Edit – originally, this post included a link to a video. That video is no longer hosted, and I don’t remember what it was. I assume it had something to do with the title of this post, as I can no longer see a connection between just the text here, and the title.

There’s a lot to life that’s about expression. About knowing that you don’t need to mind the world when you’re trying to understand how you feel. About finding the boundaries of your self and about making them fuzzy so that little bits come and go between the universe and you. That’s expression. It’s not just a static thing of give—the take is important too. Indivisible, in the service of change.

I once heard the story of an old sitar player, ancient, and one of the best in the world. He spoke of steps along the path of music. That, at first, you play to please others. Years later, to please yourself. At the end, to please god. And if you’re lucky, when the scales are balanced and your debt repaid, god is pleased.

I can’t imagine that that’s right. The universe isn’t about achieving a state of mastery and perfection. The universe is messy and complicated and that messiness and complication is its perfection. God is as pleased by the journey as he is by the destination. As pleased by a child’s jubilant fingerpainting as by the Picasso’s that come later.

Perfection is expression.

messy jubilation.

give and take through the porous boundary of the soul.

change