question.

The question:

 

If you have a problem with your finances, there is someone to talk to.

 

If you have a problem with your health, there is someone to talk to.

 

If you have a problem with your relationships, again, there are people to talk to.

 

But what about when life itself becomes the problem? What about when you are struck dumb by existence itself? When you grow paralyzed by its sheer empty immensity?

 

Who is willing to talk to you then? Who is willing to look you in the eye and even acknowledge the question?

 

When it comes to politics, economics, science, and ethics, everyone has something to say. We are all eager to share our ideas and stories.

 

But when it comes to life itself, the thing upon which we each stake our existence day after day after day, no one has anything to say?

 

Where are the libraries, the schools, the institutions, the laboratories, the stadiums, the churches, and the museums about life? I am speaking here of life itself.

 

Are we afraid to talk honestly amongst ourselves? To share with each other how it is that we handle the weight of our own existence?

 

Tell me, how do you deal with your life? How do you feel it? Understand it? Protect it? Develop it?

 

What does your life mean to you?

 

What have you learned? Where have you failed?

 

How have you struggled, succeeded, and struggled once again?

 

Be honest, how do you live?

 

 

The Answer:

Far from hiding our existence from each other; we actually speak of little else.

 

One must simply learn to listen.

 

We don’t have a shortage of communicators. We have a shortage of translators.

 

Personally, I find that the best translators we have can be categorized into three groups: spirituality, philosophy, and art. Three languages, one word. Being.

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In the following sections, I try my best to learn to listen. And then to write.