rules

There are rules in place that have become blockages for our imaginations to sprawl out, gaining air and light as they deserve. We adhere to templates that may have been good at one time but have become obsolete. Some of them should have never been carved in the first place.

Like matching socks should never be the rule. Or symmetrical hair. Or sentence structure. Or suppressing screams. Or shaking and bouncing at the airport before you get on the plane- to settle your nervous system. And resumes. They should express your individuality, with paper, font, and even small ink drawings with a bit of color. That is how I would want to hire.

And grief….sigh. We have not learned to let other people wail and moan, because it makes us uneasy, and we do not know what to do with our hands. Like Martin Pretchel teaches, with our hands and hearty bodies, we loop the rope around their waist and let them wail at the edge of the sea. When it is time, we gently pull them back and encircle them with love. That is how the Mayans grieve, and we have not learned it yet.

I like when people crash into rules with a new way of thinking, and people think:

I didn’t even know you could do that!

We need some rules, of course. The more serious ones can keep us safe and create civil structure, and without them mayhem would occur. But some of them are killing our imaginations and placing us into spaces that should be expansive.

Like when I first went to Japan and started to eat savory food for breakfast. Now it is the only way I eat in the mornings. Who, but Americans, decided that a cinnamon bun was the best way to break the fast and start the day?

Something I hear people say a lot is: YOU can pull that off. (Anyone can pull just about anything off, but if you do something enough around them, they think you have somehow pulled it off and they cannot.) A lot of my fashion choices fall into the “you can pull that off” category.

Our minds are meant to be places of infinite creativity, but we are so often thwarted by the walls of templates and rules that have been cemented into our culture. There are more ways to do things than what you have already been spoon fed.

Find a way to turn the lights on for yourself and rearrange the damn furniture. You do not have to eat at a table. The world is eagerly awaiting your genius. Stop acting your age.