for imagined memories—for playing out what might have been—can still guide me in unhealthy ways. It’s easy to get lost in nostalgia for possibilities that never were. But that too has become a teacher. I’m learning not to be burdened by those alternate timelines. I’m learning to live here, now, in this life—the real one.

    I Will Not Be a Victim

    These days, people talk a lot about not being a victim—and that’s become something of a mantra for me. Not in a tough, self-righteous way, but as a quiet practice. I don’t want to turn my past into a story where I’m the hero or the helpless. I want to see it clearly.

    I’ve struggled in so many ways—emotionally, financially, spiritually. I’ve suffered through losses I couldn’t control and some I helped create. But I have to constantly stay mindful of my point of view. How I frame my life matters. Am I seeing it through the lens of powerlessness? Or am I recognizing my part, owning it, and doing what I can from here?

    Finding that balance isn’t easy. I fall out of it regularly. But I return to it again and again: I will not be a victim. I have the power to respond—not perfectly, but consciously.

    Learning to Live With, Not Against, My Mistakes

    I carry those memories not because I want to but because I’ve learned that regret has something to teach me. It’s not just a burden. It’s a mirror. And if I look at it with clear eyes, it shows me who I’ve become.

    I’ve also learned that some mistakes don’t go away. They live in your bones. People say, “Let go of the past,” and I believe that’s a worthy aim. It’s consistent with the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism: suffering comes from clinging, and peace comes from release. But maybe some memories are meant to be carried—not as punishment, but as reminders.

    Despite my tendency toward impostor syndrome—the whisper that I’m not wise enough, not healed enough, not even worthy of writing this—I know this much: I am learning to live with my mistakes rather than against them.

    I no longer believe healing means erasing the past. I think it means letting it breathe. Letting it soften. Letting it speak—not to shame you, but to show you where the heart finally opened.

    Sometimes I wonder—how could I have missed so much?

    I don’t mean that I lacked intelligence. I mean I was often distracted. Caught up in my own ego, my longings, my fears. Sometimes I look back and shake my head, wondering how I didn’t see what was right in front of me. Not just once, but again and again.

    There’s that old saying: Youth is wasted on the young. Maybe there’s a sharper version of that—Youth is wasted on the non-mindful. I see now how many years I spent reacting instead of reflecting, chasing instead of listening, trying to prove something instead of just being present.

    And yet, maybe this is how it works. Maybe it’s necessary to go through the valley of mistakes before we can rise into any meaningful self-awareness. Maybe the errors—the cringeworthy ones, the silent ones, the ones we’ll never fully explain—are the curriculum.

    Still, I have doubts.

    Is mindful growth real? Or are we always just half-blind and half-deaf, hoping we’ve finally gotten it, only to be proven wrong again later?

    Sometimes I think I’ve evolved. Other times I realize I’m repeating the same old pattern, just in more subtle ways. And yet… there’s something different now. A deeper pause. A longer breath. A willingness to admit I don’t know, and to stay in the discomfort.

    Maybe that’s what growth really looks like—not certainty, but humility.

    No, I wasn’t stupid. I was learning. I still am.

    When the Weight Is Too Much

    And then, just when I think I’ve made peace with the past, something happens that shakes me again.

    This morning, I learned that someone I’ve known since high school—an artist and surfer, quiet and soulful—jumped off a cliff to his death.

    It was the same spot where he first learned to surf, first fell in love with the sea, maybe even first became himself. A place filled with memory. And maybe, pain. Maybe too much.

    We weren’t especially close, but I respected him. His art. His quiet way of being in the world. And now he’s gone.

    I don’t pretend to know what he was carrying. But I do know this: memory is powerful. Returning to it can heal us, or it can crush us. Sometimes both.

    So I write this with no judgment. Only sadness. And the reminder that what we carry matters. That being kind—to others and to ourselves—is no small thing. That sometimes the strongest thing we can do is stay.

    What I Know Now

    So what have I learned?

    I’ve learned that tenderness outlasts thrill. That presence matters more than persuasion. That a goodbye spoken with kindness is better than a door closed in silence. I’ve learned that some apologies come too late for anyone else to hear—but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say them.

    I’ve learned that showing up—however imperfectly—is always better than disappearing.

    And I’ve learned that even now, even at this point in life, I can still choose how I respond. I can meet the past with compassion. I can meet this moment with clarity.

    To the ones I left too soon… to the people I failed to thank, or hear, or stand beside… to the ones I loved imperfectly but truly… here is what I can say:

    I see it now. I wish I’d done better. I’m sorry. I’m still learning.

    And I’m still here—still trying, still growing, still becoming the person I hope to be.

    And if you’re reading this, carrying your own memories, your own regrets, know this: you’re not alone. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to keep showing up. That’s what I’m trying to do, too.

  • Why AI Can Never Replace Us: The Truth About Being Human

    Why AI Can Never Replace Us: The Truth About Being Human

    “AI accidentally made me believe in the concept of a human soul by showing me what art looks like without it.” ~Unknown

    What is intelligence?

    I’ve asked this question all my life—as a teacher, a filmmaker, a researcher, and now, as someone losing my vision to macular degeneration.

    I ask it when I watch students find their voice.

    I ask it when I listen to a close friend of mine, a world-renowned cosmologist, whose knowledge seems limitless but whose humility runs even deeper. He can discuss black holes one minute and quote the Tao Te Ching the next. He doesn’t just know facts—he knows how to listen. He knows how to explain something complicated without making you feel small. That, to me, is real intelligence.

    And yet… I’ve started to notice something strange.

    Artificial Intelligence is beginning to resemble people like him. It can write fluent sentences. It can summarize books I haven’t read. Sometimes, it surprises me. And I find myself wondering: is this also intelligence?

    What AI Gets Right—and What It Will Never Feel

    Let me say this clearly: I’m grateful for AI. This very essay was shaped with its help. I have advanced macular degeneration. Proofreading my own writing is difficult—sometimes impossible. Tools like this are not a luxury for me. They are a gift. A lifeline. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to keep writing. For that, I’m thankful.

    But there is a kind of intelligence that AI will never know.

    It won’t feel the panic of forgetting your lines onstage, or the rush of remembering them mid-breath. It doesn’t lie awake at night wondering whether your work matters. It doesn’t weep when your mother no longer remembers your name. It doesn’t get nervous before a job interview. It hasn’t failed, or recovered, or loved.

    It can help express a feeling, but it cannot have one.

    A Tool, not a Mind

    We call it “artificial intelligence,” but it’s more like artificial fluency. It’s fast. It’s competent. It can impress you. But it doesn’t know in the way we know. It hasn’t spent years practicing an instrument in the dark or teaching a student who doesn’t believe in themselves—until one day, they do. It doesn’t grow from experience.

    It doesn’t grieve. It doesn’t heal. It doesn’t change.

    So when people say, “AI is going to replace us,” I always wonder—which part of us? The part that fills out forms and writes reports or does other rutinary tasks? Maybe. But the part that authentically and honestly tells a story no one else can tell? Never.

    Teaching Students to Show Up

    In every class I’ve taught, I’ve said some version of this:

    “Don’t stop at the research. Don’t stop at what AI gives you. Learn to show up in your work.”

    Some students hide behind information. It’s safer. But I tell them: you are the meaning. You are the insight. You are the risk.

    I once had a student who wrote a technically flawless paper. But it had no voice. When I asked her what it meant to her, she hesitated. Then she told me about her father, who had lived through the war the paper was about. Her entire relationship to the topic shifted in that moment. That was the real intelligence. Not the citations. Not the syntax. The courage to speak from the heart.

    When Sight Fades, Something Else Comes into View

    Losing your vision is not just about reading less. It’s about seeing differently. It’s about slowing down. Listening more. Learning to trust what you can’t verify with your eyes.

    It has also deepened my appreciation for tools like AI. I rely on them every day. But I also notice their limits. They help with form, but not with essence. They clean the window, but they can’t show you what’s outside. That still requires you.

    Intelligence Is Not the Same as Wisdom

    My brilliant cosmologist friend once told me, “The more I learn, the more I realize how little I understand.”

    AI doesn’t say things like that.

    It doesn’t know humility. Or mystery. Or awe.

    Intelligence, in the deepest sense, is not about control or answers. It’s about how we carry ourselves in uncertainty. It’s about grace under pressure. Presence in pain. Humor in despair. Kindness without reward. None of that shows up in a prompt.

    The Final Lesson: Tools Don’t Replace Soul

    If there’s one thing I’ve learned—through teaching, through vision loss, through using AI—it’s this:

    A tool can help you build something. But it can’t tell you why it matters.

    So yes, use the tools. Use AI. Let it support you. I do.

    But never forget: you are more than the tool. You are the story behind the sentence. The silence between the notes. The reason the work matters at all.

    That’s not artificial. That’s real.

    And it’s irreplaceable.

  • Remembering What Truly Matters in a World Chasing Success

    Remembering What Truly Matters in a World Chasing Success

    “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” ~Albert Einstein, adapted

    I often feel like I was born into the wrong story.

    I grew up in a time when success meant something quieter. My father was a public school music teacher. We didn’t have much, but there was a dignity in how he carried himself. He believed in doing good work—not for recognition or wealth, but because it mattered.

    That belief shaped me. I became a teacher, filmmaker, and musician. And for decades, I’ve followed a similar path: one rooted in meaning, not money.

    But somewhere along the way, the story changed.

    All around me—especially in places like Los Angeles, where I’ve lived and worked—I see people running. Hustling. Branding. Monetizing. It’s not enough to be good anymore. You have to be seen. Promoted. Scaled. Life itself has become something to market.

    And in that shift, I’ve felt something sacred go missing.

    The False Promise

    I’m not against success. I want to be able to pay my bills, support my family, and feel valued. But the version of success we’re fed—fame, visibility, endless productivity—is a lie. It promises meaning but often delivers emptiness.

    We’ve replaced presence with performance. Care with clicks. Integrity with optimization. And the result? A society where exhaustion is normal and enough is never enough.

    Psychologists call it extrinsic motivation—doing something for a reward, like money or applause. It’s not inherently bad. But when it dominates our lives, we lose touch with intrinsic motivation: the joy of doing something just because it matters to us.

    When everything becomes a transaction, even joy starts to feel like a product.

    The Scarcity Game

    Sometimes I feel like we’re all scrambling for crumbs. Competing for attention, clients, gigs, or algorithms. Everyone trying to survive, to be seen, to matter.

    It’s primal—like a twisted version of the hunter-gatherer instinct. But where ancient humans balanced competition with community, we’ve kept the fight and lost the tribe.

    Now, even collaboration often feels strategic—a means to climb, not to connect. “Networking” replaces friendship. “Partnerships” become performance. We’re told to “collaborate” so we can get ahead—not because it nourishes our souls.

    That scarcity mindset doesn’t just shape how we work. It distorts how we see ourselves. If someone else is thriving, we feel like we’re falling behind. If we’re not being noticed, we start to doubt our worth.

    This isn’t just economics. It’s spiritual erosion.

    Capitalism and What It Forgot

    I’ve been thinking about capitalism—not as a political slogan, but as a cultural story. Adam Smith imagined markets built on freedom and mutual benefit. But today’s version often rewards extraction over contribution, performance over presence, and individual gain over shared good.

    Even education and healthcare—things meant to uplift—are judged by efficiency, growth, and return on investment. I’ve seen schools cut arts programs in the name of data. I’ve watched care become content.

    And I’ve felt it in myself—this pressure to prove my value with numbers, even when the most meaningful things I do can’t be measured.

    Another Way of Living

    I’ve spent time filming in remote indigenous communities in the southern Philippines, where life moves at a different pace. There, people didn’t ask how to monetize their purpose. They lived it. Storytelling was teaching. Planting was prayer. Taking care of elders wasn’t a chore—it was an honor.

    Nobody was branding themselves.

    But even in these places, that way of life is vanishing. Global markets, smartphones, and social media have arrived. The younger generation is pulled toward modern success. And who can blame them? Visibility promises power. But what’s quietly lost is the rootedness of belonging.

    And it’s not just them. It’s all of us.

    Do We Have to Disappear?

    Sometimes people say, “If you don’t like the rat race, go live in a monastery.”

    But I don’t want to disappear. I love music, conversation, cities, teaching. I want to live in the world—not retreat from it.

    So the real question becomes: Can we live meaningfully within this world, without being consumed by it?

    I believe we can. In fact, I think we must.

    There are people everywhere doing quiet, vital work: teachers who never go viral, gardeners who share food, coders who write open-source tools, volunteers who show up without posting about it. They aren’t trending—but they are tending to something real.

    Choosing What’s Real

    I don’t have a formula. I still worry about money. I still wonder if what I do matters. But I keep coming back to this:

    I’d rather make something honest that reaches ten people than fake something that reaches ten thousand.

    I’d rather be present than polished. I’d rather care than compete.

    If you feel this too—this ache, this fatigue, this quiet grief that something essential is being lost—you’re not alone.

    And you’re not broken. You may be one of the ones who remembers.

    Remembers what it feels like to listen deeply. To give without scoring points. To live from the inside out, not the outside in.

    That remembering isn’t weakness. It’s your compass. And even in a monetized world, it still points you home.

    The Truth Beneath the Lie

    Here’s what I’ve learned: Success, as we’re taught to define it, is a moving target. You can chase it for decades and still feel empty.

    But meaning—real, soul-deep meaning—is something we can return to at any moment. It’s in how we love. How we show up. How we make others feel. It’s in the work we do when no one is watching.

    We may not be able to change the whole system. But we can tell a truer story.

    One where value isn’t based on performance. One where success isn’t a finish line. One where we belong—not because we’re impressive, but because we’re human.

    That story is still possible. And it’s worth telling.

  • Vulnerability Is Powerful But Not Always Safe

    Vulnerability Is Powerful But Not Always Safe

    “Vulnerability is not oversharing. It’s sharing with people who have earned the right to hear our story.” ~Brené Brown

    Earlier this year, I found myself in a place I never imagined: locked in a psychiatric emergency room, wearing a paper wristband, surrounded by strangers in visible distress. I wasn’t suicidal. I hadn’t harmed anyone. I’d simply told the truth—and it led me there.

    What happened began, in a way, with writing.

    I’m in my seventies, and I’ve lived a full life as a filmmaker, teacher, father, and now a caregiver for my ninety-six-year-old mother. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve also felt something slipping. A quiet sense that I’m no longer seen. Not with cruelty—just absence. Like the world turned the page and forgot to bring me along.

    One day in therapy, I said aloud what I’d been afraid to name: “I feel like the world’s done with me.”

    My therapist listened kindly. “Why don’t you write about it?” she said.

    So I did.

    I began an essay about age, invisibility, and meaning—what it feels like to move through a culture that doesn’t always value its elders. I called it The Decline of the Elders, and it became one of the hardest things I’ve ever written.

    Each sentence pulled something raw out of me. I wasn’t just writing; I was reliving. My mind circled through memories I hadn’t fully processed, doubts I hadn’t admitted, losses I hadn’t grieved. I’d get up, pace, sit down again, write, delete, rewrite. It was as if I were opening an old wound that had never really healed. The pain was real—and so was the urgency to understand it.

    Then came the eye injection—a regular treatment for macular degeneration. This time, it didn’t go well. My eye throbbed, burned, and wouldn’t stop watering. Eventually, both eyes blurred. Still, I sat there trying to write, blinking through physical and emotional pain, trying to finish what I had started.

    Everything hurt—my vision, my body, my sense of purpose. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t know how to live with what I was feeling.

    So I called 911.

    “This isn’t an emergency,” I told the dispatcher. “I just need to talk to someone. A hotline or counselor—anything.”

    She connected me to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline—a lifeline for people in imminent danger of harming themselves. If you are suicidal, please call. It can save your life. My mistake was using it for something it’s not designed for.

     I spoke with a kind young man and told him the truth: I was in therapy. I was writing something painful. I was overwhelmed but safe. I just needed a voice on the other end. Someone to hear me.

    Then came the knock at the door.

    Three police officers. Calm. Polite. But firm.

    “I’m okay,” I said. “I’m not a danger. I just needed someone to talk to.”

    That didn’t matter. Protocol had been triggered.

    They escorted me to the squad car and drove me to the psychiatric ER. I felt powerless and embarrassed, unsure how a simple call had escalated so quickly.

    They took me to the psychiatric ER at LA County General.

    No beds. Just recliner chairs lined up in a dim, humming room. I was searched. My belongings were taken. I was assigned a chair and handed a bean burrito. They offered medication if I needed it. One thin blanket. A buzzing TV that never turned off.

    I didn’t want sedation. I didn’t want a distraction. I just sat with it—all of it.

    And around me, others sat too: a man curled into himself, shaking; a young woman staring blankly into space; someone muttering unintelligibly to no one at all. Real pain. Raw pain. People who seemed completely lost in it.

    That’s when the shame hit me.

    I didn’t belong here, I thought. I wasn’t like them. I had a home. A therapist. A sense of self, however fractured. I hadn’t tried to hurt anyone. I’d just asked to be heard. And yet there I was—taking up space, resources, attention—while others clearly needed it more.

    But that too was a kind of false separation. Who was I to say I didn’t belong? I’d called in desperation. I’d lost perspective. My crisis may have looked different, but it was real.

    Eventually, a nurse came to interview me. I told her everything—the writing, the injection, the spiral I’d been caught in. She listened. And sometime after midnight, they let me go.

    My wife picked me up. Quiet. Unsure. I didn’t blame her. I barely knew what had just happened myself.

    Later that night, I sat again in the chair where it had all started. My eyes ached less. But I was stunned. And strangely clear.

    The experience hadn’t destroyed me. It had initiated me.

    I also realized how naïve I’d been. I hadn’t researched alternatives. I hadn’t explored my real options. I’d reached for the most visible solution out of emotional exhaustion. That desperation wasn’t weakness—it was a symptom of a deeper need I hadn’t fully acknowledged.

    And I learned something I’ll never forget:

    Vulnerability is powerful, but it’s not always safe.

    I used to think that honesty was always the best path. That if I opened up, someone would meet me there with compassion. And often that’s true. But not always. Systems aren’t built for subtlety. Institutions can’t always distinguish between emotional honesty and risk.

    And not every person is a safe place for our truth. Some people repeatedly minimize our pain or dismiss our feelings. We might long for their validation, but protecting ourselves means recognizing when someone isn’t willing or able to give it.

    Since then, I’ve kept writing. I’ve kept feeling. But I’ve also learned to be more discerning.

    Now I ask myself:

    • Is this the right moment for this truth?
    • Is this person or space able to hold it?
    • Am I seeking connection—or rescue?

    There’s no shame in needing help. But there is wisdom in learning how to ask for it, and who to ask.

    I still believe in truth. I still believe in tenderness. But I also believe in learning how to protect what’s sacred inside us.

    So if you’re someone who feels deeply—who writes, reflects, or breaks open in unexpected ways—this is what I want you to know:

    You are not weak. You are not broken. But you are tender. And tenderness needs care, not containment—care from people you can trust to honor it.

    Give your truth a place where it can be held, not punished. And if that place doesn’t yet exist, build it—starting with one safe person, one honest conversation, one page in your journal. Word by word. Breath by breath.

    Because your pain is real. Your voice matters.

    And when shared with care, your truth can still light the way.

  • Planning Without Panic and Learning to Live in the Now

    Planning Without Panic and Learning to Live in the Now

    “You can plan for a hundred years. But you don’t know what will happen the next moment.” ~Tibetan proverb

    Some days it feels like a fog I can’t shake—this underlying fear that something painful or uncertain is just around the corner.

    I try to be responsible. I try to prepare, make good choices, take care of things now so the future won’t unravel later. But beneath that effort is something harder to face: I feel helpless. I can’t control what’s coming, and that terrifies me.

    Maybe you’ve felt this too—that tension between doing your best and still fearing it’s not enough. Worry becomes a habit, like you’re rehearsing bad outcomes in your head just in case they happen.

    That’s where I found myself when I turned to Buddhist teachings—not for comfort exactly, but for a different relationship with uncertainty.

    What Buddhism Taught Me About the Future

    One of the first things I learned is that Buddhism doesn’t tell us to stop caring about the future. It teaches us to stop living in it.

    The Buddha spoke of suffering as arising from two core causes: craving (wanting things to go a certain way) and aversion (pushing away what we don’t want). When I spin into worry or try to predict everything, I’m doing both—I’m grasping for control and resisting what I fear.

    But the future is always uncertain. That’s the part I don’t want to admit. I used to believe that if I thought hard enough, planned carefully enough, I could outmaneuver risk. But I’ve learned that worry isn’t preparation—it’s just suffering in advance. It doesn’t protect me. It only pulls me out of the life I’m actually living.

    The Real Conflict: Planning vs. Presence

    Here’s the real tension I struggle with—and maybe you do too: I believe in the power of presence. But I also know I have to plan.

    As a filmmaker, planning isn’t optional. Without preparation, things fall apart. A well-structured plan doesn’t just prevent chaos—it makes room for creativity. It allows me to focus, explore, and respond to the moment without losing direction. In that way, planning is part of my art.

    So when I first encountered teachings about letting go and trusting the moment, it felt contradictory. How could I live in the now when my work, and life, require thinking ahead?

    This was the real conflict—the push and pull between control and surrender, between structure and flow. One is necessary for functioning in the world. The other is necessary for actually feeling alive in it.

    A Real-Life Lesson in Letting Go

    Years ago, I received grants to make a 16mm documentary about Emanuel Wood, a traditional Ozarks fiddler with a rich musical heritage and a colorful presence. I had high-quality gear lined up—Nagra 4.2 audio, film stock, the works—and the project felt blessed. Emanuel was eager. I was hopeful. The plan was solid.

    It felt like everything was finally coming together.

    But over the years I’ve learned something the hard way: sometimes, when I feel euphoric about a plan, it’s also a signal—a subtle warning that life might have something else in mind.

    Sure enough, Emanuel died unexpectedly just a few months before I was scheduled to begin filming. Just like that, the film I had meticulously envisioned, built support for, and shaped my year around was gone.

    I was devastated. I couldn’t give the grant money back, and I didn’t want to abandon the deeper spirit of the project. So I did what I didn’t expect to do: I stayed present, and I listened.

    I made a different film. A new one. Something just as honest and grounded in the world Emanuel represented. It was shaped by the same love of music, the same longing to preserve meaning, and it emerged only because I stayed with the discomfort and uncertainty of not knowing what to do next.

    Planning had given me the structure. But presence—and trust—allowed the story to live on in a different form.

    The Middle Path: Flexible Readiness

    I think about that lesson often. The same conflict plays out across many fields. The military trains obsessively for what can’t be predicted. A jazz musician rehearses scales for hours, only to let them go once the song begins.

    We don’t have to abandon planning. We just have to make space for improvisation.

    This is how I’ve come to understand the Buddhist path in a practical world: Planning is necessary. But clinging is optional.

    Now, I try to plan the way a musician tunes their instrument. Prepare with care. Show up with intention. But when the moment comes, play—not from control, but from connection.

    What Helps Me Now

    These days, when fear about the future rises, I pause. I breathe. I ask myself: Am I trying to control something I can’t? Can I still act responsibly without gripping so tightly? Can I trust this moment, even briefly?

    I still make plans. I still take responsibility. But I no longer pretend I can outthink uncertainty. I try to meet it with curiosity, flexibility, and a little kindness toward myself.

    Sometimes I quietly repeat:

    May I be safe. May I meet whatever comes with courage and care. May I trust this moment.

    That doesn’t solve everything. But it brings me back to the only place I actually have any power: here.

    You don’t have to give up planning. Just stop making it your emotional insurance policy.

    You can build the structure, take the next right step, and still leave space for life to surprise you.

    Let your plans serve your life—not replace it.

  • Can You Live a Meaningful Life Without Being Exceptional?

    Can You Live a Meaningful Life Without Being Exceptional?

    “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” ~Alan Watts

    As I enter the later stage of life, I find myself asking questions that are less about accomplishment and more about meaning. What matters now, when the need to prove myself has softened, but the old voices of expectation still echo in my mind?

    In a world that prizes novelty, speed, and success, I wonder what happens when we’re no longer chasing those things. What happens when our energy shifts from striving to listening? Can a life still be meaningful without the spotlight? Can we stop trying to be exceptional—and still feel like we belong?

    These questions have taken root in me—not just as passing thoughts, but as deep inquiries that color my mornings, my quiet moments, even my dreams. I don’t think they’re just my questions. I believe they reflect something many of us face as we grow older and begin to see life through a different lens—not the lens of ambition, but of attention.

    Some mornings, I wake up unsure of what I am going to do. There’s no urgent project at this time, no one needing my leadership, no schedule pulling me into motion. So I sit. I breathe. I try to listen—not to the noise of the world, but to something quieter: my own breath, my heartbeat, the faint hum of presence beneath it all.

    I’ve had a life full of meaningful work. I’ve been a filmmaker, a teacher, a musician, a writer, a nonprofit director. I’ve worked across cultures and disciplines, often off the beaten path. It was never glamorous, but it was sincere. Still, despite all of that, a voice used to whisper: not enough.

    I wasn’t the last one picked, but I was rarely the first. I wasn’t overlooked, but I wasn’t the standout. I didn’t collect awards or titles. I walked a different road—and somewhere along the way, I absorbed the belief that being “enough” meant being exceptional: chosen, praised, visible.

    Even when I claimed not to care about recognition, part of me still wanted it. And when it didn’t come, I quietly began to doubt the value of the path I’d chosen.

    Looking back, I see how early that need took hold. As a child, I often felt peripheral—not excluded, but not essential either. I had ideas, dreams, questions, but I can’t recall anyone asking what they were. The absence of real listening—from teachers, adults, systems—left a subtle wound. It taught me to measure worth by response. If no one asked, maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe I didn’t matter.

    That kind of message burrows deep. It doesn’t shout—it whispers. It tells you to prove yourself. To strive. To reach for validation instead of grounding in your own presence. And so, like many, I spent decades chasing a sense of meaning, hoping it would be confirmed by the world around me.

    When that confirmation didn’t come, I mistook my quiet path for failure. But now I see it more clearly: I was never failing—I was living. I just didn’t have the cultural mirror to see myself clearly.

    Because this isn’t just personal—it’s cultural.

    In American life, we talk about honoring our elders, but we rarely do. We celebrate youth, disruption, and innovation but forget continuity, reflection, and memory. Aging is framed as decline, rather than depth. Invisibility becomes a quiet fate.

    The workplace retires you. The culture tunes you out. Even family structures shift, often unintentionally, to prioritize the new.

    It’s not just individuals who feel this. It’s the society itself losing its anchor.

    In other cultures, aging is seen differently. The Stoics called wisdom the highest virtue. Indigenous communities treat elders as keepers of knowledge, not as relics. The Vikings entrusted decision-making to their gray-haired assemblies. The Clan Mothers of the Haudenosaunee and Queen Mothers of West Africa held respected leadership roles rooted in time-earned insight, not in youth.

    These cultures understand something we’ve forgotten: that perspective takes time. That wisdom isn’t the product of speed but of stillness. That life becomes more valuable—not less—when it’s been deeply lived.

    So the question shifts for me. It’s not just What’s the point of my life now? It becomes What kind of culture no longer sees the point of lives like mine? If we measure human value only by productivity, we end up discarding not just people—but the wisdom they carry.

    Still, I don’t want to just critique the culture. I want to live differently. If the world has lost its memory of how to honor elders, perhaps the first step is to remember myself—and live into that role, even if no one names it for me.

    In recent years, I’ve found grounding in Buddhist teachings—not as belief, but as a way to walk. The Four Noble Truths speak directly to my experience.

    Suffering exists. And one of its roots is tanhā—the craving for things to be other than they are.

    That craving once took the form of ambition, of perfectionism, of seeking approval. But now I see it more clearly. I suffered not because I lacked meaning—but because I believed meaning had to look a certain way.

    The Third Noble Truth offers something radical: the possibility of release. Not through accomplishment, but through letting go. And the Eightfold Path—Right View, Right Intention, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and so on—doesn’t prescribe a goal—it offers a rhythm. A way to return to the present.

    Letting go doesn’t mean retreat. It means softening the grip. Not grasping for certainty, but sitting with what is real. Not proving anything, but living with care.

    Carl Jung advised his patients to break a sweat and keep a journal. I try to do both.

    Writing is how I make sense of what I feel. It slows me down. It draws me into presence. I don’t write to be known. I write to know myself. Even if the words remain unseen, the process itself feels holy—because it is honest.

    I’ve stopped waiting for someone to give me a platform or role. I’ve begun to live as if what I offer matters, even if no one applauds.

    And on the best days, that feels like freedom.

    There are still mornings when doubt returns: Did I do enough? Did I miss my moment? But I come back to this:

    It matters because it’s true. Not because it’s remarkable. Not because it changed the world. But because I lived it sincerely. I stayed close to what mattered to me. I didn’t look away.

    That’s what trust feels like to me now—not certainty or success, but a quiet willingness to keep walking, to keep showing up, to keep listening. To live this final chapter not as a decline, but as a deepening.

    Maybe the point isn’t to be exceptional. Maybe it’s to be present, to be real, to be kind. Maybe it’s to pass on something quieter than legacy but more lasting than ego: attention, care, perspective.

    Maybe that’s what elders were always meant to do.

  • A Case for Joy in a Monetized World

    A Case for Joy in a Monetized World

    “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” ~William Bruce Cameron

    My gardener and I were talking the other day—his English broken, my Spanish worse—but we found a way to connect.

    He told me about his eight-year-old son, a bright, joyful kid who loves baseball. The boy wants to play. His mother wants him in tutoring. And somewhere in that gap, a bigger question emerged: what matters more—discipline or joy?

    I didn’t plan to give advice, but it came out anyway. “Let him play ball,” I said. “Let him be part of a team, fall in love with something, feel what it’s like to give yourself to a game you care about.” Maybe there’s room for both—tutoring on weekends or part-time. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that too often, we push kids toward what’s useful before they know what they love.

    That conversation stayed with me because it reflects something bigger and more troubling: almost everything in life now feels monetized.

    From birth to death, we are priced and processed. Pregnancy is a billing code. Daycare is a business. College is debt. Even death has been streamlined into packages—premium, standard, economy.

    Want to talk to a therapist? That’ll cost you. Want clean food? That’s extra. A safe place to live? Depends on your credit score. Even our time with loved ones feels rationed by work schedules and productivity apps. There’s a price tag on presence.

    The monetization of everything is more than just an economic system—it’s a cultural atmosphere. It creeps in quietly, turning art into content, friendships into followers, and values into branding strategies. We trade attention for advertising, care for convenience. And as the world becomes more globalized, centralized, and digitized, this way of thinking spreads—efficient, scalable, and soul-numbing.

    But there’s something that can’t be priced or faked: flow.

    Flow is that immersive state where effort disappears, time softens, and we’re fully absorbed in what we’re doing. It’s the feeling of being completely alive and focused—not because we’re chasing a reward, but because we’re in tune with the task itself.

    I remember pitching in Little League when I was ten. I wasn’t the best, but for one brief inning, everything clicked. I stopped thinking. The ball moved like it was part of me. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone—I was just there, inside the game. That was flow. And I’ve spent much of my life chasing that feeling through music, writing, teaching.

    I’ve spent most of my life as a teacher, filmmaker, and writer. Not because it made me rich—it didn’t—but because it gave me something to live for. Now, at seventy, I help care for my 96-year-old mother, still trying to finish my life’s work with little to show for it in the bank. But the work still matters. So does she.

    My mother’s caregivers—mostly women of color—show up every day. They help her eat, dress, and smile. They aren’t paid nearly enough, but they move through their days with compassion, grace, and humor. Their labor doesn’t fit into a tidy spreadsheet of profit. And yet it holds the world together.

    I wonder: What happens to a society that forgets how to value the things that can’t be monetized?

    We know something’s wrong, but we don’t know what to do. We still need to pay rent, buy groceries, find a way to survive in a system that rewards efficiency over depth, image over presence. There’s no clear answer. Just tension, quiet resistance, and sometimes—if we’re lucky—a moment of clarity.

    So I say again: let the boy play. Not to win, or to be the star, but to feel the joy of running with others, of belonging to a team, of laughing, working hard, and learning—together. Let him build friendships that might last a lifetime. Let him feel what it means to be part of something larger than himself, where improvement matters more than trophies.

    And maybe, just maybe, let him find flow. On the field, or even in tutoring, if the conditions are right—if the learning is alive and the focus is real. Because flow is the goal, whether in a game or a classroom. That’s where confidence is born. That’s where joy lives.

    Of course, I know Little League can be its own kind of heartbreak. When the game becomes about dominance, when adults project their own regrets or insecurities onto the boys, when coaches forget it’s supposed to be fun—it can damage the very spirit it’s meant to nourish.

    That’s why it takes the right coach. One who listens. One who knows it’s a boy’s world for a short while, and that this game, at its best, teaches how to care, to lose with grace, to try again, and to trust others.

    I told his father all this in our clumsy mix of English and Spanish. I told him I hoped his son gets to play. Not because it will lead to anything measurable. But because it already is something valuable.

    Sometimes, the best thing we can do is willingly open the door—and let the players play.

  • Beyond the Yips: How to Reclaim Your Creative Confidence

    Beyond the Yips: How to Reclaim Your Creative Confidence

    “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

    There’s a quiet moment before the spotlight hits when everything in your body wants to run.

    Your hands tremble. Your voice tightens. Your breath shortens, even though the room is still. You love what you do—you’ve trained, practiced, prepared—but suddenly, it’s like someone else is in your body. Your skills vanish. Your confidence implodes.

    That’s the yips.

    And if you’re an artist, musician, writer, teacher—anyone whose work lives in public view—you’ve probably met them too.

    The First Collapse

    For me, the first time the yips showed up, I was about ten years old, standing on a Little League pitcher’s mound. I had a strong arm and a real love for the game, so they made me the pitcher.

    It felt like an honor—until it became a nightmare.

    I couldn’t throw a strike. Not one. I walked batter after batter. The harder I tried, the worse it got. My coaches shouted. My teammates rolled their eyes. And worst of all, I didn’t know why it was happening. I knew how to pitch. I wanted to pitch. But my body wouldn’t cooperate.

    My confidence didn’t just erode—it imploded.

    That experience carved something into me, and years later, it returned in a different form—on stage, with a viola in my hands.

    But I eventually learned the yips aren’t just nerves. They’re the clash between who we believe we are and what’s happening in the moment.

    The Yips in Music

    I had taken up guitar earlier and played in public a few times. A little nerves, sure, but nothing overwhelming. But the viola was different.

    The viola wasn’t just an instrument—it was a commitment. I loved the sound, the subtlety, the range. But the moment I sat down to play chamber music or solo pieces—especially in front of discerning classical audiences—I froze.

    My bow hand would shake uncontrollably. My tone would collapse. My breath shortened. My fingers, steady in rehearsal, betrayed me under pressure. It wasn’t just a little stage fright. It was full-body paralysis. And I wasn’t just nervous—I was ashamed.

    I could feel the others around me adjusting their playing, trying to stay in sync, politely pretending not to notice the scraping sound of my trembling bow. I wasn’t just failing myself—I felt like I was slowly unraveling something beautiful we had built together.

    That shame lasted longer than any applause ever could.

    Eventually, I stopped performing. It hurt too much.

    But Then, a Different Tune

    What’s strange is that I can still play old-time fiddle music in public. Ozark waltzes, hoedowns, reels—I can play those in front of a crowd with energy and joy.

    Why?

    Because people are moving. They’re dancing. They’re smiling. There’s an exchange happening—call and response, energy to energy. No one’s looking to critique every phrase. They just want to feel alive.

    That shift—from judgment to participation—made all the difference.

    It was my first clue that the problem wasn’t just about nerves. It was about dissonance.

    When Belief and Experience Clash

    What I didn’t understand as a kid—but see now in myself, my students, and even my own children—is that the yips aren’t just performance anxiety. They’re the outward symptoms of cognitive dissonance: the mental and emotional strain that happens when who we believe we are doesn’t match what we’re experiencing.

    This dissonance doesn’t just trip us up. It can make us doubt the very core of our identity. And in creative work, that doubt can be devastating.

    Common Creative Cognitive Dissonances

    Over the years—as a filmmaker, teacher, and musician—I’ve seen these patterns again and again:

    1. “I’m passionate and skilled” vs. “I just froze in front of everyone.”

    You know you’re good. But in that crucial moment, something inside shuts down. The disconnect feels like failure, even if it’s just fear.

    2. “I believe in creative freedom” vs. “I censor myself when others are watching.”

    We crave authenticity. But the moment we feel observed, we retreat into safe ideas and bland choices.

    3. “I want to create something meaningful” vs. “No one will care about this.”

    You believe in the work, but a voice in your head tells you it’s not important. That voice keeps you from finishing—or from starting at all.

    4. “I value growth” vs. “I should already be good at this.”

    Even lifelong learners fall into this trap. Especially those of us with experience. We forget how to be beginners again.

    5. “I’m a creative person” vs. “I can’t seem to finish anything.”

    The inner identity and the outer reality don’t match. That gap becomes shame—and shame leads to silence.

    How to Work with the Yips, Not Against Them

    Here’s what I’ve learned after a lifetime of living with this pattern: You don’t conquer the yips by trying harder. You heal them by listening deeper.

    That means meeting the fear—not with force, but with care.

    Here’s how I begin again, every time:

    1. Lead with compassion.

    That part of you that’s scared? It’s also the part that loves what you’re doing. Be gentle. Speak kindly to yourself.

    2. Accept the body’s message.

    Trembling hands, dry mouth, racing thoughts—these are just signs that you care. Breathe through them. Don’t resist them. Let them pass like weather.

    3. Reframe the story.

    Not: “I choked.”
    But: “I hit a growth edge.” Or: “I’m learning to stay present when it matters.” That shift matters.

    4. Find reciprocal environments.

    Play for dancers. Share writing with friends. Teach in spaces where people reflect, nod, laugh, respond. It’s hard to heal in front of a wall of silence.

    5. Focus on presence, not perfection.

    When I play fiddle now, I don’t aim to impress. I aim to connect. That intention rewires everything.

    6. Return to joy.

    What first drew you to your work? The sound? The rhythm? The curiosity? The spark? Go back there. That’s where your real voice lives.

    A Life Beyond the Yips

    These days, I still feel the yips. Sometimes when I teach. Sometimes when I perform. Sometimes when I write something that matters to me.

    But now, I recognize them for what they are: a signal that I’m doing something vulnerable and real.

    If you’re an artist, musician, teacher, maker—and you’ve gotten stuck—you’re not alone. And you’re not broken.

    You’re simply standing at the edge of the gap between who you were and who you’re becoming.

    The work is to stay in the room. Gently. Bravely. Again and again.

    And little by little, you’ll find your way back—not to where you started, but to something deeper.

    To a self that trusts its voice again. To a body that remembers how to move. To a joy that doesn’t depend on perfection.

    To the quiet truth that you were never really lost at all.

    The yips may still show up—but so will your music, your words, and your true self.

  • Walking My Mother Home: On Aging, Love, and Letting Go

    Walking My Mother Home: On Aging, Love, and Letting Go

    “To love someone deeply is to learn the art of holding on and letting go—sometimes at the very same time.” ~Unknown

    Nothing has softened me—or challenged me—like caring for my ninety-six-year-old mother as she slowly withdraws from the world. I thought I was strong, but this is a different kind of strength—one rooted in surrender, not control.

    She once moved with rhythm and faith—attending Kingdom Hall for over sixty years, sharp in mind and dressed with dignity. She’s a fine and good Christian woman, often compared to Julie Andrews for her beauty and radiant grace. But now, she rarely gets out of her robe. She sleeps through the day. The services she once cherished are left unplayed. She says she’s tired and feels ‘off.’ That’s all.

    I ache to restore her to who she was. But no encouragement or gesture can bring that version of her back. Something in me keeps reaching for her past, even as she settles into her present.

    As someone used to teaching, creating, and mentoring, I’ve built a life around helping others move forward. I’m solution-oriented. I try to inspire change.

    But I can’t fix this. I can’t lift her out of time’s embrace. Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” That quote feels especially personal now. Because I can’t change what’s happening to my mother—but I can soften my resistance. I can change the way I show up.

    Walking Each Other Home

    There’s a beautiful quote by Ram Dass that returns to me in this quiet moment: “We’re all just walking each other home.” I think about that when I bring her a bowl of soup, hold her hand, or whisper, “I love you.”

    I’m not here to bring her back to life as it was. I’m here to walk beside her—gently, imperfectly, faithfully—as she lets go of this chapter.

    I think often of Pope John Paul II, who remained remarkably compassionate while bedridden in the last days of his life. As his body failed, he interpreted his suffering not as a burden, but as solidarity with the poor and the sick. His vulnerability became a doorway to greater understanding. That vision moved me deeply. Because that’s what I hope to do—not just care for my mother but be transformed by the act of caring.

    I’ve studied meditation. I’ve written and taught about presence in filmmaking. But this—daily care, raw emotion, the unknown—is the deepest form of mindfulness I’ve ever known.

    Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that “When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence.” So I try to be there. Not fixing. Not explaining. Just breathing. Just sitting beside her.

    In Buddhism, impermanence is not a punishment—it’s a truth. Everything beautiful fades. Clinging brings suffering. Peace comes from loving without grasping. That’s what I’m learning, slowly, as I witness her journey unfold.

    Some days, I feel like I’m failing. I lose patience. I say too much, and I say it too loudly. But I show up again. I apologize. I soften. I learn.

    There’s a quiet kind of love growing in me. It doesn’t look like grand gestures. It looks like warming her tea with honey. Adjusting her blanket. Noticing she’s cold before she says a word. This is slow-burning compassion—the kind that asks nothing in return. It’s not about being a hero. It’s about being human.

    I used to think wisdom came from those who spoke the most. But now I see that some of the greatest teachers say little at all. My mother, mostly silent now, is teaching me about humility, aging, and surrender.

    Like Pope John Paul II, I want to turn my suffering into understanding. To feel my heart break open—not shut down—and to know that this is not just her time of transition, it’s mine too.

    Lately, my own health has begun to shift—macular degeneration, diastolic heart failure, near-blindness, persistent fatigue, and a growing sense that I, too, am aging. At first, I resisted. I wanted to stay useful and strong. But now, I see these changes as reminders: to live gently, to love fully, and to be present. My body is not the problem—it’s the messenger. And its message is simple: this isn’t about me. It’s about how well I show up for her.

    So what is it that I’m learning here in this strange, quiet space between caregiving and grief?

    • You don’t have to be perfect to be present.
    • Love doesn’t always look like joy. Sometimes it looks like patience.
    • Letting go isn’t failure—it’s an expression of grace.
    • Even in loss, there is growth.
    • The end of one life chapter can open your heart to all of humanity.

    A Whisper Before Sleep

    Each night, I make sure she’s ready to sleep. Sometimes she’s dozing. Sometimes she’s half-aware. Sometimes she’s just staring at the TV. But every night, I whisper, “I love you, Mom.” Maybe she hears me. Maybe not. But I say it anyway—because love, at this point, is more about presence than response.

    And now, another quiet miracle has entered her world. Nugget—the small, grey-furred cat who is super cute and equally crazy—has become her closest companion. My mother never cared much for animals. She found them messy, distant. But Nugget changed all that.

    This tiny creature curls at her feet, climbs into her lap, and purrs without question. And my mother responds—stroking her fur, talking softly, calling her ‘my little kitty.’ It’s pure, surprising, and profound. Nugget brings her back to the present in ways I cannot. She opens a door to tenderness that has long remained closed.

    My mother still shares vivid stories from the distant past, though she forgets what happened an hour ago. Still, she knows me. She knows Nugget. And for that, I am grateful.

    I still wish I could do more. But I show up—quietly, imperfectly, with love. I walk her home the best I can.

    And in that walking, in that surrender, I’m beginning to understand what it really means to be alive.

  • How to Coexist with Fear (and Spiders)

    How to Coexist with Fear (and Spiders)

    “If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over time, cease to react at all.” ~Yogi Bhajan

    Several years ago, I hiked into the remote forestlands of Bukidnon, a mountainous province in the southern Philippines. I was there to make a documentary about the Pulangiyēn people, an Indigenous community living in the village of Bendum. No roads led there. No running water. Just a winding trail upwards, a slow-moving carabao pulling my camera gear, and a few kindhearted villagers helping me climb.

    I had come with the intention to listen—to observe daily life, record sounds, and learn what I could. What I didn’t know was that one of my deepest lessons would come not from the forest or the people, but from a spider.

    A very large spider. Hairy. Big and spidery.

    My lodging was a small, hand-built hut with bamboo walls and a woven floor mat. I felt honored to stay there, grateful for the simplicity and peace and the respite from the rains. But my gratitude dimmed a little when I noticed, down on the floor in the corner of the room, a dark shape—a spider. Motionless. The size of my outstretched palm.

    I asked one of the locals if it should be, well… removed.

    They smiled gently. “It lives there,” they said.

    That was it. No concern. No plan to catch it in a cup and carry it away. The spider wasn’t a problem. In fact, to interfere might have been seen as disrespectful—not only to the spider, but to the spirits believed to dwell in all things, visible and invisible.

    So I had a choice: coexist or live in fear.

    The Challenge of Coexistence

    At first, I couldn’t sleep. Every creak of bamboo startled me. I imagined the spider descending on my face in the middle of the night. But day after day, the spider never seemed to move around much; at least I was not aware of any major roaming around by the beast. And slowly, I began to wonder—what exactly was I afraid of?

    It wasn’t just the spider. It was the unknown. The loss of control. The feeling of being vulnerable in a place far from what I understood.

    But here’s what I learned: coexistence is not about agreement or comfort. It’s about choosing not to reject or destroy what we don’t yet understand. It’s about pausing long enough to see whether what we fear is truly dangerous—or whether it’s just unfamiliar.

    That spider became a mirror.

    Fear Isn’t Always a Problem to Solve

    Over time, my relationship with the spider shifted. I stopped checking the corner obsessively. I still noticed it, but I didn’t react. I stopped trying to protect myself from something that wasn’t actually threatening me.

    In the quiet of those forest nights, I began to think about all the other things I’d tried to avoid or control in life—conversations, emotions, uncertainties, even my own sense of failure. The pattern was the same: discomfort would arise, and I’d try to evict it.

    But this experience showed me a different way: you don’t always need to solve the fear. Sometimes, you just need to sit with it. Let it stay in the corner.

    And over time, your relationship to the fear changes. You grow larger around it.

    In the Indigenous worldview of the Lumad people, coexistence isn’t an abstract concept—it’s life. Trees, rivers, stones, animals—everything has a presence, a role, a spirit. You don’t have to like every being you share space with. You just have to respect it.

    This is echoed in many traditions. In Buddhism, the practice of metta encourages us to extend loving-kindness not only to friends but to enemies, strangers, and even things that scare us. In modern mindfulness practice, we learn to observe our experience without judgment, to allow thoughts and sensations to come and go.

    Even ecology tells us: thriving systems are diverse, and balance depends on the peaceful presence of all things—even spiders.

    What I Tell My Students Now

    I’ve taught filmmaking and storytelling for many years. My students often wrestle with fear—fear of being seen, of not being good enough, of making mistakes. Before, I tried to coach them out of it. Now, I teach them to make room for it.

    I tell them about the spider.

    I tell them about the time I shared a hut with something I was afraid of—and how, by coexisting with it, I changed more than it did. The fear didn’t go away. But it stopped running the show.

    So the next time something in your life scares you—not because it’s harmful, but because it’s unfamiliar—see if you can let it stay in the corner a little while longer. Don’t push it away. Don’t judge yourself for feeling it. Just breathe.

    Let it be there.

    You might discover, like I did, that peaceful coexistence is possible—even with the things you never thought you could accept.

    And once you learn that, there’s very little left to fear.

  • How I Learned to Be Present—One Sound at a Time

    How I Learned to Be Present—One Sound at a Time

    “Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” ~Miles Davis

    When I first read that quote, it hit me right in the chest. Not because it sounded profound—but because it was something I had been slowly, painfully learning over the course of a very quiet, very long year.

    Time used to feel like a race. Or maybe a shadow. Or a trickster. Some days, it slipped through my fingers like water. Other days, it dragged me along like a heavy cart. But always, it was something outside me—something I was chasing or trying to escape.

    I spent much of my life impatient. Not in the obvious, tapping-your-foot kind of way, but in the quiet, internal kind of way: the constant sense that something should be happening, or happening faster, or already have happened by now. I measured life by milestones—achievements, breakthroughs, arrivals. I told myself I was being productive, but really, I was just uncomfortable with stillness.

    The Turning Point: Time Isn’t Linear

    Before all this, I thought of sound as something external—music, noise, conversation. But Nada Yoga transformed that understanding. In the stillness of those long days, sound became an anchor. Even the hum of the heater or the ticking of the clock became companions. When I gave them my full attention, they stopped being background noise and became part of the present moment.

    This is when I began to understand that time isn’t as linear as I had always believed. The past and future were ideas playing out in my mind, but the sound of now—the tone, the breath, the subtle vibration in my chest—was undeniable. And every time I tuned into it, I found myself grounded again.

    Physics agrees in strange ways. Einstein called time a “stubbornly persistent illusion,” and in the language of relativity, time doesn’t pass in the way we feel it does. Some physicists believe that the past, present, and future all exist at once—that time isn’t a straight line, but more like a landscape we move through. What we experience as “now” depends on where we’re standing, so to speak—our frame of reference.

    It’s not that time isn’t real—it’s that our experience of it is shaped by attention, memory, and movement.

    This insight doesn’t make time feel less urgent, but it reframes it. If time is an illusion, it may be less about seconds ticking by and more about awareness itself. What we call “now” isn’t a slice between before and after—it’s a field we enter through presence. That’s why mindfulness and Nada Yoga matter here: they’re not just techniques for coping—they’re ways of seeing.

    In the teachings of the Eightfold Path, this felt most connected to Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. But instead of striving to perfect these steps, I simply allowed sound to lead me there. Following the thread of vibration was a practice in presence. It didn’t matter what time the clock said. The only real moment was the one I could hear, feel, and meet with openness.

    When Time Moves Too Fast

    Eventually, I began to feel better. My body regained strength, and my thinking was clearer. I started doing more, breathing more slowly, walking farther, making plans. But with that return came a different kind of challenge: the speed of life.

    It’s incredible how quickly we can forget stillness once momentum kicks back in. Emails. Errands. The endless list of things we should’ve already done. I was “back,” but I noticed something curious—I missed the slow time. Not the discomfort, but the spaciousness. The simplicity. The depth I had discovered when life wasn’t asking me to move so fast.

    I tried to hold onto what I’d learned. I’d remind myself that presence doesn’t need to be complicated—listening to a soft drone or resting in the inner hum I could still feel when I paid attention. That tiny ritual became a way to soften the edges of my days. It reminded me that even when life is loud and fast, there is still something quiet underneath, waiting.

    And once again, I turned to the Eightfold Path, this time to Right Effort. Not effort as in struggle, but the gentle discipline to return, to listen, to not forget myself in the rush. Patience, it turns out, isn’t something you master once and for all. It’s something you practice again and again in small, quiet ways.

    The Sound of Patience

    What surprised me most was realizing that patience has a sound. It’s not always silence.

    Sometimes, it’s the low hum of the fridge at midnight. Sometimes, it’s the steady beat of a distant drum in a piece of music. Sometimes, it’s just my own breath or heartbeat or pulse, reminding me that I am here.

    And presence has its own rhythm too. The more I tuned in, the more I saw how much time opens up when I stop resisting it. A few mindful minutes can feel full and rich. A rushed hour can feel like nothing at all.

    We say “time flies” when we’re enjoying ourselves—but I’ve found something deeper: time expands when we’re fully present. When I listen—really listen—to what is here, I don’t feel late. I don’t feel behind. I feel whole.

    This doesn’t mean I’ve figured it all out. I still lose patience. I still check the clock too much. But now, I have a practice to return to—a practice built not on perfection, but on sound, breath, and the quiet trust that everything unfolds in its own time.

    The longer I walk this path, the more I see that my suffering around time wasn’t really about minutes or hours. It was about resistance. It was about the belief that the present moment was never quite enough. That I had to get somewhere, become someone, achieve something before I could rest.

    But through mindfulness, and especially through the practice of listening—whether to the soft whispering tones of the wind in Nada Yoga or to the ordinary sounds of daily life—I’ve discovered a gentler truth:

    The present moment isn’t something we earn. It’s something we enter.

    And when we do, when we stop fighting time and start listening to it, we find something unexpected—not emptiness, but richness. Not waiting, but arrival.

    A Closing Reflection

    There’s a soft drone of reticulated sounds playing as I write this now. A deep tone that barely shifts but somehow holds me steady. It reminds me to breathe. It reminds me to slow down. It reminds me that I am not behind—I am here.

    I think that’s the real gift of both mindfulness and Nada Yoga. Not to help us “make the most of our time,” but to help us feel time differently—not as a pressure, but as a presence.

    And so I leave you with this:

    Next time you feel rushed or restless, stop. Close your eyes. Listen for the quietest sound in the room—or in you. It might not be music, or even beautiful, but it will be real. And in that sound, however small, you might find a doorway to now.

    And now, as Miles Davis said, time is not just the main thing—it’s the only thing.

  • To the Dreamers Reading This, I Want You to Know…

    To the Dreamers Reading This, I Want You to Know…

    There I was, eating cereal and watching a CNN documentary about Kobe Bryant—yes, I mix deep life reflection with Raisin Bran—when his old speech teacher said something that made me pause mid-chew. He described Kobe’s approach to life as giving everything—heart, soul, and body—to his craft. No halfway. Just all in.

    I sat there thinking, “Yes! That’s it!” That’s the very thing I try to convey to my students in class, usually while making wild arm gestures and accidentally knocking over a marker cup. I believe in that philosophy with every fiber of my chalk-dusted being.

    High Risk, Deep Roots

    But here’s the deal: it’s also terrifying.

    This idea of going all in on your calling—it sounds noble and exciting and worthy of a motivational poster—but the truth is, it’s a gamble. A high-stakes, heart-first kind of gamble. Especially today.

    I mean, the ancient world totally backed this idea. Aristotle called it arete—excellence as a way of life. The Stoics preached about inner strength, Japanese samurai gave us Bushidō, and every jazz musician who ever improvised their way to bliss knows the power of flow. Even athletes talk about that magical zone where time melts away and it’s just you, the court, the ball, and that buzzing sense of rightness.

    Modern Metrics vs. Timeless Passion

    But our modern world? Eh, not so much. Today, we value your output. Your metrics. Your monetization plan. It’s like we collectively replaced passion with performance indicators.

    Don’t get me wrong—I’m not against paying the bills. I enjoy food, shelter, and the occasional streaming service. But if you’re a young person with a dream that doesn’t come with a subscription model or an app-based hustle plan? Welcome to what I call “existential whiplash.”

    You’re told, “Follow your bliss!” and “Live with purpose!” But the next second someone’s asking, “Yeah, but how will you monetize that?”

    This contradiction is exhausting. And it gets inside your head. You start to think, “Maybe I’m wrong to want this. Maybe I should just do something safer. Maybe dreams are for people with trust funds.”

    But here’s where I get a little loud in class—yes, I stand on chairs occasionally—and say: No. Your dream is not a liability.

    It’s a pulse. A heartbeat. A spark. And you owe it to yourself to explore it—even if it’s hard.

    Now, I won’t sugarcoat this: you can throw your whole self into something and not get the rewards you hoped for. I’ve lived that. I’ve made documentaries that reached small audiences. I’ve written things I thought would change the world and heard nothing but crickets. I’ve built programs that vanished when the grant money dried up.

    But here’s the weird thing: I still wouldn’t trade it. Because in the pursuit—yes, even in the flops—I found something essential.

    The Gift of Flow and Presence

    Flow. Purpose. Connection.

    When I was filming at dawn in a mountain village in the Philippines, or listening—really listening—to a student struggle their way into their voice, I wasn’t thinking about success. I was there. Fully. Mindfully. There’s nothing else like it.

    Those moments are why we do the risky thing. Because we’re not robots. We’re not spreadsheets. We’re meaning-makers. And when we pursue something with full attention and intention, we tap into something sacred.

    Still, let’s be real. In our society, even mindfulness has been commodified. There’s a subscription for calm. A brand for stillness. A market for minimalism. If I sound cynical, it’s because I’ve watched so many of my students get talked out of their deepest truths by the crushing logic of “practicality.”

    Redefining Success

    So, what do we do? How do we hold on to our inner compass when the GPS keeps yelling “Recalculate!” toward a safer, more profitable life?

    I think it comes down to redefining what “success” really means.

    I tell my students: don’t measure your life by likes, views, or even income (although, yes, make sure you eat). Measure it by the depth of your experience. By the risks you were willing to take. By the people you helped. By the moments you felt alive and grounded in something real.

    A Quiet Life Can Still Be Epic

    Because that’s what makes a life worth living. Not perfection. Not applause. But presence.

    You can live a small-looking life with a vast inner world. You can chase something meaningful and not be famous. You can teach or paint or write or code or dance or build without needing to “go viral” to matter.

    Yes, there are trade-offs. Believe me, I’ve wrestled with them. I’ve had months where I wondered if I made a mistake, if I’d be better off in a more stable career. I’ve asked myself whether it’s selfish to keep chasing ideas when I could be saving for retirement instead.

    But then I remember: a life without dreams, without creative risk, without vulnerability? That would break me faster than any unpaid invoice.

    This Is the Gift (and the Gamble)

    To the dreamers reading this—especially the young ones, or the older ones just beginning again—I want to say this:

    Don’t let the world’s cynicism shrink your vision. Stay mindful, not just in meditation, but in how you choose—how you spend your time, your energy, your attention. Live with full awareness, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

    Because that’s the gift of mindful living. Not constant calm or peace—but full contact with reality. The beauty and the fear. The creativity and the chaos. The risk and the reward.

    Show Up Anyway

    And maybe, just maybe, that’s the point. That life isn’t about winning. It’s about showing up fully, heart, soul, and body. Just like Kobe. Just like all of us trying to do this thing with courage.

    I’m not indispensable. I’m not a guru. I’m just a guy who still gets goosebumps when a student discovers something real inside themselves. I’ve lived long enough to know dreams don’t always pay off, but they always teach you something vital—about who you are and what you care about.

    And for me, that has always been enough.

  • The Power of Silence and How to Really Listen

    The Power of Silence and How to Really Listen

    “The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.”  ~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    When I was younger, I thought knowledge was something you could capture—something you could write down, measure, and prove. I believed that to understand something, I had to explain it. And for a long time, I tried.

    But then, life—through film, through music, through long conversations with people whose wisdom couldn’t be found in books—taught me something else: the most powerful truths don’t always come in words. They exist in the space between them.

    I learned this lesson in the mountains, where the sky stretches wide, and silence is not empty but full of presence. I had traveled there to document a group of elders who carried the history of their people in their voices, in their stories, in the songs they sang to the younger generations.

    One elder, in particular, stood out. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, the others listened. Alongside his fellow elders, he would chant in a rhythmic, sing-song cadence, weaving the origins of the universe into the fabric of their small mountain community. But what struck me most wasn’t his voice—it was his silence.

    As the camera rolled, he sat in stillness. The wind whispered through the trees. The river murmured its eternal song. In that quiet, there was something deeper than speech, something that pulsed with meaning.

    Later, when I played the footage for a colleague, they asked, “But what is he saying?”

    I wanted to answer, Everything.

    Listening Beyond Words

    If you’ve ever felt like the world moves too fast, like people are speaking over each other instead of really hearing, then you already know how rare true listening is. We live in a time when everyone wants to be heard, but few know how to listen.

    Listening—real listening—isn’t just about hearing words. It’s about feeling presence. It’s about noticing what isn’t being said. It’s about sensing the weight behind someone’s silence, the emotion in their breath before they speak.

    I didn’t always know how to listen this way. In my early years as a filmmaker, I focused on what was visible—the shot, the framing, the dialogue. But over time, I realized that the most powerful moments weren’t always what was said aloud. It was the glance between two people who had known each other forever. It was the way someone’s hands trembled before telling a difficult story. It was the pause between sentences, where something unspoken begged to be understood.

    This kind of listening—deep listening—is a skill, just like any other. And like any skill, it can be practiced. It requires patience. It requires presence. And it requires a willingness to be quiet yourself, to let go of the need to respond, explain, or control the conversation.

    The Silence That Speaks

    There is an old teaching in Nada Yoga, the yoga of sound, that says silence is not an absence, but a vibration. It is a resonance that allows meaning to unfold.

    I have felt this in the editing room, cutting together scenes, realizing that what moves people is not the dialogue but the spaces between it—the quiet before the revelation, the moment of stillness before the truth lands. I have felt it in music, when a musician allows a note to fade just long enough for it to sink into the listener’s bones.

    And I have felt it in life, in conversations where someone shares something so raw, so deeply personal, that all you can do is sit with them in silence.

    That silence is not empty. It is full of acknowledgment, of understanding, of respect.

    The Power of Presence

    One of the greatest challenges I faced in my work was convincing people that this kind of knowledge—this ability to sit with silence, to notice, to be present—is just as valuable as facts and figures, as theories and analysis.

    Academia, where I spent much of my life, doesn’t always recognize the kind of knowledge that is felt more than written. The kind of scholarship that comes through film, through sound, through experience. There, knowledge is measured in citations, in publications, in things that can be counted. But how do you count a pause? How do you measure the impact of a shared silence?

    I have spent years trying to advocate for a broader understanding of what it means to know something. To understand that presence—the ability to be fully here, fully aware—is its own kind of intelligence.

    And here’s what I want you to know: You don’t have to be a filmmaker or a scholar to develop this skill. You don’t have to travel to distant mountains or sit in long hours of meditation. You just have to start paying attention.

    How to Listen Deeply

    If you want to learn to listen—to truly listen—try this:

    1. Pause before responding.

    Next time someone speaks to you, don’t rush to fill the space. Let their words settle. Notice what else is there—their body language, their expression, what they aren’t saying.

    2. Listen without planning your reply.

    Too often, we only half-listen because we’re already thinking about what we’ll say next. Instead, try just absorbing what’s being said. Let the response come naturally.

    3. Pay attention to the silences.

    In music, the rests are just as important as the notes. In conversation, the pauses carry meaning. Notice what happens in those spaces.

    4. Be comfortable with not knowing.

    Some of the most profound moments in life don’t come with clear answers. Be open to sitting with uncertainty.

    5. Practice with sound.

    Spend time listening to the world around you—really listening. Close your eyes. Notice how many layers of sound exist at once. The wind. The hum of a distant car. The rhythm of your own breathing.

    The more you develop your ability to listen, the more you will understand—not just about others, but about yourself.

    A Different Kind of Knowing

    I write this now, not as a call to arms, but as an invitation.

    To the artists, the thinkers, the ones who feel deeply but don’t always have the words—know that there is a place for you. There is value in the way you experience the world.

    You don’t have to explain everything. You don’t have to put it all into words.

    Sometimes, the most powerful things we know—the things that change us—exist in the space between words.

    And if you ever find yourself doubting whether your way of seeing, of listening, of feeling has a place in this world, remember this:

    Some of the greatest wisdom isn’t spoken.

    Some of the most powerful messages are never written.

    And sometimes, the best way to understand is to simply be present.