Subtle Quality vs. Depth - Or, Why Is One Not Like The Other One

Life is odd right now. Can we all just agree on that?

YES.

Just say it, own it, admit it. Loudly, emphatically. May I encourage you to make it your rooftop ballad for the evening? Serenade your neighbors - we are all home anyway - with the song of your people. Own it. Because when we try to run from the fear of the unknown and shove our heads in the sand, the only one fooled is the person covering their head and saying nothing is happening. Everyone else knows you are lying to yourself. Can you embrace the nebulous state of the world and maybe even, dare I say it?, embrace your fear?

Look, as ever, I promise I am taking you somewhere. This will not be an eternal call to embrace being afraid. No one really wants the fear, the heartbeat racing, cortisol spiking, bad dream bringing, anger brining insanity of any of this. But we can't hide from it either. We all have our coping mechanism. Mine is: Move.

To quote Saint Motel (one of my all-time favorite hot Sunday at Bonnaroo shows), "Head, shoulders, knees, toes, Look alive, it's time to go..." Or maybe Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" is a bit more your speed.

All I am asking is, can you look a little alive and less like you're staring death down, because life is short. So I choose to make this happen with yoga. Yesterday I went a little off the track I normally follow - move, move, move, move, move, to slow down the rippling waves that bowl over the depths of my mind, the only way to get everything to just stop and be still, because if I am winded I can't think as much - and I chose a still-er than normal class. The class reminded me that sometimes when you are a pot of boiling water (raises hand) all that's necessary is to occasionally pull the pot from the stove so the water molecules slow themselves the hell down and stop being so excited all the time. It sounds like I'm talking chemistry now, and maybe I am, because aren't we all just built out of chemicals anyway?

Or maybe I am talking about cooking, because lately my insides have felt famished. Hungry for depth and complexity. But yesterday, I finally heard the call to be still and listen. It's not like no one has ever said to me,

"Honey, could you be still and listen to what is going on in that mind and heart of yours?"

For the first time, my brain said, "Oh, okay. This is novel."

On my mat in my living room, I saw that when I calm the waters, there's no depth needed. The ripples clear and everything is right in front of me and all I have to do is look to find the subtle qualities I seek in yoga, in my mind, when I write and paint and create. No, depth is not bad. But depth was perhaps not the destination at which I wished to arrive. I was cooking the wrong things, possibly, following the wrong recipe or mixing up the wrong compound when all I needed to do was take the pot off the stove eye, remove it from the flame, and let the air bubbles settle. Right there, just below the rolling surface, was complexity. I didn't need to dive deep for it.

Depth implies that seeing involves a struggle. Subtlety only asks that we observe.

I ask myself all the time, "How can I write like (enter author here)?" Perhaps the depth I seek from their work is the subtlety I can lend to my own work. Shall I choose rather than deep dives to sit with something small and explore it infinitely? Is that where my power lies, as a creator?