Questions Within The Breath

Hey there, you wonderful, unique, beautiful human being.

I attended a presentation on AI yesterday, a panel that gave a brief overview of current developments but focused more so on the questions surrounding them all. The fascination, the fear - it’s present in anyone who truly ponders what is possible.

One thing is for certain: We are so fucking lost. Individually, collectively - we are lost. And while that is terrifying, it’s also funny. (Funny? Yes, funny.)

Because all of this time, we’ve been searching for answers. All of this time, we’ve been thinking we’ve found them (or will find them), again and again.

But god, goddess, our future selves (whatever power you see within and around us) - they are all laughing.

Because the secret is that there are no answers.

There’s just life and living and curiosity and exploration. We feel lost only because we are certain there is a “right” destination at which we are supposed to arrive. If we just sat down and looked around us, we’d discover all of the miracles right here.

TRIPPING OVER JOY

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.”

―Hafiz,I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy

With AI, we are running into a new land, blindfolded. Will we eventually discover life-giving medicines as we stumble around? Or will we run off the cliff we didn’t see? Who knows. There are countless conversations (important ones) to be had about all of that.

And with no right answers, it’s the questions that we are asking that will be most important to what we will find and create.

And here’s my big, pay-attention point:

As we ask, we must breathe.

I do mean breathing this breath - this one, right here, right now. Sit up a bit. Take a deep inhale and a full, sigh-on-the-way out exhale.

We need to feel our bodies and, as Mary Oliver says, stop “breathing just a little and calling it a life”.

AND we need to honor what breath is as a metaphor: The inhale of self-awareness and the exhale of authentic expression.

We breathe in and go within. Take within us what we need. Let it swirl around, nourish us. Feel, discover, awaken.

And we need to exhale and share. To return that life may continue. To express fully (as in the breath, our truths, our voice) what we have nourished and discovered within.

So right now, Breathe in. Breathe out.

We need you to listen, to ask, to go within, and to express the authentic beauty of who you are.