in progress...

Consider your present self as an actor in a play, hardly a new analogy, but a suitable one. The scene is set in the twentieth century. You create the props, the settings, the themes; in fact you write, produce, and act in the entire production - you and every other individual who takes part.

You are so focused in your roles, however; so intrigued by the reality that you have created, so entranced by the problems, challenges, hopes, and sorrows of your particular roles that you have forgotten they are of your own creation. This intensely moving drama, with all its joys and tragedies, can be compared with your present life, your present environment, both individually and en masse.

Non-monogamous folks recognize that during a lifetime you can and will be attracted to other people even if you are in a wonderful, fulfilling relationship; they make room in their relationship for these attractions rather than allow them to cause anxiety, jealousy, and unreasonable expectations.

God is always joking. Look at your own life — it is a joke! Look at other people’s lives, and you will find jokes and jokes and jokes. Seriousness is illness; seriousness has nothing spiritual about it. Spirituality is laughter, spirituality is joy, spirituality is fun.

I don’t have to be anything at all. I don’t even have to be myself, because there is no such thing as not being myself. I am inescapably myself.

One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.