Time stopped. My mortality hung in the balance as I laid on my bed waiting for the doctor to call and tell me what exactly was wrong with me. I could hear the sobs of my sister in the next room, who was angry and terrified all at the same time. A trip of a lifetime was going to be canceled and her big brother was gonna die!  I could hear the concern in my girlfriend’s voice as she outwardly held strong but was crumbling in terror from the inside. How does one face such a thing, when suddenly all the time you have is no longer infinite? It was to date the hardest day of my life, and the most valuable.

The doctor called, there was a long pause, and I breathed – remembering my yoga. I was diagnosed with a pituitary mass (tumor) and a condition know as Acromegaly (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/acromegaly/DS00478).  I asked a lot of questions, I scoured the internet researching, and I spoke with Doctor friends – all in the span of the most frantic four hours of my life. Ultimately,I was cleared for my trip, and we would take care of it upon my return. We packed frantically and the next day I was off on the most amazing, and memorable summer of my life.

The time abroad at Lacoste gave me time to think and absorb the implications of my condition and the unavoidable conclusion that would eventually result from it. I was going to have brain surgery. I had picked my team, cast my players – all of whom were experts in their field – seasoned veterans of the operating stage. All the implications, complications and challenges were explained to me – all with the utmost confidence, care and concern. While it is serious surgery – all will, as one would hope, go well. Still things can happen and I realized that my life, truly for the first time, was now at risk of ending. Mortality became all the more real. So I began to question, as most of you know I love to do, the meaning of it all.

Over my life I’ve developed sayings, philosophies on how to approach it all in an attempt to understand and find meaning. I’ve learned to “Enjoy the tree.” I’ve learned the power of “Time, Touch, Talk” in dealing with relationships of all kinds. I’ve established the value of “Casting” when looking at the people in our lives. I’ve seen the power of “Managing your expectations in order to succeed.” These lessons have served me well and have allowed me to grow and prosper as an educator, artist and human being. I have attempted at every opportunity to share them with those that I love, trust and value. I have always been an open person – a public person. I have always felt that sharing your experiences, expressing all that is you is one of the greatest gifts you can give others. It is together through expressing our experiences that we find common ground, and grow as a people.

So I offer up one more lesson to the universe, one that I am still learning and still struggling with, one that we all must face but a lot of us choose to ignore.

This is the value of impermanence.

I began to ask this question – Why create a system (our universe as we know it) that has built in limits, obsolescence, impermanence? Why design such a system if one has the power to create infinity? I had asked my friends, family, colleagues and all had offered up interesting and sometimes very creative answers. Here were a few -

“So that we know to appreciate how precious each moment is.”

“Simply because it just is.”

“Because the creator is infinite and it wanted to see what finite is like and the possibilities of it. It is all just an experiment”

“Nothing is created or destroyed – it simply evolves or changes state in a constant birthing, dying transformation. Matter to energy, energy to matter. Physics man.”

“It is not for you to understand the motives of God. You are man.”

The Japanese have a word – which is wabi-sabi. It is a concept that if you ask them what it means in english, they will tell you it is untranslatable.  I was loaned by my loving girlfriend, Emily, a book titled – Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, and Philosophers by Leonard Koren, It was an excellent resource and it spoke to a lot of concepts that I had felt underlying within me all my life.

I want to focus on one statement from the book, on page forty-six Koren writes – “Truth comes from the observation of nature.” Nature is impermanent, imperfect and incomplete. In fact Koren cites these as the main three spiritual values of wabi-sabi. The answer has been quietly surrounding us all our lives. Yet we battle against it. We build monuments that will ‘last eternity’ and yet they crumble and fall. We build ships that are ‘unsinkable’ and icebergs happen along. We strive to preserve, contain, control, the world and the world simple continues on.

There is an amazing scene in the 1993 film Jurassic Park that speaks to this -

Dr. Ian Malcolm: John, the kind of control you’re attempting simply is… it’s not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is.

John Hammond: [sardonically] There it is.

Henry Wu: You’re implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will… breed?

Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, I’m, I’m simply saying that life, uh… finds a way.

Life finds a way. It is the driving force behind nature; this curiosity, this evolution, this expansion. Nature shows us the meaning, it speaks in the quiet moments of the day rather than in just the flashy explosions of a sunset. Our mistake is that we only see the sunset, and not the transformation of the day.

This experience has made me realize that life is not really about why(I know some of you are gaping in horror right now) but about when. When things happen is really, truly the only definite, discoverable, discernible outcome of life. Often we lose sight of the ‘when’ because we are so caught up in the ‘why’ – this often causes us to miss numerous other ‘whens’ and truly not live. We question more than do. We are in our heads, as my mother would say, instead of being present in the moment – being aware of when.

Enjoy the whole forest, not just the tree. Be present.

The value of impermanence is simply the gift of when.

We also made a ham, another turkey and a butt load of sides.

Not to mention Deserts… check the glutten free cookies from my grandma!!! They were actually quite good.

I think the drive took its toll on my Dad or maybe it was the turkey… hehe…

Here are some more tight shots from their visit – especially love the smiling Jack photo and Morgans Delete button..

Three peas in a pod

Push it, I dare ya!

Rigging

bell

Looking good for 75

Ah youth...

One foot in...

Doorway

Wondering

Forgive

Somber angel

Smiling Jack

Not to mention we got a pedi cab there driven by a guy in a Max costume from where the wild things are. We arrived in style!

Hope to see some of you at the screenings on Monday and Friday.

http://filmfest.scad.edu/event/the-ripening/

I’m very excited and honored to be part of this years line up! Come out and show your support to all the great film makers!!!