Kindness is like holding the door for someone when you’re walking in and out of a building. It takes only a moment of your time, it costs you nothing and it always helps the world around you.
And, just like holding the door, you'll see there's always enough time for it.
Just a small list of the many, objective reasons why it makes more sense to be kind than anything else:
1. It creates a better world around you. A world you will need to live in for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not.
2. It rejuvenates people's perspective on the quality of humanity around them, also creating a better world for you to live in. It also will rejuvenate your own perspective on humanity.
3. It helps people tremendously and, when you help them first, they will almost always be more than happy to help you in return another time. It creates more balanced relationships that do not involve money or ego.
4. It takes the exact same amount of energy (or less) to be kind than to not be.
5. Being kind is always going to be a healthier way to live than to be the opposite.
6. Because kids are always watching us adults and imitating us. We want them to imitate kindness, not the opposite.
7. It will always give you stronger friendships and relationships around you that actually love you for you... And nothing else.
8. People love to share stories and information with those that are kind to them. This creates a much more interesting way to live in the world, always being surrounded by people we can learn from.
9. It will always remind you that the world DOES care about you and will be there for you, when you need them.
10. It's the easiest thing you can possibly do.
The only reason you wouldn't be kind is because you still have shit you have to heal from. And there's no problem with that at all - But please do your healing so we can all make this world a better place.
Love you all.
The winter in the northwest does a lot of wild things to you. It makes you question constantly who you are and what you want. It makes you want to burn down all you have to start over new, somewhere, anywhere… Anywhere but here.
Your depression reckons you back to your old, dead self. It reminds you of when you used to run and how glorious it was. How it saved you from all you were by building you back from the ashes each and every time.
Often forgetting how that time you ran also made you have to start over every single time you came back home.
The winter has a certain charm to its darkness. A familiarity in its grip. Where you’re numb enough to let life melt away right in front of you. Always with a promise that tomorrow might somehow be better.
There’s something about its perilous eternal gray days. Something in its grip that keeps you forgetting you can leave at any time.
By the time you realize you’re free, you’re often far too gone to be able to actually move. By the time you remember you’re free, you forget why you’d ever dare to leave in the first place.
Life is a movie and all you need to do is direct each day to keep creating the film you hope to live in.
The world, as it is, is more complex, interesting, textured, chaotic, beautiful, heartbreaking and perfect than anything you could ask for. It’s full of so much love, darkness, compassion, mystery, fear, and humanity. All at once.
Because of this, it’s the most beautiful thing you’ll ever see.
And, by going into it, you can see yourself from 10,000 different new perspectives, all just by swimming in the waters that are always changing around you.
Lifes happening around you all the time, every single moment.
There is change in every single second that unfolds all around us. The world is truly never the same if you do so much as blink your eyes only once.
But that is not written to give you a sense of dread.
If anything, it should give you nothing but serene peace and awe… Knowing full well that you cannot resist or stop any of it if you tried.
You shouldn’t even want to though.
For, in change, there is always new growth that emerges. And those that are not watered by experience are going to wither away and die in stagnation. Their roots are far too shallow to dig deep enough to find the reservoir that is always full of the clean water you need the most.
We all need to constantly be molded by your experience and by the world around you. And, no matter what you need most, there is always something out there for you.
That is why we only feel our deepest and longest depressions when we are sitting still at home, wrapped in a perpetual comfort. That’s the only place we have the time to craft the tragedy that we choose to focus on, letting the present moment melt away in imagination.
But, out here, nothing can really be that bad because you are aware there is absolutely nothing you can do to change it.
Because of that, there is only acceptance out here. So, instead of trying to control it, you just sit there and watch.
You observe.
Watching the world go by, without a single thing to hold on to.
For it’s not about being afraid of the deep dark ocean, it’s about learning how well you can swim in it despite.
To keep seeing yourself as being able to navigate it’s swift currents and always rise above the tide as it moves.
No, you cannot stop the water from flowing but you can make damn sure you can always see it coming. Even better, you’ll find you’re strong enough that you can even stand up in the fast moving rapids and just watch it all swirl around you.
Watch how it moves for you.
God, I am so, so grateful for the endless road and all the space it has always given me.
Space to heal.
Space to think and feel deeply.
Space to learn who I am and always remember that person I was lucky enough to find out here.
The road has always allowed me to cry. To explore myself, inside and out. To remember, always, my place with God, my place with the universe, my place in this wild tumultuous world.
The road is safer to me than any home I’ve ever had. I know it so incredibly well. The characters of it feel like family and friends and sparked me with such a burning curiosity that you can still feel the heat around me. A curiosity that literally saved my life when I was truly desperate to find any salvation I could… Anywhere I could find it.
It brought me into the world and out of my head, giving me the antidote to my mental health when it was quickly slipping away from me.
It gave me an endless playground to play, explore, fall down, get lost and then find myself all over again (Sleeping in a cold rest stop feels more at home to me than a house full of chaos).
But, maybe most important of all, the road gave me a safe place to think clearly. To heal deeply. To dream fully. It gave me a place I could be completely still, yet always have movement all around me. Just like my surroundings, it is not possible to get stuck in one loop because the road is always changing. Always new. Each twist and turn in the road allows me to see each thought and problem from an entirely new lens. As I allow myself to get lost in the real world, I find a new path back each time, allowing myself to see my thoughts more objectively. And, as I stumble down each new path and see it for the first time, the home at the end is always the same.
But every time I walk back in that door, it feels more like home than it ever has before.
You see, technology takes away the color.
Or, at least, it takes away your ability to be able to notice it.
The overstimulation is far too strong of a drug to have balance with in your daily life. I don’t think any of us would be great at managing a heavy cocaine addiction and being able to find fulfillment in other ways in your life.
And yet, here I am, offering a refreshing glass of water to the perpetual addict.
I even find myself turning that glass of water down far too often.
Choosing to breathe in the stagnant air over the breeze that quietly drifts between the trees. Perilously giving up all promise and potential for the future in exchange for the cheap highs of instant gratification.
All too often forgetting how precious time is.
How you simply cannot create without clarity.
Nothing pure, at least, that oozes from deep within your authentic soul, at least.
I simply have no choice but to find a way to be the hero to my own story now. To claw back my attention and pull myself back onto the eternal path of growth. To find a new and different me on the other side and to embrace all it may be.
Even in the discomfort. Even in the pain.
It is simply the only way I can continue the healing I have avoided for far too long.
It is simply the only way I can find the strength to finish this life out with.
To honor all those who have always loved me with such a pure and unconditional love.
Who have always seen so, so much more in me than I have ever been able to see in myself.
The winter in the Northwest is a dark, greedy son of a bitch.
It grips you, gently at first, and by the time you feel it’s icy touch, it’s far too late.
You need to find your way out but, each day you hesitate, it tightens it’s grip. You only get away at the very last possible moments and, sometimes even then, you don’t truly get away mentally.
Even though you need to escape, it’s oddly comfortable. Always familiar.
Like warm bath water, set to just the perfect temperature for you to stay in for far too long. Losing energy every single day without sunshine. Wasting all of your time, as if it were eternal.
But deep down, you always know it’s not, so you’re miserable as you sit in the indulgence.
It seems like everyone is doing better than you are. A quiet chaos of discomfort and discontent. Just under the surface, the tremor that comes from the core.
Each year, I tell myself ‘Never again’ but I get lost in the newfound freedom of each new summer. And I often fail to notice when that familiar hold starts tightening it’s grip again.
Either fail to notice it or I just know the depression far too well.
The first month of the deep winter is sheer bliss. Hard-earned, deep rest and a completely empty calendar.
Extravagance.
A pure and natural drug.
But, like any drug, it becomes a big problem when you do it every single day… And with the deep winter, you hardly notice until you’re far too addicted.
But everyone’s a junkie these days, aren’t they?
Like a world gone asleep, painfully missing the beautiful world going on around them.
I block and conserve the little energy I have left each day - Shutting myself off from the world around me.
This is the time of the year when life just melts away.
You float through each hour, having no regard what you do with it.
Thinking a million thoughts but only writing a couple down.
These are the days that fill my soul with splendor. With magic, in the truest sense of the word.
Nothing but the endless snow and a world that has fallen into a deep slumber.
I’m the only one out there.
The only one moving.
There is no war. Only peace that exists these days.
A new word to your poem or idea comes with every fresh snowflakes that falls.
So the world is my playground to explore and just watch, with a soul and mind that is as quiet as the fallen snow. There couldn’t be a rush these days even if you tried to. There’s nowhere to be except right where you are and you know that in every step you take, in any direction you go.
Grateful.
The days where truly nothing matters.
I live for the weather. The days when no way not to notice the elements. The days when the gods remind you just how small and powerless you truly are. That were always at the mercy of Mother Nature, no matter what mood she’s in.
I die during the days that are all the same. No texture. No color.
I drive in the silence. As silent as the night. But I know the suns up there. Somewhere. I can feel it with all my might.
There truly is something about a woman’s love that is so beautiful and so pure. So rich in innocence and wonder. So alive and true.
There’s something about a woman’s love that is so disarming.
To the fire within a man and his lust for adventure and the line. That love is something we so desperately desire. So desperately need. It’s the balance to our chaos. The salvation that keeps us alive in our pursuit. The magic spell that pulls us back home despite our greatest ambitions. Despite our deepest darkness.
That darkness is a magic spell also.
There’s something about a woman’s love that is so beautiful… That we try to burn it all down. To destroy it with all of our might. To run from it’s perfect warmth, out into the desolate cold. To hide from it’s shining light, as you retreat into the shadows once again.
There’s something about a woman’s love that leaves you no question that it’s everything you want.
Everything you need.
And everything you fear.
I am a cat who has been left alone with a pantry full of fish.
A child handed a trash bag full of candy.
A criminal given the keys to the safe.
A drunkard who never has to pay his tab at the bar.
And, even worse, on top of all this, a foolish belief that this life can never end.
My home is haunted by the ghost of my past.
It grips me so tightly here, I have no idea how to live without it.
But more than just its grip, there is also it’s familiarity. That dark, cold hold that pulls me down to a place that I know so well.
My life has changed so many thousands of times over since I first moved to Coeur d’ Alene.
I have been reborn 100 times over from the ashes.
But it just seems like… Every time I put on a new coat of armor, as soon as I am left alone, I start looking for a way to dismantle it completely.
While this process holds the very key to my creativity, it is also a guarantee to have regret later in my life. And I simply MUST find a way to start to unweave myself from it’s hold.
To give myself just a small amount of grace with this, as I still am trying to learn how to merge my creativity with reality.
They ask me ‘Adam, when will you finally sit still?’
But they just don’t realize…. That’s the only way I can ever die.
I hope I die before another wasted conversation.
Before I have to muster up the worthless words I mumble when I do.
The energy given and exchanged, yet not a single ounce of emotion conveyed.
Auto-piloting precious breath and time for something not even recorded by our own memory.
Time that is finite. Wasting away into the void where everything falls into a slumber.
I hope I die before someone asks me again how I’m doing without actually wanting to hear the truthful response.
I would much rather give that gift to the gods.
I am still gripped by my weight from the past.
The decisions I make.
The nights alone.
Playing games with time.
Regrets trying to store up in my psyche.
There’s still time.
There’s gotta still be time.
Knowing today, deep in my soul, that 2024 will be the years every one of these dreams come true.
10 years in the making.
At complete peace.
Grateful. So, so damn grateful.
Vividly awake and aware.
Knowing where we’re going and why.
Earned by going to hell and clawing my way back. The only way it’s real.
Strong and ready to help as many as I can.
Never listened to another voice other than mine.
Not self made though. Never self made.
And I do it in their name, out of gratitude for all they’ve done to help carry me when I needed it the most.
In the name of all those I lost. To ensure they’re never forgotten and forever alive in our souls.
There’s something about travel that gives you a chance to be reborn every single time. You’re taken away from your comforts and put into situations where your brain has to wake up. Has to pay attention. Engage in the world around it. You see new sights. Smell new smells. Hear new voices. You’re awake.
It can be exhausting. It can be uncomfortable. It can be frustrating.
But no matter what, it wakes you up from the slumber of your routines and reminds you that you’re here.
You walk the earth. Time is precious. Time is finite.
Then, when you come home, you’re coming home different every single time. A new level of perspective. But it’s not necessarily about what you see differently but more so, about what’s been stirred up inside of you to actually be able to be present enough to notice what always been there.
You feel like you’ve walked 1,000 miles when you get home and that all those new memories were the most vivid dream you’ve experienced in quite a while. Or nightmare. It’s all a part of the experience.
But no matter what, you’re always changed through every mile that you move. Every inch you’re awake.
My mom talked to me about saving money up for retirement tonight and it’s funny, I’ve never actually thought about living that long. I’ve always dreamed of dying before I lose a single person. In the sweet spot, in bliss, without body aches or regrets.
A clean, swift death to be washed away before the worst parts of life finally catch you when you’re least expecting.
The only way to truly live a perfect life.
There’s nothing I can do to slow time down. And it’s so hard to even be present. To even be here.
But I do know, at least, that it’s perfect in this one moment.
(Christmas Eve, 2023)
I don’t know what to do.
About the wood floors in my parents home. The toilet I know so well. The place I feel most at peace.
I don’t know how I could ever say goodbye to this place.
The place I know better than anywhere else. The laughs locked away in the walls, somewhere behind the paint. The hundreds of meals… Not knowing they might actually end someday.
I don’t know how I could ever walk away from this place I know so well. I don’t think I really could, if I’m truly being honest.
It’s my home from the world.
My sanctuary from the chaos. The only place I truly can rest and feel at home. Because of the smell.
