Facing the Abyss vs. Buying the Mural

  A consumer guide to spiritual choices nobody asked for

Threshold of the Unnamed – Rendered by the author in Midjourney

I've come to a weird, random observation today, as I often do when the weather is too warm and humid for my own good. The process of building any kind of spiritual life is a lot like shopping. And to abominably oversimplify the matter, you’ve got two main products on the shelf to choose from – The Abyss™ and The Mural™:

• The Abyss™: Comes with existential dread, an occasional sense of being stared at by the void, and (if you’re lucky) moments of raw, unfiltered truth that rearrange your molecules a little bit. Side effects include insomnia, journaling in the middle of the night, and annoying other people by constantly saying things like, “But how do we know reality is real?”
• The Mural™: Brightly colored, easy to install, and guaranteed to hide any terrifying questions behind deceptively cheerful paint. Comes with bonus potlucks, matching T-shirts, and a sense of belonging with lots and lots of other Mural users. Just don’t ask why the mural smells faintly of mildew or what's actually in that potluck casserole.

Most spiritual people I've known throughout my life, understandably, go for The Mural. It’s user-friendly. It so often comes your way via a smiling salesperson. It looks awesome in photos. And the Abyss? Well, it doesn’t even come with a warranty, and what passes for customer support is literally just... deafening, frustrating silence.

But here’s the thing about The Mural. It might sound like the better deal at first, but sometimes the paint peels. Sometimes it outright cracks on a level that's impossible to ignore, and you realize you’ve been staring at drywall this whole time. 

And when that happens, the Abyss is still waiting for you there, like that one weird friend you have who doesn’t text back for six months but will almost certainly show up at 2 AM when your life falls apart.

The Mural Option: Comfort at a Price

Like I said, The Mural has its perks. It’s safe. It’s predictable. It tells you what to think and how to live. And if I'm honest, that can be really appealing when the world feels like a dumpster fire (and when doesn't it). The Mural will never look at you and shrug before saying, “We don’t know what happens when you die.” And it has this very nice brochure with diagrams, thank you very much.

But comfort isn’t free. The cost of The Mural is your human curiosity. It’s your right to ask the kind of questions that don’t have quick, well-packaged answers. It’s the muscle of critical thinking, which atrophies if you don’t use it. And if you do start poking at the moldy corners and the little patches of peeling paint, you will almost certainly find yourself shamed back into line. 

In other words, The Mural is lovely until you notice how very fragile it truly is.

The Abyss Option: Uncomfortable but Honest

The Abyss absolutely does not care about your comfort. It's not going to hug you when you’re scared. It won’t hand you a pamphlet while silently smiling at you through kind eyes. It’s just kind of... there, dark and deep, refusing to make things easy for you or anyone else.

And yet, The Abyss is honest. It doesn’t sell you answers that it can’t back up. When you face it directly, something shifts, even if you're not immediately sure of what. You realize that uncertainty isn’t death but... possibility. You discover that awe can indeed coexist with terror. You may even realize eventually that sometimes they’re the same thing.

The Abyss teaches you resilience, forcing you to build meaning with your own hands instead of waiting for someone to spoon-feed it to you. And it forces you to decide what’s worth living for, not because someone promised you heaven points, but because you’ve looked into the darkness and chosen anyway.

The Myth of Wasted Time (and Why I'm Not Playing That Game Anymore)

So, this week seems to be shaping up to be more about recalibrating and recentering than anything else. I saw that coming, though. The universe has had my hands full lately with several months of tasks and little emergencies – broken appliances that needed fixing, jury duty I couldn't get out of, and issues with problem clients, among other things. 

I finally seem to be back to a place where I have the time, room, and extra energy to start getting back on track with a few things (e.g., yardwork and daily exercise). I'm also trying my best not to fall into old familiar patterns that always find me beating myself up for needing to play catch-up in the first place. 

That said, we’ve all heard it – or worse, felt it. That insidious little voice whispering, “You should be further along by now.” You scroll past yet another life update on social media from a peer or an old classmate – a new job, a book deal, that dream vacation they've been daydreaming about for years. Suddenly, your own timeline, with its utter lack of vacations and awesome opportunities, feels… warped and crooked. 

I admit to still struggling with this myself, but that may be all the more reason to tell you. That voice is a liar. Or at the very least, wildly uninformed.

The Guilt Trip You Never Asked For

Negative self-talk and an insatiable need to measure up start super early, maybe with a parent, a teacher, or even just a system designed to rank you by productivity and potential. You internalize the idea that your value comes from not only doing, but doing quickly, all while blowing the rest of your competition completely out of the water.

Graduate by this age. Settle down by that one. Have a career, buy a house, never pause, never question. Keep producing. Keep climbing. And if you veer off track... or have to stay off track for a while? Well, clearly you’ve messed up and wasted your life. Once you do internalize that programming, it's very hard to move past. I'm honestly still working on it (and failing miserably at times).

I've Realized I'm a Happy Person at Heart

That's not something I would have been able to say about myself for most of my life. I spent years of my life thinking about what was wrong with the world, judging people who didn't live the way I thought they should and obsessing over the ways I didn't think my own life measured up to the status quo. But I've noticed things have been different for me lately.

It's not that my life changed. I still have the vast majority of the problems I had before and could well be stuck with some of them for the foreseeable future. I just have a better attitude than I used to. Some of that seemed to come with age, but the rest really was about a simple perspective change. It's a change I'm grateful for, as life is just better this way. After all, I only get one of those... a life. I don't really want to waste mine griping, complaining, and judging. 

Life's never going to be fucking perfect.

I used to think that I couldn't be happy until I got specific details of my life in line. When I was an awkward teenager, I thought being prettier would do it. Later on, I thought meeting someone would be the answer. Or finding a way to run a business out of my home so I wouldn't have to spend so much of my time at an office or behind a cash register somewhere. Then I met someone, got married, and still wasn't happy with my love life, so I got a divorce and started daydreaming about the day I'd meet someone better. Once I had a business, I wanted a better one doing more exciting work. 

There's always going to be something else -- some other part of your life that downright sucks or something monumental you finally achieve only to realize your life still isn't the way you want it. And the vast majority of those solutions you thought were going to solve all your problems come with brand new issues of their own. If you wait to allow yourself any measure of happiness or contentment until everything's perfect, you're going to be waiting until you drop dead.

Reflections on Life After Watching Disney-Pixar's Soul

I finally got to see the new Disney-Pixar movie the other night -- Soul. Being the giant, overgrown kid-at-heart I am, I get very excited about new Disney films as a rule, but I was extra eager to see this one. Not only does it have a Black lead and contain many references to Black culture -- something I'm happy to be seeing in more media -- but jazz music is an integral part of the film's theme, as well. I've come to love jazz, especially as I get older and increasingly excited about different kinds of music.

I liked the film very much in general. Still, I especially enjoyed its primary message about the concept of life purpose and how it addressed many common questions people have on the subject. 

• What does it mean to have a life purpose?
• Is your purpose about your profession of choice or something else entirely?
• What does it really feel like to finally realize your most significant, dearest goals in life?
• Where do little pleasures and daily experiences fit into the picture?
• Is it possible not to have a purpose, and what happens if that's the case for you?

At nearly 45, I've managed to answer many of those questions for myself, but it took me a while. Joe was my favorite character, so I'd love to say I was just like him -- maybe a little misguided, but always sure of what I wanted to do with my life. I'm really the spitting image of Soul 22, though. 

Like 22, I believed that I didn't have a life purpose for an extremely long time, especially when I was younger. While everyone else my age seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do with their lives, nothing seemed to resonate with me at all. I did know I enjoyed being creative -- drawing, writing, playing piano, and the like -- but there was no way to turn those things into stable livings that actually appealed to me back then. I didn't want to put on a suit and design logos for some soulless corporate entity or settle for teaching schoolchildren about the things I wanted to be doing myself. I especially disliked the idea of having to commute to an office every day.

On How Retail Prepared Me for My Career as a Writer

Le Principe du Plaisir - Rene Magritte (1937)

A friend of mine was posting on her Instagram earlier all about the twisty, winding path she's taken in life to get where she currently is. Today, she has her own highly successful wedding photography business, but years ago, when I first met her, she was a waitress.

In her post, she talked a bit about why she was a waitress for so many years despite hating the job -- the easy money and the way food service requires you to "hustle" a bit for your supper. She also touched on how being a waitress back then prepared her in many ways for what she's doing now, as the two businesses are a lot more alike than they probably seem at surface value. 

It got me thinking back on the many years I spent in retail. Aside from an extremely brief period of less than a year where I worked as a vet tech, pretty much all of the traditional time clock jobs I've had were ordinary retail jobs that are a dime a dozen. Like my friend, I absolutely loathed what I was doing, and just thinking about doing it for the rest of my life depressed the shit out of me. I don't know that I'd be as good at working for myself (or at writing) as I am without that as part of my background, though.

The Peace and the Stillness of It All

Things slowly appear to be drifting back into "normal" territory as far as all the quarantine measures go. This is although COVID-19 hasn't actually gone anywhere, nor have people stopped contracting it or dying from it. No vaccine has been developed, nor has any concrete plan been put in place to avoid a second wave. It's almost like the government and everyone else more or less decided to shrug and go "oh well". 

That makes me nervous. You'd think it would be making other people nervous too, especially if they work outside their homes or have to interact much with the general public to earn a living. I am exceedingly grateful that I don't have to and, to be honest, this whole pandemic has shown me just how right I've always been to simply be my naturally reclusive self to whatever extent I can. At this point, something about me others have always thought of as a personality flaw might literally mean the difference between life and death.

This has given me some food for thought in regards to how other people's minds work as well. I don't think I realized just how dependent others are on being highly interactive with the rest of society. They apparently count on others for everything, so not being able to go out and consort adds up to a complete disruption in their lives.

For instance, I don't think I realized just how many other people -- especially other women -- don't manage their own grooming routines. I knew I was unusual for insisting on cutting and coloring my own hair, but I don't think I fully realized everyone's also paying people to do their nails (even if they don't wear acrylics), groom their eyebrows, extend their eyelashes, keep their bodies free of unwanted hair, and so much more. No wonder everybody complains about being broke all the time.  

Keeping On, Writing On

And the adventures continue as far as writing goes, mostly to my delight and advantage. I'm not quite sure where we're standing at present with all the AB-5 stuff, but supposedly there are some changes coming up that will end a lot of the hassle, at least for writers. In particular, that ridiculous 35-article cap is supposed to be done away with, and some of the ambiguous language is set to be clarified. I'm hoping that will mean I can stop stressing over this soon and go back to writing for a living in some kind of peace.

Thankfully the initial BKA termination that hurt so badly was the only full-on firing I personally had to deal with. One of the two newer platforms I joined and had been using eventually did have to limit us to 35 articles per year per client just to play it really safe. However, they also made it crystal clear they were planning on supporting California writers through all this, and they said they'd remove the limits as soon as they possibly could.

That will probably happen within the next couple of weeks or so when the amendment goes through, and I'm eagerly looking forward to it. I really love that platform, and I'm hoping to be able to write there more often in the future, so it will be nice to be able to do that to whatever extent I want. The other platforms I've been using here and there haven't said or done anything to make me believe I have more walking papers in my immediate future, so that's been good for my peace of mind as well.

I still think about BKA sometimes, as well as many of the projects I worked on through them. There's a part of me that hopes when things stabilize a bit and people are no longer afraid to contract with California writers, I'll be able to work with them again, but I'll be fine if that never happens. Some of the opportunities I discovered while shopping around for replacements for BKA have been so positive, it's hard to be upset. If anything, I'm a little miffed at them for giving me the boot the way they did, especially in light of how supportive so many other platforms have been, but that's a whole other issue.

On the Departure of a Former Friend and Continued Writing Success

The passage of time is a really weird thing, especially when it comes to other people that are part of your life to varying degrees. The older I become and the more I change with the years, the less connected I feel to the people I used to know on whatever level. I've never been the most social person in my offline life, but I was relatively communicative and friendly online for a long while. Probably why changes in my online social life spark more reflection on this front.

I'm especially confused by a lot of my friendships with other women, both online and off. Most women are socialized to be a lot less direct and straightforward than men, so I'm never quite sure where I stand with a lot of them. There have always been at least a few who seem really conflicted as far as how they feel about me. I'll pick up on definite interest and admiration, but also an undercurrent of something darker. Jealousy or resentment, maybe. Something competitive gone completely sour.

I often feel like such acquaintances are secretly rooting for me to fail, especially if their goals and dreams for themselves intersect with mine at all, as if there's a limited amount of success to go around and they feel I'm getting more than my share. I never know what to do about people that give off that vibe -- that they don't root for me to win or cheer for me when I do. I don't like feeling like people I know are sitting around wishing evil or misfortune into my life, but I also feel like I'm not patient enough with people and cut others off way too quickly. I'm trying to be less like that, especially as I get older, so more often than not, I just let people hang around, but distance myself to stay off of their radar as much as possible.

This morning, I noticed that one of these women apparently unfriended me on Facebook over the weekend. I haven't been posting anything inflammatory lately, nor have I been leaving ambiguous comments on her posts, so I don't think the reason was anything like that. She was in the habit of leaving odd comments on some of my posts that made me feel like she resents a lot of the personal progress I've been making though -- especially when it comes to things like selfies, beauty posts, or workout/health updates. This person had been on the wagon for a while herself with all of that stuff, but she started backsliding badly around the time my own progress was becoming really visible, and I think she resents that.