Creativity is the natural order of life. Life itself is pure creative energy.
An underlying creative force connects all life. There is an in-dwelling force—a universal consciousness—that infuses and links everything like a net, including ourselves.
Opening up to creativity aligns us with that force. When I open myself to my own creativity, I open myself to the universal consciousness’ creativity working within my life.
Human beings are inherently meant to create. I am, myself, a creation. In turn, my purpose is to continue that process by being creative.
Using creative energy is a two-way street. Creativity is the energy that connects me to the universal consciousness. Using it means participating in that shared net, and what I create passes that energy back.
Believing you aren't creative is an illusion. The refusal to create, or the belief that you lack creativity, is a false narrative that runs counter to your true nature.
Exploring creativity opens up new possibilities. When I open myself to exploring what I can make, I open myself to the possibilities within the universal consciousness.
Opening your creative channel brings change. As I open this channel with the universal consciousness, I should expect many gentle but powerful changes in my life.
It is entirely safe to be creative. It is safe to open myself up to greater and greater levels of creativity.
Creative dreams come from a profound source. My creative dreams and yearnings come from a profound source. As I move toward my dreams, I move toward that deep truth.
I was quite moved by NASA's recent Artemis II mission. Here are some great quotes from the crew of the lunar fly-by:
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover show a photo of Earth taken just moments after the Orion spacecraft ignited its thrusters for a final burn for 8 seconds, producing a change in velocity of 4.2 feet-per-second and pushing Artemis II toward Earth. | Photo: NASA
"Houston, if you could give me about 20 new superlatives in the mission summary for tomorrow that will help out my vocabulary a little bit, that would be great. Thank you."
“If you’ve ever seen the top of the spotlight of the top of the Luxor at night in Vegas, this looks like what it wants to be when it grows up.”
"To all of you on Earth, and around the Earth ... we love you, from the moon."
"You can see the surface of the Moon ... we just went sci fi."
"It is so great to see Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania: we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too."
"We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other."
“It’s a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll.”
"I said that we do not leave Earth, but we choose it. And that is true."
"Christina has been sleeping head down in the middle of the vehicle, kind of like a bat"
"It's really fun to be floatin' around, it just makes me feel like a little kid."
"Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful."
"'Homo Sapiens' is all of us, no matter where you're from or what you look like. We're all one people."
"I'm proud to call myself the Space Plumber."
"I know I haven’t learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me but there’s one new thing I know, and that is planet Earth: You are a crew."
I found this article fascinating--and hopeful, showing that empathy is innate and available to all.
"The myth that women are more naturally empathetic than men"
by Melissa Hogenboom* | BBC Future
February 15, 2026
Scientific research is up-ending age-old gender stereotypes about empathy – and revealing new ways of thinking about masculinity.
When women achieve great things, it was erroneously supposed that "they were not Women who did those Great Actions, but that they were Men in Petticoats!", the philosopher Mary Astell wrote in 1705. Even Queen Elizabeth I once famously said that she'd rule the country like a king, despite having the body of a "feeble woman" – as if ruling had to be a masculine path.
While these anecdotes are from the past, subtle gendered biases of what it means to be a successful, powerful individual still permeate.
Notably, we still typically describe traits like empathy as naturally feminine and traits like dominance and assertiveness as masculine. Even when displaying the same behaviour, men are seen as assertive and women as aggressive.
One particularly notable trait that is often gendered in this way is empathy. Women supposedly are natural empaths while men who show more empathy are typically seen as weak.
But why is that? Is it true that women are naturally more empathetic than men, or are we socialised to be?
Gender stereotypes like these have clear consequences on how we raise our children, workplace culture and leadership. But what's less visible is how early these biases start, and the fact that stereotypes reinforce our expectations – imposing significant constraints on how we expect others to behave.
The hormones behind empathy
Empathy involves both the ability to understand others' thoughts and feelings, allowing us to respond appropriately. It can also be thought of in terms of cognitive empathy – our ability to recognise emotions and take other perspectives – and affective or emotional empathy, where we have an emotional response to someone's thoughts and feelings.
Scientists use a variety of methods to empirically measure empathy, including questionnaires and experiential tasks.
And it's long been found that, on average, women tend to consistently score higher than men.
Simon Baron-Cohen, a clinical psychologist at Cambridge University, argues that it is because the female brain is "predominantly hard-wired for empathy", which makes women especially suited for caring roles, while the male brain is "predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems".
While social factors clearly influence empathy, says Baron-Cohen, his work suggests that hormone exposure in the womb plays a role in social development.
His 2006 study of over 200 children aged 6-9 found that testosterone levels in the amniotic fluid during pregnancy – which are higher in males than in females – are directly correlated with how the children performed on cognitive tests on systemising, defined as the ability to analyse rules or patterns. Indeed, testosterone exposure in the womb was a stronger predictor of a child's test scores than their sex alone.
A similar 2007 study also showed that foetal exposure to testosterone was inversely correlated with empathy test scores.
"What's clear is that something like empathy or systemising are a complex mix of biology and social factors," says Baron-Cohen.
Is empathy in the genes?
Many other researchers, such as neuroscientist Gina Rippon, find this hormonal theory problematic. "The idea that all women are naturally more empathic is part of the persistence of the so-called 'female brain myth'," she says. We also must remember, says Rippon, that young children's brains are "hugely responsive to outside influences".
In one seminal study that found gender differences in empathy tasks, the differences were not large: women were more empathetic in 36 of the 57 countries studied, but in 21 countries the scores were very similar, and the authors stated that they "cannot determine causation".
And though women do score slightly higher than average on empathy studies, the range of variation within genders is much greater than between them. "If you look at the spread of the empathy scores within the male and female populations, it's huge," says Rippon.
Girls and women are often said to be more attuned to the faces of others, an important skillset needed for empathy, but results are mixed, and recent research suggests this preference is not something they are born with. A meta-analysis published in 2025 examined 31 studies featuring 40 separate experiments on how one-month-old girls and boys observed others' faces, if they cried when others cried and how alert they were to those surrounding them. In all these measures, no matter the sex, the infants did not differ in their social awareness and keenness in understanding others' emotions.
Indeed, a 2018 large-scale genetic study of empathy involving over 46,000 participants who completed a questionnaire and submitted DNA samples, suggested that genes do play a role in how empathetic a person is. But none of these genes are associated with a person's sex.
Varun Warrier, an assistant professor of neurodevelopmental research at Cambridge University and author of the study, explained at the time that "since only a tenth of the variation in the degree of empathy between individuals is down to genetics, it is equally important to understand the non-genetic factors". This means that the environment in which someone grows up and lives must be playing a role.
The socialisation of empathy
Women tend to display empathetic traits more, not because they are innate, many scientists argue, but because girls and women are socialised to act on their emotions and to prioritise the needs of others from an extremely young age. Girls are also often presented with toys that emphasise softer, more nurturing skills, while boys are encouraged to play with toy tools and cars.
"Little girls are told to be nice and not to be unkind and rough, so it gradually becomes part of who they are," says Rippon.
Many studies have similarly shown that power distorts our empathy and inhibits people from feeling it. In my book Breadwinners, I outline the argument that, as men have historically had more power than women – and continue to do so in business and politics – they are therefore more likely to experience less empathy.
One study found that individuals who perceived themselves as having "lower subjective rank, lower income and belonging to cultural groups associated with the lower class" were better at reading the emotions of others, for instance. That women score higher on empathy could therefore stem from a need to be highly perceptive to those in power, coupled with their own relative lack of power.
Empathy is a malleable trait
Crucially, empathy can be learned, according to Nathan Spreng, a neurologist at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. "Once we understand this idea of a range of emotional experience, we can focus on it and learn what other people's emotions are, and improve our empathy," Spreng said on the BBC's The Documentary Podcast. "It's not static, it's a dynamic thing across the lifespan."
A 2023 neurological study clearly shows that both women's and men's brain waves respond in much the same way when shown images of painful or neutral facial expressions. But in the part of the experiment where participants completed empathy questionnaires rating how empathetic they felt, men scored lower than women did on average. That is, unless they were told beforehand that they'd score well.
In the group of men who were primed with information suggesting that men are also naturally "good at sharing and caring for the feelings of others", the gender differences in how empathetic they felt disappeared.
Not only do these findings suggest that self-reported empathy experiments are hard to untangle from a slew of personal and social biases, but they also further support the hypothesis that a person's expectations and motivations play a major role in their empathy.
Women "tend to come out as more empathic when they know their empathy levels are being assessed", says Rippon, of experiments like these. "It's a socially acceptable trait, so they want to score highly."
One study found that women only outperformed men on a task asking them to accurately infer someone else's feelings when they were first asked to reflect on how they felt. If they weren't nudged in this way, there was no observed gender gap. And when researchers offered participants money to infer others' feelings accurately, empathic accuracy improved for both genders. Participants easily learned to be empathetic because there was a reward for doing so.
Sara Hodges, a psychologist at the University of Oregon and co-author of this study, proposes that women may show improved empathic accuracy not due to an innate ability, but because they are more motivated to do so by societal expectations.
Rather than viewing empathy as a fixed trait we should see it as a process that draws upon multiple sources of information, including body language, speech, stereotypes, personal experiences and past interactions, according to Hodges. "When people are more motivated to know what someone is thinking or feeling, they recruit more sources for constructing that," says Hodges.
The dire consequences of the empathy bias
What is less talked about, says Hodges, is that empathy isn't just a soft skill used for good – it can also be used to manipulate others or exploit people. "For example, in negotiation, if you know the other person's bottom line, you're a better negotiator," says Hodges.
But ultimately, the consequences of expectations surrounding empathy and the like can contribute to inequality in society and have dire consequences for both women and men.
Women are judged as less likely to have leadership potential than men because we tend to see leaders as needing to be dominant and assertive, traits typically associated with masculinity.
But when it comes to loneliness, women are more likely to seek support from their social network than men. Social isolation, instead, is a known risk factor for attempting suicide, the rate of which is much higher among men.
Fortunately, the narrative about the importance of emotional skills among men and women is slowly changing, including the importance of empathy towards others and caring responsibilities, according to Niall Hanlon, a sociologist from Technological University Dublin, in Ireland.
"Broadly speaking, men and boys are socialised to not see care in the way that women and girls do, that it's not part of the trajectory of being a man," says Hanlon. "They do imagine themselves to be fathers, but they don't expect that they will be in a primary caring position."
But society is already shifting to pave the way for more men to embrace caring responsibilities and be more outwardly empathetic. Men are spending more time with children than in the past, and they state they want to spend more time with their family (though women still do the bulk of flexible working and childcare).
The work being done to reframe men as more caring and empathetic will open the door to a new type of masculinity that could help prevent loneliness, says Hanlon – one that emphasises interdependence and empathy rather than autonomous, power-focused individuals.
"There's a lot of research that shows this is much better," says Hanlon. "For men, women and children."
* Melissa Hogenboom is a BBC health correspondent and author of the Breadwinners (2025) and The Motherhood Complex.
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“We must remind ourselves that in uncertain times our own steadiness can become a sanctuary for others.”
--Jack Kornfield
Painting by Truls Espedal
"Compassion asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else."
--Karen Armstrong
“Time is tricky. You have whole months, even years, when nothing changes a speck, when you don’t go anywhere or do anything or think one new thought. And then you can get hit with a day, or an hour, or a half a second when so much happens it’s almost like you got born all over again into some brand-new person you for damn sure never expected to meet.”
--E.R. Frank, Life Is Funny
“You see the beauty inside everything. It doesn’t last long—it’s either gone in a minute, you just caught it, or else maybe it’s something so big that you normally can’t get your head around it. Like the fog in your head clears out. The world stops being a puppet show and you see the real thing. It’s probably like that all the time, but you just can’t see it, except for those little glimpses.”
--Janet Fitch, Paint It Black
“I’m grateful for anything that reminds me of what’s possible in this life. Books can do that. Films can do that. Music can do that. School can do that. It’s so easy to allow one day to simply follow into the next, but every once in a while we encounter something that shows us that anything is possible, that dramatic change is possible, that something new can be made, that laughter can be shared.”
--Jonathan Safran Foer
“The path isn't a straight line; it’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.”
--Barry H. Gillespie
“Since you must have love as a human being, what will you do? There is no time. You can't say, ''Well, I can't have it. I can live without love because I have lived without love for two million years, and I will live another two million years without love'' - that means perpetual sorrow for the next two million years. So what can you do? You understand my question now? Sorrow cannot be put away or be resolved through time, nor can love be invited through time. And time is: ten days ahead, or the next minute, or the next second. What will you do? Will you jump in the lake? Unless you find love, you are already in the lake. And you have to find it, as you have to find food. This is a much more demanding, much more strenuous thing that demands intense vitality.
So what will you do? If you say, please tell me what to do, then you are missing the bus entirely. But you have to see the importance, the immensity, the urgency of that question - not tomorrow, not the next day or the next hour, but see it now while you are sitting. And to see that, you must have energy. So just see immediately - the catalyst that makes the liquid into solid or vaporizes it immediately does not take place if you allow time, even a second. All our existence, all our books, all our hope is tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. This admittance of time is the greatest sorrow.
So the issue is with you, not with the speaker from whom you are expecting to get the answer. There is no answer. That is the beauty of it. You can sit cross-legged, breathe rightly, or stand on your head for the next ten thousand years. Unless you have put this question to yourself - not superficially, not verbally, not intellectually, but with your whole being - you will live with it for two million years - those two million years may be only tomorrow. So problems and time are intimately related - do you see it now?”
--Krishnamurti, in Rajghat, India from his Fifth Public Talk, 1964
“When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.”
--Lao Tzu
Le Satyre dans le Bois de Boulogne by Felix Vallotton
“The great lesson from the true mystics…that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s backyard, and that travel may be a flight from confronting the sacred—this lesson can be easily lost. To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.”
--Abraham Maslow, "The Farther Reaches of Human Nature" (1971)
Here's another wonderful, touching song that addresses the problem of young men and depression and suicide, all stemming from a stifling, damaging, traditional masculinity (please do take a few minutes to hear and see Sam Fender's devastating song "Dead Boys" previously here.)
Singer-songwriter Sam Griffiths spoke about the song:
"'Thumbs Up' is the confession that us men don’t know how to talk to other men about important stuff...This song was written in the silence after suicides of friends, during depressive episodes, and over non-existent conversations about how we communicate our feelings: our highs, our lows, our loves and losses. It also references 80s movie icons Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a brief admittance of vulnerability in the face of what we call masculinity...It’s an odd one, isn’t it? But then I went to an all-boys school, where there’s so much silence and you only talk about objective truths, football, but not the emotional flow of feelings...It’s that masculinity; that thing of pride. But now we’re in age where masculinity can take a different guise and suffering is a huge part of that, and it feels such a shame that we can’t talk about it...Looking back, we may see our friends as being like superheroes at school, like my best mate at school, who killed himself a month after leaving. No-one, No-one had taught us how to talk to each other."
Lay by my side
We’ll watch all the films that you like
Silent all, silent all night
If that’s what you want
TV screen blue
We’ll sit and watch Predator 2
Cos it makes you feel silent & strong
Silent and strong
I think we should talk
I think we should talk
You give me a thumbs up
Just like the terminator did
When drowning in lava
Is it any wonder
Is it any wonder
I worry about you kid?
Open your mouth
The darkness can finally come out
As Bruce Willis cries
You realise
You could be alright
I think we should talk
I think we should talk
You give me a thumbs up
Just like the terminator did
When drowning in lava
Is it any wonder
Is it any wonder
I worry about you kid?
There’s a hole in my home town
All my friends seem to fall down
But never will float out
But you’re not alone now
You’re not alone now
Watching films with my brother
Wondering our place on this rock
And wondering what it’ll take now
To ever just stop
Why people are reluctant to call themselves atheists
By Harmeet Kaur, CNN
Sun March 10, 2024
In September, standing before a room full of Christian conservatives, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made a bold pronouncement: “I don’t know how you could be a leader without having faith in God.”
Being an atheist is still a political liability in the US — though it’s not as bad as DeSantis would have you think. While a 2020 Gallup poll found that six in 10 people would vote for a well-qualified atheist presidential candidate, fewer people said they would be willing to vote for an atheist than a candidate who was gay, lesbian or Muslim. Only socialists ranked lower among poll respondents.
Though the share of Americans who say they don’t believe in a higher power has increased in the past decade, some people still view atheists negatively. A 2017 study found that people believe atheists are more likely to be serial killers than believers, even though federal data suggests they are far less likely to commit crimes than religious people.
Just like people of faith, not all atheists believe the same things. Aside from their lack of belief in a higher power or powers, atheists vary widely in their answers to spiritual and existential questions.
Given the misconceptions surrounding this group, many people are reluctant to say that they’re atheists — which means it’s hard to pinpoint connections and differences among their numbers.
What is atheism?
An atheist is someone “who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods,” according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary.
Because atheists are defined by what they don’t believe, it’s difficult to generalize what they do believe. In the words of comedian and outspoken atheist Ricky Gervais on X, “Saying ‘Atheism is a belief system’ is like saying ‘not going skiing, is a hobby.’”
Some atheists, like evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and neuroscientist Sam Harris, are steadfast in their rejection of organized religion. Others are skeptical or apathetic when it comes to philosophical questions of whether a god exists.
Because of the social stigma atheists may face in the US and around the world, some people have complicated feelings about the term, said Nick Fish, president of the organization American Atheists. Plenty of people who fit the definition of an atheist don’t self-identify as such, instead preferring less fraught terms such as agnostic, humanist or freethinker, he added.
Then there are the cultural Catholics, the non-practicing Jews, the secular Muslims — people who don’t necessarily believe in a deity but identify with a particular faith because of their family upbringing, ethnicity or culture.
“A simple dictionary definition doesn’t necessarily encapsulate people’s self identity, and people use a variety of terms even when ultimately they believe the same thing,” Fish said.
What do atheists believe?
Atheists also have different interpretations of what it means to not believe. While nearly all self-described atheists don’t believe in the God described in the Judeo-Christian Bible, 23% do believe in God or some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe, according to a Pew Research Center report published in January.
Belief for atheists goes deeper than the question of whether there is a higher power.
Notably, a fifth of self-described atheists consider themselves spiritual, Pew’s recent survey on the religious “nones” found. The report contains other surprising insights, too: Most atheists say the natural world is all there is, but nearly a quarter believe there’s something spiritual beyond our present environment. About a third believe animals other than humans can have spirits or spiritual energies, and a slightly smaller share believe spiritual energies can be found in parts of nature, like mountains, trees or rivers. Just under one in five atheists believe cemeteries or memorial sites can have spiritual energies, while fewer than one in 10 say the same about objects such as crystals. Nearly a third of atheists believe humans have souls or spirits in addition to their physical body.
These responses might seem confusing or contradictory, but atheism and spirituality aren’t necessarily at odds. Though some people associate spirituality with a connection to a god, for others it can mean feeling connected to other people or to something else bigger than oneself.
Indeed, there are atheists who believe in cosmic interconnectedness or in transcendent moments of wonder without considering themselves religious. Long distance swimmer and self-proclaimed atheist Diana Nyad discussed this distinction in a 2013 interview with Oprah.
“I’m an atheist who’s in awe,” she said. “I think you can be an atheist who doesn’t believe in an overarching being who created all of this and sees over it. But there’s spirituality because we human beings, and we animals and maybe even we plants — but certainly the ocean and the moon and the stars — we all live with something that is cherished and we feel the treasure of it.”
How many atheists are there?
It’s hard to know just how many atheists there are when some people are reluctant to claim the label.
While a 2018 Pew survey found that 10% of US adults say they don’t believe in any higher power or spiritual force, only about 4% of US adults identify as atheists. A 2022 Gallup poll puts the number of nonbelievers higher, with 17% of Americans saying they don’t believe in God.
Some scholars, however, consider these numbers underestimates — an analysis by psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine B. Najle suggests the true count is closer to 26%. Gervais points to Cold War era associations of atheists as “godless communists,” as well as Christianity’s enduring influence on American culture, as some reasons people may be hesitant to identify as nonbelievers.
“The term atheist has attracted some unsavory connotations,” he added. “Also, religion (in the US) is politically and socially rewarded, so people might be reluctant to out themselves as an atheist.”
It’s also worth noting that atheism — at least in the West — is often defined in relation to monotheistic traditions, namely the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. As the organization American Atheists notes on its website, older dictionaries previously defined atheism as a “belief that there is no God” — the singular, proper noun typically used by Christians and some Jews. Even Gallup’s 2022 poll asked about belief in “God.”
Framing atheism in these terms doesn’t capture a range of other beliefs that atheists could conceivably hold. Strands of atheist thought can be found in non-theistic traditions such as Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism, as well cultures around the world that practice animism.
What is the difference between an atheist and an agnostic?
There are all kinds of labels to describe nonbelievers. While atheism and agnosticism are among the most common, there are some differences between those terms.
Though the two are often considered distinct worldviews, technically, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Rather, the terms atheism and agnosticism answer different questions, Nick Fish of American Atheists said. Atheism answers whether a person believes in a god or gods, and agnosticism answers whether it is possible to know if a supreme being exists.
But again, dictionary definitions prove limiting here. In reality, many people think of agnosticism as a less stringent form of atheism.
“If you spend a bit of time digging in, I think (many agnostics) will ultimately say, ‘I don’t believe in a God but I’m not sure, so I’m agnostic,’” Fish said.
Jocelyn Williamson, co-founder of the Central Florida Freethought Community, doesn’t believe in a higher power but says she can’t be certain. Technically, that fits the definition of an agnostic atheist. But she said she typically tells people who ask about her religious beliefs that she’s a secular humanist.
“Most people don’t know what that means, and then I can actually have a conversation,” Williamson said. “There’s too many preconceived notions if I just say I’m an atheist.”
The term atheist only conveys what she doesn’t believe in, Williamson said. The term humanist, meanwhile, signals that she’s motivated by compassion for others and that she believes societal decision-making should be grounded in reason and science.
What do people get wrong about atheists?
One of the most common misconceptions about atheists is that they lack morals that others typically attribute to religion.
In a 2019 Pew survey, 44% of US residents said belief in God was necessary to be moral and have good values — in other countries, that share is much higher.
Williamson is all too familiar with such notions. When she was first getting to know faith leaders in her state, through her work with the Central Florida Freethought Community, she recalls a clergy member asking her what stops her from killing other people if she doesn’t believe in a higher power.
“I had always thought that was a meme, a trope,” she said. “I didn’t think anybody actually believed that.”
In fact, various studies suggest that atheists are no more immoral than religious people. They’re also just as likely to participate in civic life as those who are affiliated with a religion and just as likely to engage in community service, according to Pew’s recent survey of religious “nones.”
Atheists also get stereotyped as angry people who vehemently oppose religion and its followers. Like any other population, though, they aren’t a monolith. Williamson, for example, is part of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida and works with faith leaders toward common goals. Plenty of nonbelievers volunteer with religious organizations out of a desire to serve their communities, she added — her father worked as a local director for the Christian nonprofit Habitat for Humanity despite not being religious.
Another misconception about atheists is that they’re certain or unwavering in their beliefs, Fish said. People often tell him that they aren’t sure on the big existential questions, and therefore can’t be atheists. But many atheists are figuring it all out, too.
“Just because we don’t believe in a god doesn’t mean that we have all the answers to everything else,” he said. “In fact, for many, for most of us, it’s the opposite. We recognize that we don’t.”
I found this piece by Melissa Kirsch to be a nice reminder about pace of life and priorities. Thank you for the wisdom, Melissa!
Hurry up and wait
The New York Times | The Morning
March 2, 2024
by Melissa Kirsch
Racing to catch a subway train recently, I tripped on the stairs leading to the platform, steadying myself only barely by grabbing the arm of an unsuspecting and rightfully alarmed fellow passenger. I sustained no major damage — a scraped knee, a bruise on my thigh I’d discover a week later. These injuries were, I told myself in the aftermath, well deserved. I’d disregarded one of my precepts for personal happiness, the one that stipulates, “Most misery is caused by rushing.”
My fall was the most basic evidence of this, a frying-pan-over-the-head reminder that running late and reckless from one place to the next puts one at risk of a spill. But there was also all the incidental unhappiness I’d incurred and inflicted in the lead-up: I’d been rushing to get out of the house, which put me in a foul mood. I’d been impatient with everyone I encountered on the way to the subway, adding some measure of unpleasantness to their mornings.
We rush because we’re late. We also rush because we want to move quickly away from discomfort. We rush to come up with solutions to problems that would benefit from more sustained consideration. We rush into obligations or decisions or relationships because we want things settled.
Worrying is a kind of rushing: It’s uncomfortable to sit in a state of uncertainty, so we fast-forward the tape, accelerating our lives past the present moment into fearsome imagined scenarios.
A friend and I remind each other regularly of a radio news segment she heard years ago. The reporter concluded the story, about a mess of delays on the Long Island Rail Road, with the line, “These commuters are ready for this day to be over, once and for all.” Of course the message was the commuters wanted to get home and have dinner and go to bed already. But the finality of “once and for all” made it sound as though the commuters were so fed up that they wanted to end that day and all days. Or, as my friend wrote: “Certainly at one point the day will definitely be over once and for all for each of us. Is that what we’re rushing toward?”
This obsession with being done with things, of living life like an endless to-do list, is ridiculous. I find myself sometimes having a lovely time, out to dinner with friends, say, and I’ll notice an insistent hankering for the dinner to be over. Why? So I can get to the next thing, who cares what the next thing is, just keep going. Keep rushing, even through the good parts.
In Marie Howe’s poem “Hurry,” she describes running errands with a child in tow. “Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,” she urges, as the little one scampers to keep up. Then she wonders: “Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave? / To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?”
This is not novel advice, to stop and smell the roses, to be here now, to slow down. But it’s not easily heeded. Our culture, now as ever, rewards hustle. The Silicon Valley maxim “Done is better than perfect” can be constructive when applied to procrastination. But we bring it to bear on situations in which “done” is not necessarily a desirable goal.
Since my subway incident, I’ve been trying to notice when I’m rushing, physically and psychologically. “Where are you going?” I ask myself. “And why are you in such a hurry?” That pause helps put a little space between here and there, and might, with any luck, avert future misery.
...by writer-director Andrew Haigh, starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, and Jamie Bell.
Well, actually I watched it several weeks ago but I have been unable to really speak about it or even write about it without being overcome with emotion. The story concerns itself with a script writer, Adam (Andrew Scott) who is attempting to write about his childhood and parents who tragically died in a car accident when he was 11. At the same time, Adam meets Harry (Paul Mescal) the only other inhabitant of the new highrise apartment building they live in, and they begin a relationship. Motivated by his script, Adam returns to his childhood home to reconnect with a time long past, and through some sort of...power of...something...he encounters his parents, still living in the house, appearing exactly as they did before they died.
Normally when I write about a film here, I don't include spoilers, but I just can't do it this time. Warning: major complete spoilers ahead.
When I saw the trailer for this film late last year, I felt a resonance with it. I lost my parents in a very tragic way as well, albeit not at such an early age like Adam, but still young enough to regret that they were unable to see much of my later adult life and how things turned out. Like Adam, I am an only child and carry a theme of loneliness and alone-ness inside me. And of course, Andrew Scott is an out gay actor playing a gay character...and I am an out gay actor who has played gay characters. But what really shook me was his encounter with his parents. After my mom and dad died, I had dreams of them, which is not all that unusual when one loses a loved one. My father took his own life and interestingly, my dreams revolved around him coming to terms with what he did, not me coming to terms with it. But when my mom died many months later, they both came to me in dreams many times. These dreams had a very different texture than "regular" dreams. While I still dream of them at this much later stage in my life, the dreams feel more like "regular" dreams...not the hyper-real encounters I experienced just after they died. So I knew the idea of seeing someone encounter their dead parents in such a meaningful way was going to stir me, move me, perhaps upset me. But I was prepared for it. I can "go there." After all, I have been there, and come back. People can be so skittish of films (interestingly, books not so much) that take them to difficult places where they might be emotionally vulnerable. But as I said, I have been emotionally vulnerable, A LOT in my life, and it didn't kill me. So I was prepared. And looking forward to it. The film seemed to be something I needed to ingest.
What I was not prepared for was the extent of emotion and the tone of the film. It feels like a dream. There is a subtle, hushed quality from the writing, directing, and certainly the acting that creates an arresting sense of intimacy. All four leads are masterfully penetrating and perfectly thorough in what they are presenting...these might be career defining performances for each. Andrew Scott's staggering performance and his interactions with the equally amazing Paul Mescal give the film its real intimacy.
We are introduced to Adam and his seemingly lonely--and very alone--life in a London highrise. On a walk outside at night, he looks up to see the only other inhabitant of the building, Harry, staring down at him. Once Adam returns home, Harry knocks on his door and introduces himself. It quickly becomes obvious that Harry is quite drunk with bottle of whiskey in hand, and he asks to be let in so he and Adam can hang out, maybe have sex or not...Harry innocently and desperately says, "We don't have to do anything," which is a little heartbreaking right there. While both men flirt with each other, Adam declines and Harry wanders off back to his flat. So now we know our two main characters. And this interaction proves to be the paradigm for the entire film.
I've read some journalists and critics writing about this film who have come to the conclusion that Adam's interactions with his parents are completely in his imagination. But I am going to posit that it is completely not. After taking a train out of London to the town where he grew up, he first sees his father while on a walk on the heath. It actually plays out a little like a cruising situation, with the as-yet-unknown-to-us dad beckoning to Adam to follow him, and Adam follows out of a sense of curiosity, and probably that the man seems strangely familiar somehow. Dad, played by Jamie Bell, takes his son home...to the house he grew up in. When his mum, played beautifully by Claire Foy opens the door for them, Dad says to Mum, "Yeah, it's definintely him...look in his eyes." It is finally made clear who they are. And Adam of course is dazed and speechless at seeing his parents, as they were before they died when he was a child.
He begins a series of regular visits to see and spend time with them...to catch up. He tells them he is a writer and they are proud of him. He has an afternoon alone with his mum where she asks if he has a girlfriend and he comes out to her, letting her know he is gay. She is a little put off, asks him if people are mean to him, and expresses concern for this new disease gay men are suffering from called AIDS. He assures her that things are different now and while she needs time to adjust to the idea, one can sense that her love for her son is greater than any anxiety about his sexuality. And in one of the most touching scenes, he spends a different afternoon alone with his dad. They speak of Adam crying alone in his room after being bullied at school, and his father confesses that he heard him but never came to offer comfort. This is a very common situation with young gay boys and their families but particularly their fathers, where culturally imposed homophobic beliefs and attitudes cripple and prevent fathers from connecting in a nurturing way with their sons. Adam's dad mentions that he probably would have harassed a gay kid like him when he was in school, but is now understanding of what it truly means. Dad breaks down and apologizes for not being there in the way that was needed the most. Andrew Scott plays Adam's reaction to this in one of the most powerful, authentic pieces of acting I have ever seen.
Meanwhile, the relationship that Adam and Harry are forging is really quite beautiful and authentic. The sex scenes are phenomenal...frank without being tasteless or merely titillating, and they are needed to show the closeness between the two. They bond over their shared loneliness--Adam speaks of his life long terror of being alone, and honestly, how could one not have such a morbid fear, after having one's family ripped away from them at such a young age--and the fact that while Adam's parents departed his life, Harry's parents basically disowned him for being gay. In a way, they are both orphans. But Adam is very excited to reveal to Harry that he has been spending time with his deceased parents, and begs him to come to the childhood home so he can meet them. Harry is dubious about seeing people who have been dead a long while and once they arrive at the house, the lights are off and no one answers the door, very unlike all of Adam's encounters so far. Adam is confused and doesn't understand why his parents won't let them in. He leads them around the house to the back French doors where, shockingly, both Adam and Harry can actually see the parents inside, simply standing side by side in the blackness. It's as though Harry's presence in the mix somehow interrupted the magic or power at play.
Adam has a final lunch with his parents at an American-style diner they all loved when he was young. The waitress mentions that the three meals ordered is a lot of food...for one person. Clearly the waitress cannot see his parents sitting in the booth with him. As they wait for their food, his mum and dad want to know details about the car accident that took their lives, they express their love for Adam and wish him well in his life, to not feel the crippling loneliness he has felt his whole life, and they urge Adam to promise to invest his emotions into a relationship with Harry whom they say they saw through the French doors as well. Once they fade away into another realm where they can finally rest, Adam is left alone in the diner. But he can now return to his building to see Harry and tell him about what has happened, that he is ready to dedicate himself to a life they can share, that he no longer feels alone because he can open himself to someone without carrying--or even perhaps clinging to--an idea of loneliness. He comes to Harry's apartment, and when there is no answer, he lets himself in. We see he is immediately overcome by a horrific smell and consequently discovers Harry dead in his bed, wearing the same clothes as the night they met at Adam's door, clutching the same now-empty bottle of whiskey. Apparently, Harry has been dead for quite a while. But then Adam hears a noise in the living room. There stands Harry, agitated, on the verge of tears, imploring Adam, "Is that me in there? Am I in there?" We sense Harry is now regretful for the end of his life--perhaps his death was an accident (an inadvertent mix of drugs and alcohol), perhaps it was a deliberate suicide, but the real tragedy is that Harry has fallen in love with Adam and has seen that he too no longer has to carry around a motif of loneliness...and now it is too late.
And here is why I think Adam was actually seeing and interacting with his parents...because he was actually seeing Harry the entire time, too. Unlike his parents, Adam did not know Harry was dead...he had never been to his apartment since they had always spent time together in Adam's flat. And I don't--I can't believe that Adam was completely hallucinating an entire relationship with Harry. That would make him truly delusional, and the brilliant script-writer/director Andrew Haigh gave us no indication, clue, or information leading us to believe that Adam suffers from any sort of mental illness. Adam has been having a love affair with a ghost, to put it too simply. But a ghost that was somehow, inexplicably made of matter.
Of course where the film ends up is absolutely gutting, for three reasons: 1) Adam had just broken through his loneliness by working through the loss of his parents and was ready to dedicate himself to another person, 2) Harry too had worked through his ostracization and was ready to dedicate himself to another person, and of course 3) the couple cannot have a relationship since Harry is no longer alive. Now, you'd think this would be tragic, and it certainly is, (I have not been able to think about this film without crying and I am tearing up as I write this) but how the film closes is extraordinary. Adam now has emerged from his inner exile and has the strength and understanding to lead someone else out of isolation. Adam convinces Harry to accompany him back to his own flat. There, he leads him to bed and cuddles the ghost of Harry so he can heal and presumably move on from the physical realm, like how Adam's mum and dad dissolved. We see Harry, and then the pair of them turn into a pin point and a ribbon of light that expands and joins a universe of pin points and ribbons of light. So they are together...? However, Adam is alive since the actual physical world interacts with him. But perhaps seeing human beings as illuminated light, whether alive or dead, is meant to suggest that none of us are truly alone, that we are all connected in deeper, invisible, and powerfully immutable ways. However--and this could be my own issues of alone-ness--I just can't get past the idea that Adam is once again completely alone. He succeeded, he did it, he healed, he worked through his past and the death of his parents, and opened himself to life, but now he cannot be with Harry, and, having suffered two great losses now, he is still, horribly, utterly alone. My heart and spirit goes to Adam...but perhaps he has the strength now to either endure/reframe the idea of loneliness as well as the openness to allow someone else in to his life.
Recommend? Yes. It contains not only an incredibly moving, touching, tender story but also presents some of the finest performances on film. The film and actors have won several awards already including from the British Independent Film Awards, the London Film Critics' Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, and as of this writing has received six BAFTA nominations (awards given February 18, 2024).
“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.”
--Ted Hughes, from LETTERS OF TED HUGHES
"Oh, By The Way" is my digital scrap book of things I like, things I would share with a close friend and say: “Oh, by the way, do you know of this artist/ clothing or interior designer/ model/ singer/ actor/ gorgeous man… or, have you seen this video/ photo/ film... or heard (or do you remember) this song/ band... or, read this book/ poem/ inspiring quote... or, visited this place/ museum/ restaurant/ famous building... or, have you heard of this amazing new scientific discovery?”
I am dedicated to posting the positive, the fascinating, the beautiful, the interesting, the moving, and the inspiring and uplifting. Sometimes I post cultural as well as personal observations, milestones, and remembrances. And just like life, all of these things may often have a bit of melancholy or even sadness in them, which is what makes our time here so lovely and bittersweet and precious.
Some of the photos, art, poetry, and prose are my own original work, credited with my initials, JEF. When it isn't, I always try to post links to the original source material, but often I find photos on the web that are not linked or other material that is not sourced. In these instances, I post them without malice since it is assumed that such things, by being globally posted on something as uncontrollable as the internet to begin with, are in the public domain. If you identify the source of an image that is not linked, please politely let me know (without accusing me of theft, please) and I will be happy to provide a link. If you are the owner of an image and would prefer it be removed, I am happy to do that as well (again, without accusing me of theft , please).
I hope to inspire and entertain my readers with things that inspire and entertain me. There is a startling amount of beauty and creativity in the world and it enriches us all to participate in it.
All-time Favorite Films
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
After Hours (Hysterical, hair-raising ride through NYC at night)
Amelie
American Beauty (Alan Ball)
Baraka (Stunning, transcending—the "spiritus mundi" on film)
Belle et Bete (Cocteau)
Big Sleep, The (The epitome of film noir)
Bringing Up Baby (Hepburn & Grant—the epitome of screwball comedy)
Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, The (Greenaway)
Crash (Cronenberg—DIFFICULT subject, not for everyone)
Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg—ultimate modern gothic horror)
Drowning By Numbers (Greenaway)
Easy Rider
Edward II (Derek Jarman)
Erendira (From magic realist Marquez’ brilliant short story)
Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick's last film)
Fearless (Jeff Bridges—life and death)
Funny Bones (Leslie Caron, Jerry Lewis, and the brilliant Lee Evans)
Holiday (Hepburn & Grant)
Howard’s End (The ultimate statement of the unfairness of class systems)
