Giving is living

"Giving is living. If you stop wanting to give, there's nothing more to live for,"

- Audrey Hepburn

Many would say that we are living in a hopeless time. Many have battled unspoken challenges and are weary of the world

And the challenges that society faces as a culture, as a people that many, if not most, try not to bear its comprehension.

For when it is seen. Then the question is why? And if the why cannot be answered, it then invokes hopelessness. And in hopelessness, one finds the courage to ask again why, and once again.

The answer is...

That is all said because in the time that we're living in now, I contemplate why...how...?

I'm not someone who is infatuated with imaginary thinking in which an outcome isn't conceivable.

So then how, is the question I keep coming back to, how, how?

And I've been meditating on

“Giving is living, and if you stop wanting to give, there's nothing left to live for.”

And given the time we are living in, one could say, how do I give more?

I am tired.

This world makes me tired.

My job makes me tired, my children, and my husband.

I am tired.

How can I give from an empty well?

This world has dried up my well of fortitude, so how do I give?

[”Giving”] Is very childlike, or it can be seen as childlike, and as someone who can be perceived as a creature living in naivete.

It is because I believe there are stronger forces at play, which is the ability to refill one's well and give.

So then how? How do I do that? How does anyone do that?

And I think about the concept of the artist, and it's, I wish I could diagram this out... Because it's the exact opposite, it is equal to, but the positive version of “hurt people hurt people”, because they are in a cycle of I am jealous, I am envious, I am, I am.

So I take, I hurt, I have been wounded, so I wound you. I have been betrayed, so I betray you. I need, so I take from you.

You have too much, I'll take some of yours. You look too happy, you look too rich, you look too, you look too pretty, I take.

And the selflessness, the selfless act of giving, is a deed that begets hope.

Whether that is a nurse, a mother, or an artist, it is I give to you, but by giving to you, I give to myself.

To imbue selflessness in action provides hope because that action is unending.

That creates a cycle in which no greed, no envy, no malice can penetrate because I give unto you because it refills me.

For that is a cycle of giving.

That which you love refills another, and by them becoming filled, you are refilled, and by you becoming refilled, you then can give to another, and finding that flow of giving, finding that capacity that I have found what is unending in me.

What is selfless in me.

What is unbreakable in me.

And it's different for everyone. I could never be a nurse. I could be a teacher.

Finding that act within you that is selfless. I can give my art to the world.

I can give my analysis. I can give my strategy, my diplomacy.

What can I give that is unending in me?

If you take giving, selflessness, and kindness as a thought form of naivety. It actually shows something about where you are in your personal journey. It's so silly to be kind; it's very childlike.

The world's going to rip you apart, and yet it is the one thing that is enduring.

When you find that which you can give, but by giving it refills your well. It creates an unending cycle, and it gives and gives, and by giving, it creates hope.

You have hope that there will be new teachers, you have hope that there will be new nurses, you have hope that there will be new leaders, new diplomacy, new thought forms that eradicate the old. Newness comes from hope. And it is our job, our duty, to find what we can give to this world.

To create anew.

And that's just what I've been meditating on.