Sincerely,
The Deepest Love I Know
I’ve been tending to my sincerity, my most simple and deepest desires, happily releasing brittle tendencies that are desperate to be understood, praised. I have long desired to be an artist, and I am grateful to finally arrive on this path later in life when I have no need to prove myself or fall into dogmatic methods. A younger version of myself would have felt so desperate to acquire skill and praise that I would have smothered the whole mysterious experience all together.
BEYOND THE MIRAGE OF YOUTH
I would have abandoned my sincerity for achievement and praise—to fit in. For all our obsession with youth, I am deeply grateful for the wisdom of aging—which paradoxically returns me back to my very first longings, before fitting in became neurotic. In many ways, youth deserts us—we are far too quick to abandon ourselves for acceptance. We find ourselves fitting in brilliantly, but painfully alone. Our abandonment is our own.
Youth tends to chase empty mirages, while age seems content with the reality that, though we can set our sights on outcomes, we will never actually reach any horizon. This is the magic of longing—it is not a desperate lust for outward recognition, but an unconditional love for what is right here weaving through our bodies, hearts, and souls. We learn to tend to inner horizons and remember we so deeply belong here. We realize that goals are not desires. Thank god. Our desires have no reason, no explanation—they simply light us up, nourish us to the bones.
How sweet our most sincere desires. How quickly we learn to mask over them with intellectual and physical strength—proving our worth in every direction. Pushing ourselves into chronic stress, we forget to allow our soft animal bodies to love what they love—to soften into the easeful pleasures of our senses, our sense-uality. We’ve been told the sensual life is too simple, too easy—how will you ever prove your worth, provide value, if you don’t construct a more productive, achievement-filled life?
THE EXPANSIVE SPACE OF SOFTNESS
One of the first life lessons I learned as a young girl was that my sincerity was a liability—a soft and vulnerable target for, first, brothers and a righteous religious community. We were striving, forever self-improving and progressing. We abandoned our first longings, forgetting them and wondering why we could be so sad when we were working so hard to rid ourselves of physical and spiritual suffering. The paradox is this:
You are so close to what you are involved in that you literally cannot see it…The workaholic is doing everything right to provide for the family, but is blind to the fact that he is already losing his family because of his obsession with work…Irony continues as long as you do not see…To have a sense of irony ensures humility. Even in your moments of purest, honest intention, there is a sense in which you do not know and can never know what it is that you are actually doing.
-John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes
Sincerity dies in the trying. There is an inherent ease when we tend to and nourish our true desires. That’s not to say we don’t struggle in the learning and the growing, but we don’t burn ourselves out. There’s no striving, no self-improvement, no need for progress. We find ourselves consumed by the love of the desire—it bestows deep satisfaction beyond any external reward or praise. Even more so, we might be externally criticized or at least questioned for our behaviors.
Sincerity is key to our belonging. Striving and self-improvement only land us square in the middle of fitting in. Sincerity, like curiosity, makeS us strange. I have learned over the years that the more self-centered and curious I become, the more satisfied and true my life becomes. Rather than years spent chasing the candy of external praise and acceptance that left myself and everyone around me deeply malnourished in heart and soul.
UNDEFINED, BUT UNDENIABLE
There is no clear-cut explanation or definition for our most sincere desires—they escape all reason and logic. We can let go of our death-grip on achievement, proof, improvement, and productivity. And the grace-ful truth is that it’s not all up to us—our desire too plays a part. We don’t have to do all the work on our own. This is where stillness and listening become our most crucial toys. We think we know what we want, what we’re going for, but perhaps there is something more alive, more true than what we were forcing.
For example, as I tend to my pottery, I run into imperfection constantly—and that’s the absolute best part. I have something in mind, and another something emerges—less elegant, less refined than I had hoped. But I keep going. I keep playing. I keep allowing the non-linear, the unexpected, a seat at the table. Because, one day, the pottery will surprise me and show me something I never could have imagined on my own. I have to see a piece through an entire process before I can decide whether or not it pleases me. And it’s always far more delightful when I’m surprised.
Honest intention requires us to pause, to step back, to soften into our deepest and truest selves to reveal what’s truly driving us. Sincerely, I desire strange beauty and deep mystery. I desire time to savor every single bit—the sense-uality of being alive in a feeling evolving body that is moving closer to its own expansive humus every day. Expanding into something more free, more boundary-less than this one body. Dissolving into the rhythm and hum of The Great Song where we all emerge and return.
