It can feel really liberating to break societal rules insisting upon rationality and “grown-up” behavior. Engaging in activities that, on the surface, appear irrational, frivolous, illogical or childish, but also playful and spontaneous, might just help you relax the grip of linear thinking and break through feelings of limitation. Most of us unthinkingly live by arbitrary, rigid rules of what is and isn’t supposed to be possible, without taking the time to examine their validity. Doing something unexpected, inexplicable and/or whimsical once in a while can stimulate your psyche in ways that could potentially improve your creativity, boost your mood and rejuvenate your outlook. The subjective effects are hard to deny, especially if you’ve personally experienced them. But a lot of people will tell you that changing things up like this seems to affect objective reality as well. While engaging in speculation is tempting, often these effects are easily attributed to ordinary processes. People’s experiences shape their behavior – what they think, what they do, what they make, and how they treat others. Let’s say you write a word on an object and leave it out to be found by someone else. Randomly happening upon, for example, a pocket stapler that proclaims “LOVE IS EVERYWHERE,” or an orange that urges the finder to “QUESTION AUTHORITY” will probably have some effect on the person who discovers it. But it doesn’t stop there. The discovery may cause that person to do or say something they otherwise wouldn’t have, which then may influence the people they interact with to do or say something differently, which in turn might affect still other people in all kinds of ways. A carefully arranged pile of colorful plastic gemstones left on a table at the DMV office could bring wonder, joy, or bafflement to any random strangers that find it.

Experiencing surprise and delight at unexpected times and in unlikely places can totally turn your day around. And acts like these increase the amount of novelty we experience in our daily lives, which has been demonstrated to stimulate creativity, boost mood, improve cognition and rejuvenate relationships. After you find that stapler that says “LOVE IS EVERYWHERE,” who knows? It just might restore your flagging faith in humanity! More prosaically, perhaps it would lead you to stop somewhere and buy staples. It might get you thinking about what things you could staple, to what, and where. Maybe you decide to put fliers up to sell your unused exercise bike and use the money to pay for a set of oil paints, an easel and an art class. Or maybe seeing those words softens you up and gets you to call an uncle you haven’t spoken to in twenty years because of a long-forgotten argument. Some might be cynical about the “butterfly effect,” the idea that even the tiniest action can have huge ripple effects, but, bad Ashton Kutcher films aside, it’s actually a scientific concept utilized in meteorology and quantum mechanics. Isn’t it worth at least considering the possibility that every little thing you do matters? That every action you take makes a difference? The thought that there is balance in the universe, that “we only get what we give” (New Radicals) or that “the love you take is equal to the love you make” (The Beatles), is very attractive and satisfying. The related idea of paying it forward also seems to imply that the ripple effects of your actions eventually come back to affect you. Now, do you really get back everything that you put out there? Is it like Newton’s Third Law of Motion, an equal and opposite reaction? Or is it more like the popular truism among magic practitioners – that whatever you send into the world comes back to you threefold? I don’t know. But I do know that what you put out there goes OUT THERE. And it undeniably impacts the people and the world around you. And they impact you. It’s a complex system, and for sure you are affecting that system with every little thing you do. How much? Who can say. But, it seems to me, infusing your actions with playfulness and spontaneity, embracing the unexpected and taking joy in stirring the pot and mixing it up, particularly with an attitude of love, gratitude and compassion, is only going to make the universe a better place. Yes, every little thing you do is magic.

But what is magic(k)? (The final “k” is often used by people who take things like spellcasting at least semi-seriously to distinguish themselves from stage magicians.) Real or not, one way of understanding magick as a practice is to see it as a form of play for grown-ups. One important function of play is rehearsal, and many athletes, musicians and public speakers understand and utilize the power of rehearsal by engaging in clear visualization of desired outcomes. The phrase “fake it till you make it” is often employed by a wide variety of advice-giving professionals, from therapists to life coaches, and many people do find that acting as if something is true seems to increase the likelihood that it will come to be. Additionally, it’s now widely accepted that believing you can accomplish something, even something extremely challenging, makes you much more likely to do so. This is another fact well-known to many athletes, performers and speakers, and to a number of people who’ve recovered from serious illnesses or injuries. Interestingly, the use of carefully chosen words and phrases to focus intention and instill the belief that a desired outcome will manifest is a common magickal technique, and it’s not actually that different from the type of affirmations and positive self-talk that have come into wide use in recent years. Combining precisely detailed rehearsal (ideally visual, sound and tactile elements) with affirmation seems to further increase the likelihood of success. Whether you’re playing tennis, dancing ballet, recovering from surgery or even casting spells, integrating clear visualization of desired results with positive self-talk seems to yield the best outcomes. You can take magick literally, or simply use it as a metaphorical technique that allows you to focus and amplify your emotional energy to help you get things done, but either way the important thing is the outcome. And for a lot of people, the idea of drawing on an unseen cosmic force in order to better accomplish difficult tasks and realize dreams, is incredibly compelling and resonant.

Now, could it be that symbolic actions that no one else is aware of, like affirmations, rituals and spells, can somehow affect events in material reality through non-material means? We certainly don’t know that it’s not true. In the words of Shel Silverstein, “Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” For me personally, maintaining an open-minded agnosticism about these things has proven to be inspirational and generative. Yes, you can view magick strictly as a psychological tool that uses metaphor and mythology to enhance focus and motivation, and obtain excellent results. You may well find that doing this brings you joy, connection, knowledge, and success. This is very much worth pursuing. However, allowing yourself to suspend your disbelief has the potential to greatly enhance both the experience and the results. Just entertaining the possibility that magick might actually be real seems to make it more likely to work. Human beings have a remarkable capacity to hold multiple viewpoints at once. As Walt Whitman famously wrote, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” You can, on one level, think of a ritual as a purely psychological exercise that enables you to focus intention and emotional energy in order to maximize your ability to act effectively. Viewed this way, it’s just you taking some practical steps to optimize your focus, motivation, creativity, energy, enthusiasm, and persistence. And yet, on another level, while you’re immersed in the ritual, you may find it becomes an even more effective exercise if you are able to temporarily literally believe that magick is real and that it’s working on a metaphysical level.

You can understand magick ultimately as a psychological “power tool,” or a lens that employs metaphor to focus and amplify emotional energy, while experiencing it in the moment as if you are actually casting a real spell that has the power to bring you success. And that could be the end of it, for you. For some out there (more than one might expect), the literal and unironic belief in magick is a given, and for others it’s nothing more than a metaphor. But there is a third option: to embrace the not-knowing, the ambiguity, the liminal quality of something that might be the case. The in-between. The marginal. Maintaining an openness to mystery and wonder can be a potent tool for stimulating creativity. If you’re trying to make something out of nothing, feeling like you have the option of tapping into a cosmic pool of limitless possibility is a great motivator. In addition, whether we’re actively engaging in creative work or not, cultivating and nurturing our sense of mystery and wonder can render everyday life more rich, vivid, vital and joyful. Young children live like this all the time, and maybe we would do well to take a cue from them. I don’t know if magick exerts some kind of mysterious influence on events in the outside world, beyond the effects it has on the thoughts, feelings and actions of those who practice it. But I allow for the possibility that it might. Hamlet’s injunction to Horatio — “There are more things in heaven and earth…than are dreamt of in your philosophy” — comes to mind. I like the way that openness feels. Like a doorway to unlimited potential.

It’s hard to notice when you’re in the middle of it, but if you step back it becomes pretty clear that our corporate-controlled economy has managed to transform just about every aspect of modern life into a commodity. It’s a process that insidiously seeps into our daily experience. The COVID crisis has forced this situation into sharp relief. For many of us, paying for prefab commercialized “experiences” has become the primary way we meet our non-material needs. This alienates us, not just from each other but even from ourselves. It keeps us occupied and distracted but does exactly nothing to add meaning or connection to our lives. The hollowness of this way of living seems especially clear when you consider the experiences offered for sale by large chain corporations, but sadly it now applies to most independent and small businesses as well. When you walk into a restaurant or a clothing store (well, when you used to do that, before Everything Completely Changed Forever), even though you’re theoretically paying for goods and services, you’re also paying for the experience: the aesthetic, the jargon the staff uses, the music playing in the background…all of it. Some frequent travelers have started to notice that wherever you go in the developed world — New York, or Berlin, or Melbourne, it doesn’t really matter — you increasingly seem to find the exact same type of hipster bar with the exact same aesthetic. Without realizing it, we can get sucked into the search for the ultimate “authentic” experience, whether it’s the authentic taco, the authentic whiskey, or the authentic meditation retreat. The thing is, it’s an aimless and empty quest. There is no authentic thing. Our lives are totally dominated by these ravenous multinational corporations with a thousand tentacles, grasping hungrily for every last bit of our time, and our money, and our attention. They’re constantly trying to package and sell a feeling, a mindset, a way of being. This actually renders the pursuit of “authenticity” meaningless, or more precisely, unsatisfiable, because the whole economy is based on promoting an unremitting lack of satisfaction. If there ever was such a thing as the “authentic burrito,” you can bet Chipotle wouldn’t sell it to you, and neither would anyone else. They couldn’t. There is no “one true burrito,” and more importantly, what they’re really trying to sell you is a feeling, an aesthetic, a sense of meaning and connection. You can’t buy any of that stuff. Truly authentic experiences only exist outside of the sphere of commercial exchange. Making a burrito for yourself, or someone else, and giving it to them — that’s an authentic experience, even if the burrito itself is mediocre. Making that burrito, and sharing it, and eating it, that’s a set of physical actions, using material goods, but it’s also a set of emotional actions driven by our basic need to take care of ourselves and other people, and to connect.

A silver lining of the COVID-19 “subpocalypse,” as I like to call it, and its smackdown of both the economy and social life is that our hand has been forced. With our purchase options whittled down to online entertainment and product deliveries, it’s become a lot more obvious just how empty and fruitless the whole process of paying for experiences actually is. At a certain point, for a lot of us, it’s become so frustrating that we’ve had no choice but to create and share our own experiences, which are, by definition, authentic. Cooking (and even growing) your own food, sharing it with neighbors, that is an authentic experience that occurs completely outside the frame of buying and selling. It’s an experience centered around connection and meaning. It’s about self-sufficiency and mutual support. If you can’t pay someone to do it for you, do it yourself. Better yet, freely offer up your services to your neighbors, and be amazed at how readily they do the same for you. We’ve been given, or honestly, we’ve had thrust upon us, the chance to engage in activities that bypass the machinery of global corporate commerce. We’re sharing direct, immediate connections, taking care of our own needs and those of our fellow humans without the mediation of a multinational corporation driven by a relentless need to increase shareholder value, or even a local business driven by the need to survive at any cost in a dog-eat-dog world. Direct action. Mutual aid. The gift economy. DIY. The commons. These phenomena point to a possible new and healthy direction for social and political life. While it is foolish to say at this point “we don’t need the state,” the state has not done, and probably will never do, nearly enough to sustain us. In all likelihood we really don’t have a choice. If we want to survive, and even thrive, we need to stop waiting for Big Daddy, let alone Big Brother, to take care of us. This is not to buy into the libertarian fantasy that big government is evil and tyrannical. No, that would be big business. The worst oppression by far comes from massive corporations. Government often serves as their proxy, but government, which at least on paper still represents us, can offer some degree of protection from the unchecked rule of market forces. But we need to stop thinking that government is what’s going to save us. We are going to save us. We have each other and we need each other. We can, we must, build a new world “in the shell of the old” as the well-known activist refrain goes.

We seem to have lost the plot. This is a very fascinating metaphor. It points to our long and deep connection with story. Story has served us as a tool perhaps since our beginnings as a species. We have employed, and continue to employ, story as a way to see meaning, continuity and resolution in our individual lives and in our collective existence(s). The central element of story is plot. A linear arc of events that is analogous to a physical journey through space. We start “here” and end up “there,” in a different place, either literally, metaphorically, or both. Usually, this journey leads to some kind of transformation, progression, evolution. Even when, as is often the case, particularly in stories from the ancient world, the place of origin and the ultimate destination are the same (”restoration”), there is generally some sort of transformation involved. We return home, but a different person from when we left. We can never be the same again. Older, wiser, perhaps also chastened, impoverished. There is no going back. Home may no longer feel like home. The things that once brought us joy may now turn to ash in our mouth, no longer of value to us. Yet we may have learned to find worth in other things. Letting go of outdated values which no longer serve us, we feel freer, lighter. We may have become more sober, more somber, but also more authentic and rooted. Having discarded the things that weighed us down and diverted our energy, we are now better able to connect with, to carry, to own the values we have discovered. By possessing less, we can be more. We can be present to the moment, no longer locked into a linear, logical progression, enslaved by structure and the endless struggle toward outcomes and results.

Perhaps the very process of linear development ultimately renders itself obsolete. The containment offered by a clearly defined path may function like an egg or a cocoon. Once we emerge from it, we no longer need it. We realize that all we need is what is right here right now in front of us. The scales fall from our eyes and we are struck with the sudden understanding that this is all there is and that’s OK. More than just OK, it’s enough. Now, with fresh eyes, we clearly see that there is no difference between the leaving and the arriving. Like Dorothy, we were always home. We had a story, and, having lived that story, we will always have it, but we are no longer in it, and we don’t need to be. The “plot,” the arc of our travels and travails, our growth and expansion and contraction and transformation, like a vehicle, brought us to just this point. Here, we, and everyone and everything, are just as they are, as they always were. Paradoxically, without the perspective provided by our movement through time and space, we would never have been able to grasp that there really is nowhere to go. Having arrived at this understanding, we now find the arc of story to have become superfluous. In the very process of unfolding, the plot has made itself unnecessary. It contained the seeds of its own destruction all along. We have indeed lost the plot. But we have lost it not the way you lose a precious object, but the way you lose an encumbrance. A volitional act of self-liberation rather than a misfortune: “I finally lost that damned plot that kept weighing me down!” How freeing and empowering!

3/14/20

I just spent ten minutes listening to, and chanting along with, a recording by Jason McKean entitled “Serenity OM.” It’s just him with a group, chanting OM periodically, accompanied by gently repetitive electronic backing. You can listen to a 6 minute sample here on YouTube, and the full one hour track is here on Spotify. The impact of alternating slow, deep breaths, inhaling, holding, exhaling and holding in time to the rhythm of the music (I did each for approximately 8 seconds or so, but 4 seconds is an easier beginner practice), and then periodically chanting, was tremendous. I felt deeply suffused with a sense of calm, groundedness, and well-being. Before starting I was feeling quite destabilized, agitated, stressed and fatigued by the non-stop coronavirus chatter. This simple practice I’ve described utterly transformed my physical, psychological and emotional states (and, I’m inclined to believe, my spiritual state as well, although I’ll leave it up to you to decide for yourself what you think about that). But looking at it even from a strictly scientific materialist viewpoint, it’s well-established that breath control, mindfulness and chant can exert measurable effects on stress hormones and vital signs, which can then impact physical immunity and psychological resilience, among many other things.

There is something particularly empowering and enlivening about using your voice. Singing can be very therapeutic, but the simplicity of chant, the repetitive nature, its ability to physically vibrate the bones and chambers of the head, can create an experience of deep presence wherein one feels simultaneously connected to one’s body and to the outside world. Sound moves the air around us, and the vibrations in turn vibrate our own eardrums and the eardrums of those around us. Sound can be seen as a bridge between matter and energy. The experience of turning our own bodies into resonance chambers can produce a vivid sense of unity between body, brain and psyche. While chanting wordlessly, or using words we don’t understand, can be itself very powerful, there is an added power to chants which have meaning for us, whether assigned by us or by consensus through language, especially as employed by contemplative traditions. “Om” is a word familiar to most, which has rich and varied connotations, including “cosmic sound,” “oneness,” and “is-ness,” and can be seen to represent the entirety of existence in its unity. “Om” alone can be tremendously powerful, but another possibility is “Om shanti.” “Shanti” means peace, and the chant of “Om shanti” can be understood as a wish to manifest peace at a personal, social and universal level. Here is a lovely 10 minute rendition you can chant along with. The chanting starts around the 1:20 mark. Namaste!

“May You Live in Interesting Times.” A (probably) apocryphal ancient Chinese curse you’ve most likely heard before. Well, if these aren’t “interesting” times, I don’t know what would qualify. Yes, things could certainly be a lot worse, but a global pandemic and rapidly shifting waves of political enthusiasm and disappointment, against the backdrop of climate change, extreme inequality and the rise of hateful and reactionary regimes in the US, the UK, India, and around the world is certainly…”interesting.”

What is probably the most challenging aspect for us as individuals and as a society, is the profound level of uncertainty we are experiencing now. The coronavirus pandemic progresses daily and exerts multiple impacts beyond the real and significant health effects of the disease itself. The global economy is taking major hits, and the psychosocial impact of “social isolation,” the cancellation of public events, the loss of work and income for many, is likely to be pervasive and powerful. Whatever else happens, life is going to change, probably for quite some time to come. Our routines have been disrupted, and may continue to be disrupted, in many ways, some predictable, some unforeseen.

The energies of panic and chaos seem prevalent now, and this is completely understandable. Many of us feel as if we are continually “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” and this particular type of gnawing stress, induced by a non-trivial but chronic threat to order, safety and even survival, can be extremely debilitating. What can we do to alleviate this pressure? To provide even a little relief? Of course, making sure not to get sucked into an endless spiral of news and social media reporting on the crisis is essential. Falling down a rabbit-hole of Netflix binging may have a strong appeal right now, but is probably not going to be helpful. We must constructively and actively fill the time with meaningful activities, including creative pursuits like making art, playing music, and writing. And perhaps most importantly, we need to address the void that’s going to be left by “social distancing,” by connecting as much as we can through the phenomenal online technologies now available to us. Not through liking things on Facebook, but by setting up video chats with friends and family. Maybe play music together remotely, or even put on a play! It may sound a bit hokey, but things like this can add a rich level of meaning and connection, something we need so badly right now. In a weird way, we can look to the pre-technological pursuits people engaged in in the 19th century, especially those living in more isolated areas. One activity my wife and I have been enjoying for years now is reading to each other. It is a lovely way to connect, and also offers a much more immediate and compelling experience of literature than just reading yourself.

Engaging in an expansive, meaning-oriented transcendent practice of some kind can be extremely grounding and helpful now. Whether or not you consider yourself religious, or even “spiritual,” even the most materialist of atheists can appreciate the power of deep breathwork, mindfulness, and cultivating a direct felt experience of the vast interconnectedness of all things in this incredible universe. If you are a practitioner of meditation or yoga, or if you are part of a religious tradition, then you already have a framework and a means to activate this kind of experience. Chant, prayer, meditation, contemplation, and gentle movement practices can help us connect body, mind and “spirit” (whatever that means for you). Embracing gratitude, listing a few things each day which you’re thankful for, can be a powerful practice. Visualizing positive outcomes, calmly and in great detail, with love but without attachment, can also instill a sense of well-being and optimism that itself can help yield more positive results, without even considering the ramifications of an idea like “manifestation.” Doing everything you can to feel safe, connected, grounded, and part of something bigger than yourself is, by itself, plenty of fuel for “manifesting” the good things you’d like to see in the world. There is so much over which we don’t have control, and acknowledging, and fully accepting, that, is also essential to our well-being. But by making a conscious choice to focus on small actions we can take to nurture a sense of safety, meaning and connection in ourselves and others, we can become more empowered to weather change, and to move the needle, even just a little bit, toward more positive outcomes. But regardless of outcome, the meaning and connection we create together is deeply valuable in and of itself, and is something we can rely on no matter how things change. It’s kind of the point of this whole existence thing.

[NO SPOILERS]

As a PTSD survivor, I have found the character of John Wick (from the three eponymous films starring Keanu Reeves) to have great resonance with my own experiences. On the surface, my life is absolutely nothing like John Wick’s, and yet, the feeling the films evoke in me is a familiar one. John displays incredible survival skills and tenacity, but he ultimately expends a huge amount of physical and emotional energy, at great cost to himself and others, in order to essentially stay in the same place. He seems incapable of progress or forward motion. John is stuck in the past, unable to move beyond the loss of his wife, and remembering her is his sole motivation for staying alive. John no longer feels any connection with his old profession, and yearns to move beyond it, but he has not landed on a new purpose to replace the old toxic one. His impressive skillset serves only to keep him where he is and prevent him from being annihilated.

Many times I have felt as if I expend a huge amount of energy battling off more intangible enemies – negative thoughts, traumatic memories, feelings of helplessness and dread – just to be able to survive from one day to the next. These psychological forces can seem every bit as real and as threatening as an army of assassins sent to wipe me off the face of the earth. I have come to have a high degree of respect for my own tenacity and survival skills, and I’ve often identified (or rather, misidentified) these as resilience. Resilience, in fact, implies a capacity not just to survive, but to thrive; to grow and change and evolve. This is not to say that I haven’t displayed some of these qualities; indeed I have, and, however slowly, I’ve been able to move towards a new kind of life. But historically I have not made a clear distinction for myself between surviving and thriving, although I am gradually coming to grasp it. In contrast, John Wick remains in a place where he can’t even consider the possibility of thriving, or what that might mean for him, and that is a place that I know all too well; I lived there for years, and I still return often.

The feeling of being stuck in trauma, of constantly fighting hard simply to stay in place and lose no more ground, is something I feel to some degree every day. And that is OK; what’s important is that it’s not what I feel every minute of every day, and that over time, it has come to be less and less the predominant theme of my life. But my daily inner life continues to bear enough resemblance to John Wick’s outer life to remind me that I still have far to go. Those of us living with PTSD can look at John Wick as a potent metaphor for our experiences, one that can help us access pride and self-esteem for being able to live through external and internal challenges that might have defeated many others, while also serving as a stark reminder of the great danger of fixity and “stuckness”. Resilience most importantly implies flexibility, suppleness and the capacity to bounce back. These are characteristics that John Wick (and the John Wick living within the psyches of many PTSD survivors) lacks. Although it wouldn’t be very marketable for the film franchise, it’s possible to imagine a future in which John Wick is able to access a new purpose that encourages him to move towards growth and beyond mere survival. Perhaps one day John can apply his fearsome skillset towards more peaceful, or at least less overtly harmful, ends. John Wick the self-defense trainer, John Wick the triathlete, John Wick the stuntman or, who knows, even John Wick the life coach. Given his single-mindedness and aptitude for self-discipline and asceticism, it’s even possible to imagine John Wick the zen master. Perhaps writing fanfic detailing the evolution of a future John Wick towards a life of new, self-transcending purpose would be a useful therapeutic exercise for those of us who feel a strong resonance with the character as a metaphor for our experiences with PTSD.