Controversial Spiritual Paths, or My Friend Marcus Likes Porn

So I’m talking to my friend Marcus about how, on an energetic level, we are completely unlimited in our choices. Which is both exhilarating and confusing. Life in this realm, I am starting to discover—well, despite all our cultural baggage and inherited constraints—it’s all pretty much just one big expanding holodeck.

And if you don’t know what a holodeck is, then shame on you for neglecting your teenage responsibilities—why didn’t you spend your youth smoking pot and watching Star Trek Next Generation? It’s not going to watch itself, you know.

But I digress.

In essence, we live in a world that is continually shaped by our beliefs. You may not believe this, in which case, your experiences will confirm that belief too. The Universe really doesn’t mind if you choose to believe that your thoughts have little or nothing to do with the world that takes shape around you.

That’s why you gotta love the Universe. It’s always like, “No problem. We can do that. Here’s your completely random grab bag of mixed unrelated events that confirm your belief there’s no point to the whole thing. Have a nice day!”

One of my confused core beliefs has been that I have to work hard in order to make money. Somehow, money doesn’t seem to come to me unless I am, on some level, earning it (usually in pitiful quantities) through my attempts to do things which I'm not very good at. 

On the other hand, to go with this fairly common Puritan Ethic problem, I also have another confused core belief, which is pretty much the completely opposite impulse: a vague feeling that I should be getting paid to lie on a chaise-lounge watching other people dig a garden. I’m not proud of what some would call these entitlement issues, but there you have it. 

I just feel like this whole earning-huge-amount-of-money-while-I-do-something-I-like shouldn’t be so hard and so complicated.

So I’m talking to my friend Marcus how I want to be done with all this nonsense. “From now on,” I tell him, “I want to lie in a hammock and make money.”

“How are you going to make money in a hammock?” He asks.

“The people will come to me.” I say. “I will lie in my hammock and the people will come. They will ask questions. I will dispense wisdom. Then they will weep with heartfelt gratitude, shower me with golden coins, and leave to go make improvements in their lives, based on my insightful suggestions. Meanwhile, I will remain in my hammock.”

“I want to make money in a hammock,” Marcus says.

“You can lie next to me. In your own hammock. You can help me dispense wisdom.”

“I really want a flat screen television,” Marcus says, “If I’m going to be lying around in a hammock. And to be realistic, probably a lot of porn. Is that going to interfere with your dispensing of wisdom?”

“Ummm, well, you know that watching porn is a very low vibration activity, right? Like energetically, it's a low vibration of consciousness.”

Marcus gives me his patient look.  “I don’t really know what that means. There’s not going to be any kind of vibrators involved.  I’m a dude.”

“Well, just so you know, you are demeaning women and poisoning your own sensuality with all that crap. And besides, I feel like it’s going to be kind of distracting for people who are trying to receive wisdom, with all that heavy breathing and emphatic moaning in the background.”

“I’ll keep the volume real low,” Says Marcus. “The sound’s not that important to me anyway.”

“I’m still not sure it’s a good idea, but there’s a point we’re trying to make here, so I guess it’s okay. Can it just be fairly mainstream porn? I feel that the people might be even more distracted by a lot of transvestites. Or sodomy.”

“How much money do you think I can earn each day lying in a hammock watching porn?”

I think about this for a moment. “Hmmmm. I honestly don’t know. Will you be masturbating?” 

He gives me another look. 

“Okay, so that’s a yes. Well, that’s going to put even more people off our wisdom-dispensing. Still. I guess it’s the principle of the thing. So, depending on our intake of golden coins, I will pay you one thousand dollars a day to lie in a hammock next to mine, watching porn on your flat screen t.v. and, doing, you know, what feels right to you. But please try to be discreet. Although disgusting on so many levels, this might be good for the people. You could be helping us out spiritually, big time.”

“How’s that?”

“We could say to the people: ‘Behold, look upon this man and see how free you truly are. For he imagined a life in which he watched pornography from a hammock, and got paid to enjoy it, and lo, he had faith, and it has come to pass.'

'Think of this man when next you complain of your limited options, your meager talents, your troubled past. For who among you dared to dream like this man—this man of no discernible skills or abilities whatsoever, this man of no taste, sensitivity, or discretion--and still, he is nurtured by Divine Source. Still, he gets to live his dream.’ And the people will look upon you and realize that it is true.”

“You know, if I had realized you were going to make such a big deal out of this, I would never have mentioned porn,” Marcus says.  “We could just watch HBO’s True Detective. I love that show.”

“I think that might be best,” I say.  “In fact, could you watch something a little less sexy and murdery?  Something a little less provocative? Like ABC Family?”

“I thought the whole point of this wisdom-dispensing was to show the people that we each can have and enjoy anything we want!” Marcus complains. “I hate ABC Family.  It makes me want to throw up in my mouth.”

“I’m going to throw up in your mouth if you don’t shut up.  This isn’t about you and your stupid TV.  This is about the people and letting them see that we each can follow our own bliss.”

“But you’re interfering with my bliss right now just so you’ll be more commercially viable. Why don’t you just market to people who want to receive spiritual wisdom but who also like watching artificially attractive people having sex?”

“Why don’t YOU go get your own crowd of wisdom seekers to come pay you money to dispense wisdom while you watch dirty movies, you Big Perv.”

“I can’t. I don’t have any wisdom to dispense.  I’m just the example of fulfilled happiness without any special gifts except my gift for watching porn.  You said so yourself.”

I sigh.

Marcus is wrong, of course, just like porn. But he’s also right on some weird level.  How quick most of us are to denigrate others who do things that are unpleasing to us.

In the meantime, while me and Marcus sort this out, feel free to imagine and claim your own freaky goodness—even if it in no way resembles what other people perceive as good. 

Even if other people think it is lowbrow or stupid or lame. It certainly doesn’t have to be as controversial as pornography, but it might be just as weirdly unappealing to others.

 I used to have a roommate who collected porcelain baby angel naked cupid dolls. I believe she even belonged to a club that sent a new one every month. This did not make sense to me. But it made sense to her.

The Source of All Things, say wisdom teachers Abraham Hicks, delights in our differences. It doesn’t prefer some of us to others because of our habits. That’s hard for us to believe, hard for me to believe, but I can’t help feeling that it’s true, nonetheless.

So really, one could say that it’s our spiritual responsibility to get out there and start enjoying our unique pleasures and preferences.

It could be Star Trek. Or collecting baby angel naked cupid dolls. It could be baking cookies for all the neighbors on your street that you haven’t yet met. Or being the teacher, the guru, the leader, the listener, the hero you are meant to be.

Even if you’re ahead of your time and other people don’t quite get it yet.

I can’t tell you what to choose. But I can tell you, that at least in theory, your perfect unique choice adds to the expansion of the Universe. And that would seem to be a good thing.

I myself like hammocks. And flat-screen televisions. But, just for the record, not porn.

Moon, You are Huge! My Favorite Inspirational Moments

I don’t know if y’all are noticing this, but it seems like life just keeps speeding up and getting stranger and stranger, more and more connected, more and more intensely entangled. Perhaps it’s simply the centrifugal force of the paradigm shift of 2012 picking up energy and sucking us in to the inevitable Something Else. To the end of the world, or to the beginning of what some visionaries call The Great Turning. Being a bit of an intuitive retard, I’m not sure what’s going on. But I can feel something happening.

Or perhaps it’s a personal experience that I, with the charming narcissism so prevalent in my generation, am assuming has global resonance. Whatevs, as my Generation Y roommate would say. I’m just really excited to tell you guys about one of my recent Top Favorite Spiritual Moments, cause it was so so awesome and I think, if I tell it right, you are gonna dig it.

It’s a beautiful evening in early fall. Just past midnight or so. Earlier, an unfairly huge juicy orange moon has risen up through the sky, threatening to take all of Colorado prisoner with its mysterious looming beauty. Now, although slightly less mysterious, it’s still hanging out, basking in its own perfection, like, “Hey. Yeah. I’m the Freakin’ MOON, fool. What you lookin’ at?”

The air is crisp, clean, cool but not cold. I’m sitting on the balcony of my townhouse, looking out onto the mellifluous night and the quiet street below, free of cars for the moment. The night is hushed, waiting, lurking with hidden potential, and I am one with this night. I am in an unusual state of mind, or rather, occupying an unusual state of being—one that comes to me every now and then.

This state has something to do with meditation, something to do with clearing my consciousness of the Business as Usual Ellen Nonsense that tends to go on. For a moment, sometimes many moments in a row, I am free of my story. True, I have done terrible things. I have also done good things. I have made horrendous mistakes and probably am making more as I speak. (Did I mention that earlier I blew off writing my class syllabus so I could watch VH-1’s 100 Greatest Songs of the 00’s? Yeah, I know. But look, does my class really need to know what we’re going to do in this workshop as much as I need to know the back story behind Kellis’s 2003 “My Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yard”?)

But somehow, in this particular state of being, none of this matters.

Nature, we are told, abhors a vacuum. Into the temporary vacuum of my non-judgment, all kinds of strong emotion pour in. I feel myself filling up with something huge, warm, and spacious, something that runs through the center of my chest like bourbon, only better. I look at the moon with awe, and remember another Giant Moon: Athens, Greece, 1987. I am on a European vacation with my art class and Bob, who is from Germany, looks up at the spectacular moon looming immediately over our heads and lifts his drink to it, “Moon! You are Yoooge! (translation: “Huge!”) For those of us present, this becomes a favorite toast for years.

As I sit on my balcony, here, in 2011, I am filled with love for that moon of 1987, for the people who were there with me, people who tonight are grownups scattered all over the world, grownups writing checks for mortgages and begging their children to do their homework. I am full of love for their houses and their children and for this moon, the moon that floats gently above us all.

Actually, to tell the truth, I am full of love in general. Wow. Where did all this come from? For just this moment I can look on everything around me with astonishment and wonder—all surrounding objects have dropped their ordinary pretense of “hey, yeah, so I’m a tree—big deal.” Instead, they shimmer with clarity and possibility and intention, with the power of something ELSE no longer hidden. I look and feel more love. Then more love. My love rises up to meet that love and becomes more than that. I am overwhelmed with love, and I must tell someone.

“I love you!” I whisper to the trees, to the moon. “Oh, I love you! I love you!” I whisper to the night, to the planet, to the Universe. I feel all of us—me, the trees, the moon, the night, my old friends, Bob, the children and their homework—all of us pulsing together as one fluid heartbeat: “I love you! I love you! I love you!”

At this exact moment, a lone car shoots past on the street below. A man is yelling at someone on a cell phone, his window open. “I hate you, you f*****g bitch!”

I love this. It is perfect. I love this man for providing the perfect point of contrast to all this love—and for allowing me to observe that this love is large enough to include the man and his anger and obscenities. I love that the Universe brought us together at this precise intersection of each of our emotional lives. “I love you too, you f*****g a**hole!” I say to the man, now long gone down the street. “I love you! I love you! Thank you! I hope you and your girl make up!”

I’m pretty sure they made up. After all, there’s a lot of love available, some of it from sources you would not expect.

Summertime, Spirituality, and Tanorexia

Greetings, Superfriends! How is this beautiful summertime treating you?

I want to apologize for my long absence from this blog. Terrible things have come into my life since last we were together. There’s nothing worse than when you make a bunch of plans to create things and have success and get people excited and then THOSE THINGS COME TRUE. I’m just saying, I had WAAAY more time to blog when the only other competition for my attention was my next spiritual webinar(love you Vishen Lakhiani!) or MTV’s Jersey Shore.

And speaking of Jersey Shore, it’s probably just as well that I don’t have too much time to watch it because it really exacerbates my condition. As those of you who have known me since high school or college are aware, summer is tough for me because I suffer from extreme Tanorexia.

For those of you not familiar with this condition, let me explain. We who suffer from this debilitating disease report being swept by frequent feelings of “not tan enough.” This condition affects its victims on spiritual as well as emotional and physical levels, and is especially dangerous for those of us who came of age during the heyday of Baywatch.

Oh, sure, for a while, you can distract yourself with new clothes or adorable fuzzy animals or addressing your friend’s latest obsessive outrage (I have a friend who has an infinite capacity for outrage and she really keeps me busy). You can even choose to meditate on the Divine Love whose purple velvety majesty keeps this Universe expanding into ever greater dimensions.

And it works. For a while. And then you see Pauly and Vinny and Snookie and you look down at your slightly graying white legs poking out of your slightly graying white shorts and the compulsion rears its ugly head: “GTL! GTL! GTL!” (that’s “Gym, Tan, Laundry” for those uninitiated in the pleasures of Jersey Shore).

I have another friend who pointed out that I am forty-one years old and maybe it’s time I moved on to more mature obsessive compulsions. And I do my best. The reason I haven’t been writing for this blog for such a long time is that I am now writing for three others which actually have something to do with my getting paid and thus being able to support myself. I am actually becoming somewhat obsessed with supporting myself, which, believe me, is not an obsession that’s troubled me too much in this lifetime.

Mostly I like to be supported by others. First it was my family. Then it was my universities and the Ridiculously Generous Souls of the student loan system (three college degrees can buy a LOT of Nordstrom, Anthropologie, and DSW!). Then it was my former husband. Then I turned to Law of Attraction and learned that God and the Universe wanted to support me. So I decided to let God do that by allowing me to win the lottery. God told me to get a job and He/She would let me know about the lottery real soon.

Sigh.

Oh Well, as my dad would say.

My dad Matthew Melko Jr. died last summer at about this time. He was the ultimate Jersey Shore boy, having grown up spending his summers in Seaside Heights, where the show is filmed. I asked him once whether the Jersey Shore had changed much since his heyday in the fifties. And he said that although cultural norms had changed (back then you didn’t, for example, have sex with people in dance clubs as a matter of course), he was glad to see that Seaside and Jersey were just as tacky and pointless and strangely beautiful as ever.

Whether you are tan or not tan, whether you are on speaking terms with God and the Universe or not, whether you love the beach or the mountains or the mall, I salute you and wish you an amazing summer. It’s good to be back.

Outsource My Worry

So, I’m reading this great book by a simmering wunderkind genius named Timothy Ferris. It’s called The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.

I know. Right. Right? But doesn’t that title kinda make you salivate, just a little bit? Or, perhaps, depending on your current relationship with your work and your finances, it kinda makes you long to collapse in your recliner with annoyance and a bag of Skittles. Or maybe, if you’re feeling extra discouraged, it awakens a desire to go ahead and get your medical marijuana card. After all, you’ve put at least four hours of work into avoiding your work already this week. Must there be more? These damn kids today. . .

A provocative disclaimer shouts from the top of the back jacket cover: “WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU WANT TO QUIT YOUR JOB”

As my friend Olga would say, “Indeed.”

I won’t go into all the surprisingly wise and practical suggestions this book offers right now. Because that would require my doing the actual work of analyzing and condensing for you. And frankly, well, I think there’s a new episode of Family Guy available online. Also, I have to consider the best possible giant fuzzy boots for fall.

But I do want to touch on a brilliant concept from Ferris’s chapter on “Outsourcing Life: Off-Loading the Rest and a Taste of Geoarbitrage.” (I’m afraid I simply do not have the resources at the present time to explain this last term, else I get lost down a rabbit hole of my own giant fuzzy economic ignorance).

Ferris, a passionate advocate of personal outsourcing, cleverly outsources this chapter itself to another writer, AJ Jacobs, editor-at-large at Esquire magazine. Jacobs, in turn, explains how he was influenced by another Outsourcing Opus, the best-selling The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, to outsource low-end tasks of his own life. Paying bills, changing wireless services, finding his son a Tickle Me Elmo, apologizing to his wife, that sort of thing.

Delighted by his new Bangalore virtual personal assistant (pleasingly named Honey K. Balani), Jacobs decides to outsource his worry:

“For the last few weeks I’ve been tearing my hair out because a business deal is taking far too long to close. I asked Honey if she would be interested in tearing her hair out in my stead. Just for a few minutes a day. She thought it was a wonderful idea. ‘I will worry about this every day,’ she wrote. ‘Do not worry.’

“This outsourcing of my neuroses was one of the most successful experiments of the month. Every time I started to ruminate, I’d remind myself that Honey was already on the case, and I’d relax. No joke—this alone was worth it.” (Ferris, p.118)

AJ Jacobs you mad genius. I love this idea. More than anything else in life, I would vastly enjoy having Less Worry.

Seriously. I mean, sure, I want more money, more love, more freedom, more harmonious relationships, more shoes, more praise, more approval, more flowers flung by adoring fans as I walk, more of you admitting I am right and you are less right. . .

Yeah, pretty much more of everything.

And I’m a recovering junkie, so this is normal. We addicts definitely love our “More.” We love our More more than just about anything. But I don’t think we’re alone in this feeling. . . I think most of us desire. . .more. I think that’s just part of our design, part of how life evolves and unfolds, and “More,” while not necessarily “better,” isn’t necessarily bad.

But less?

Oh, in this case. Yes Oh Yes Oh Yes Oh Yes. Give me less worry. I am dying to outsource my worry! I am so excited to try this. But I don’t yet have a virtual assistant, in Bangalore or anywhere else?

Who should I ask?

Should I ask different people to worry about different aspects of my life? It doesn’t seem fair to load any one person down with all my shit. I am a skilled and gifted worrier—in fact, worrying is one of my most spectacular character assets.

I am also a very quiet worrier—don’t tend to share my worries out loud—so others, in general, don’t have to be disturbed by my worry until I begin to act out in totally unexpected and psychotic ways. Which is lots of fun for everyone involved.

Maybe I should offer to exchange worries with someone? If any of you would like to swap brooding obsessions, please let me know. One thing about my worries is that while the item in question may change, the general subject matter stays tediously consistent.

I have to worry about this a little more and then I’ll let you know. See you next week.

Much Love to All,

Ellen

Spiritual Challenges (aka "Other People")

Wow, You Guys.

It's so amazing to write stuff, put it out there, and then have people WRITE BACK.

So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Got some great questions/comments coming in from you folks. I will do my best to reply.

Jen from Colorado writes:


"Dear Ellen,

I believe it's important to love everyone, and I'm working hard on approaching people and interacting with them with love (rather than judgment, or sarcasm, say, like I usually do). But what about when the person is a dick? Or a soul-sucker? Or passive-aggressive? Or just boring? What is my spiritual and moral obligation there?"


Dear Jen,

Ohhhhh, good question. I am dying to find out what I'm going to come up with, cause frankly, my initial answer is "Jen, hell if I know."

This is one that trips me up quite a bit. When I'm by myself, I can often get into a pretty good Ninja Zen Master Zone. . . an emotional energy field of love, acceptance, and curious, pleasure appreciation and anticipation.

Left alone to stew in my own meditational juices, I occasionally hit a plateau where it feels like nothing anybody says or does will ever bother me again.

I can feel how funny it is that I ever thought it mattered.

And this blissful state will last forever, because it is the truth, and I am ringing with it, gently, like a deep and happy bell. It will last into all realms of eternity, all reaches of time and space. . .

Except for the convergence of time and space where my boyfriend calls me up to tell me about the latest computer software he's coveting at Best Buy. . . but he really can't afford it. But he really wants it. But he can't really afford it. But what if he were to budget for it? Do I know how amazing this new technology is? Do I realize what he could do if he just went ahead and bought it anyway? Should he buy it anyway? Maybe he'll buy it and try it and then maybe take it back later.

I love him, but I am also longing to kick him to death.

What is my moral/spiritual obligation here?

What is the appropriate spiritual response to my neighbor, Carl, who's always coming over to chat in the middle of the day? He's a nice man, actually, basically a good guy.

But he also drinks with admirable dedication. He's got a beer in his hand pretty much every second he's conscious. And he's got a gift for long, surprisingly detailed (yet curiously vague) stories that take a lot of plot and character exposition. About things that happened thirty years ago, back when he was a hell-raisin' high-school youth. These kids today, it seems, don't know shit from shine-ola. I haven't told him yet that I would be hard-pressed to identify shine-ola myself. But, in any event, the important point is that things were different back then, back when people knew their ass from their elbow.

I get in this weird cycle of listening because I feel tuned in to his essential goodness, and also to his profound loneliness, but underneath my apparent empathy I'm starting to become quietly, deeply insane with boredom. I would rather be doing something else.

I wish I could say that that "something else" is my work, or meditating on the Divine, or actively engaging my creativity, but honestly, listening to Carl talk makes me long violently to be reading Us Weekly, or to be experimenting with parting my hair on the left side instead of the right.

I mean, spiritually speaking, how does this scenario fit in with offering love at all times?

And these are people I basically like.

What about people I don't like at all?

Reading Emmet Fox's The Sermon on the Mount, and came across this bit:

"People. . . have been under the erroneous impression that to forgive a person means you have to compel yourself to like him. Happily, this is by no means the case--we are not called to like anyone whom we do not find ourselves liking spontaneously, and, indeed it is quite impossible to like people to order. You can more like to order than you can hold the winds in your fist, and if you endeavor to coerce yourself into doing so, you will finish by disliking or hating the offender more than ever."

Thus speaketh Emmet, and I think he has a good point here. But is it truly possible to "love" someone that you don't really like? What does that feel like?

If anyone out there has direct experience of this phenomenon, please, please post a comment or email me at moreellen888@gmail.com.

Jen, I gotta think about this one some more. I'll check back with you guys next week.

Namaste. Or, as my friend Toby says, "Narcisste." Which means, "The narcissist in me judges and rejects the narcissist in you." Give it a try!

Conversation with My Passion, Part Deux

Greetings, My Interweb Brethren.

Got a lot of interesting comments from you guys about the conversation between me and My Passion.

For those of you who have not the pleasure of knowing of what I'm speaking, in an earlier post I wrote about initiating a conversation with my Creative Passion, based on a recommendation from metaphysical guru Wayne Dyer.

Dr. Dyer advises that we think of our passion as the Source of Creative Energy within us, that we visualize talking to It, asking It questions, taking It for walks while we hold hands. I followed this advice and found my Passion extremely (almost maniacally) enthusiastic and chatty.

Many of you reported that you also have been speaking with Your Creative Passion, and that strangely, Your Creative Passion and My Creative Passion sound a lot alike.

Which, frankly, is making me kinda suspicious. Do you think all of our Creative Passions get together for Motivational Seminars? Maybe they call the Most Persuasive Creative Passions to the stage and give them Inspirational Gift Baskets?

Oh, that would just be so typical of My Creative Passion to get involved in some shit like that. My Passion is probably involved in a Multi Level Marketing pyramid to make money on the energy of other people's Creative Passions.

Which I guess is. . . good, now that I think about it. But on the other hand, I'm the one hosting My Passion. This is my house! And there are rules. Well, okay, I'll admit we're not too organized yet, but I could call in one of those organizational experts, or Supernanny, or somebody, and then--well, I don't know. Yet.

All I'm saying is that if My Creative Passion is racking up the power points in vibrational reality, I just want a cut. And I don't think I should settle for extra cell phone minutes or 10% off a Vegas vacation.

Oh, and by the way: Did you know that Vegas is like a ghost town these days? Apparently President Obama advised Americans to stay away from gambling in these tough times. From what I've heard the mayor of Las Vegas is maaaaaaaad.

But back to the topic at hand: spiritual vs. physical manifestation. You know, if I've learned one thing from all these spiritual self-help books I read, it's that the most important question in life is "Where's my stuff?" (Eckhart Tolle just called and he wants his Power of Now flash cards back).

All right. I'm getting to the bottom of this right now. I'm calling My Passion, that sneaky bugger, and we'll find out what's really up:


ME: Hey. You. Creative Passion. You there?

MY PASSION: Heyyyy! It's you! Are you ready to create? Do you want to go for another walk? Do you want to hold hands again?

ME: Can it, Twinkles. I want to know what's going on over there in Non-Physical Energy World. I've been talking to my friends and I'm starting to think you're cheating on me.

MY PASSION: Oh really?

ME: Yeah. You know, you're all super-sweet when it comes to me being your favorite person and all, but how come all you're telling all my friends the same thing? Your milkshake bring all the boys to the yard? Is that what it's all about for you?

MY PASSION: You really need to get a grip. Seriously. I think it's time to cut back on Tool Academy and Charm School. In fact, you might want to take a little break from all of VH-1 for a while.

ME: Nice deflection, Toots. Fess up. I can take it. Are you out there inspiring other people when I'm not paying attention?

MY PASSION: No way. I am your One and Only PERSONAL Creative Passion. Everybody gets his or her own. No Take-backs, No Sharesies. It is true, however, that we all share a common mission.

ME: Oh yeah? What's that?

MY PASSION: We want you to love yourselves so much that you can't help communicating that love exactly as you are specifically designed to do.

ME: Oh. Well. Okay.

MY PASSION: You, for some reason, were designed occasionally to express your love through an incredibly inappropriate sense of humor. Like how you met Oprah Winfrey and did that riff on how gigantic her head is. Wasn't that fun?

ME: Oh yeah, she loved that.

MY PASSION: And what about that time you wrote your boyfriend that song about his cat getting feline leukemia? Now, that was creative.

ME: And hilarious! But only cause he worries so much.

MY PASSION: See? That's how it is. That's how the Universe expands, because of creations like that.

ME: The Universe expands because of feline leukemia?

MY PASSION: No, because of your unique perspective on each and every event. You chose to concentrate your attention into this physical form, and now here you are, having life experiences. And every life experience you have enriches the Universe, because the Universe expands through you! Which is awesome! And we all appreciate you soooo much! And don't worry because that's exactly what Every Single Person is doing here! And they all have personal Creative Passions to help them! And I'm probably not supposed to tell you but sometimes we DO get together and just brag and brag and brag about you guys. You all are so amazing! All of you, but especially you, Ellen, especially you. Do you remember that time you wanted to create a line of Spiritually Incorrect Affirmation Cards? Now THAT was a hoot. Or what about the time you wanted to--

(Here, again, I had to hang up on My Passion. Because I was afraid it was about to say something really embarrassing. But you get the general idea.)

Me and My Passion: What Would Wayne Dyer Say?

Hey Y'all.

So, I'm reading Wayne Dyer's Excuses Begone! (that Wayne, I'm telling you. I totally want to hook up with that Magic Publishing Water he and Deepak Chopra appear to be swilling. You could build entire structures with just one copy of each of their many books. Probably be a pretty solid structure, too).

In the chapter on "Passion," Wayne says:

"It may be helpful to think of your passion as the presence of the creative Source inside you. Talk to this invisible yet tangible presence within and thank it for never abandoning you. Go for walks with it and imagine holding hands with it. Ask it questions and listen to what it has to say, making mental notes of how it is directing you. Feel enormous gratitude for the reality of this presence, and allow it to guide you in any way it wishes."

Fair 'nuff. I decided to sit down and have a chat with My Passion and see what's on Its mind.


ME: Hey. What's going on?

MY PASSION: Dude, not a whole lot. How come you're not doing any writing? What about your book? What about your blog?

ME: Ahhhhh, I dunno. Don't really feel like it. Gotta lot of stuff to do, you know, the whole work thing.

MY PASSION: I see. So, work. And searching for the perfect skinny jeans. And keeping up with Kim Kardashian and the Brangelina thing is really taking it out of you, I guess.

ME: Okay, now, see, when you put it like that it just seems lame. I'll have you know I lead a very complex and rich and rewarding life, and I do lots of cool stuff. I do lots of stuff for other people, too.

MY PASSION: Yes. Other people are nice, aren't they? I really admire you and all you do for others.

ME: Thank you. Finally. You see, that wasn't too hard, was it? Just a little bit of validation now and then.

MY PASSION: Indeed. But I, for one, have been really missing you. I'm getting kinda restless just hanging out in here all full of wonderful energy, incredible ideas, magnificent blessings, all these delicious, desirable, delirious vibrations! I'm psyched you want to hang out!

ME: Oh, I do, I do. I'd sorta forgotten how inspiring you can be. I like the inspiration a lot. It's really awesome. But could you maybe think about arranging it so I don't have to do any actual work? Writing is a lot of hard work. I mean, maybe not for you. But for me, well, it's cool and all, but it's kinda tiring. Right now I'm already feeling like eating a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and taking a nap.

MY PASSION: Go ahead! I'm just glad you're talking to me! And when you wake up I have so many amazing thoughts for you to write about! I'll help you every step of the way! I am Your Muse, baby, your one and only Personal Muse, and we are going to have so much fun! We came into this particular Life Experience PRECISELY to create these specific things together! It's Our Destiny! The Source Within Us is simply panting with anticipation of Our Magnificence! You are my favorite person in the whole world! Let's go out and--

ME: Wow, you are pretty darn perky, aren't you? Anybody ever tell you that you're a little, you know, a little much? I appreciate your enthusiasm, but could you maybe take it down just a notch?

MY PASSION: (silence)

ME: Yeah, that's what I thought. Listen, don't take it too hard. I do appreciate you. I really do. And we will talk again. Soon.

MY PASSION: Yes! That's going to be so great! And we're going to go for a walk, right? Wayne Dyer said you should take me for a walk! That will be so, so, so fun! We can go look at leaves and dogs and snow and people's houses and the geese at the park! Oooo, can we go look at the geese at the park?

ME: Real soon, buddy. Real soon.

MY PASSION: YEAAAA! Can we go after your nap?

ME: Mos def, my friend. After my nap. Or real soon, maybe tomorrow. And we'll get crackin' on that whole book thing. And write some more blog posts.

MY PASSION: OMG! I just can't wait!!

ME: Talk to you soon, friend. Be good to yourself.

MY PASSION: Oh, I will! And I'll be good to you too! You are going to be so fired up! Just wait til you see what we can do! Remember that one time you wanted to write that book making fun of yourself and all the spiritual Self Help books you read? It's going to be soooooo funny and people are going to laugh sooooo much. But also be inspired, you know, laughing but not in a mean way. And you know that we can start with--

(At this point, I had to hang up on My Passion, because I was afraid It was never going to shut up. But I must admit, Wayne did have a point. I'll let you know how this relationship goes. I guess I'm going to have to, because now that I'm talking to My Passion again, looks like I'm going to blog. But you spiritual bastards better write back so I don't have to talk to It all the time. I'm telling you; I'm flat worn out from that exchange. Until next time, Be Well and Be Easy on yourselves, people. Over and out.)