We discussed religion and questions too great for human comprehension, let alone conclusion. We discussed where we find comfort in the darkness that accompanies humanity. We discussed the need for anchor in a world that often feels catastrophically yet casually tossed and turned and flipped.
We discussed the idea that you manifest your destiny. A new age idea that is anything but. This Buddhist idea that through our thoughts we create our world. That we are what gets reflected back to us.
And we discussed what I perceive to be the bastardization of those ideas. Their Americanization. Ultimately, how they've been consumerized, productized and monetized. According to so many books and authors, if I want a billion dollars, all I need to do is visualize it. I can have everything I want if only I put it out there. With the right energy, and my money in the pocket of some self-help publisher, I can live a life free from worry. Free from stress. Free from challenge.
But that, to me, isn't faith. That, to me, is insanity. It implies that we have some control over what goes on in the world. In our lives.
Indeed, I have a great deal of control before I go into an audition. I control how much I prepare. I control how I'm going to present myself. I control when I'll get there, more or less. I control what I'll sing and how I'll sing it. I control what I'm going to do with the sides. I can control everything that has to do with me. And then I send it all to those people on the other side of that table. After that, any thoughts I have of control are illusions.
I can not will myself a job. I know this for a fact. I've thought I had many that didn't come to pass. To me, the faith - the work - the real, difficult work - comes when I don't get what I want. When things aren't going to way I would like them to. To me, faith and strength are alive in how I respond to my failures, losses, hurts and mistakes. Not in how I will success. In success and happiness, faith is easy.
The work of faith is the response to difficulty. That's where one's world is created. In failure or loss, how do I respond? Do I drink? Or become mean? Or cold? Do I give up? Do I keep going? Do I focus on the next? Learning from the last as opposed to growing bitter from it? Do I focus on the good? Even in the throes of loss? That to me is manifesting one's destiny. And that ain't as easy as willing myself money.
As humans, we want. It is animal, instinctual, primordial.
The test of our humanity comes in our response to not getting it.
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