Well, today’s my birthday. 40. Wow.

I suppose as a kid I figured 40 would mean something. It seemed so old, so up there…

And yet, here I am. And well, it doesn’t mean much. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my birthday. Each year, I love to celebrate myself, my birth, my annual rebirth and the recognition of another cycle that has passed. However, the numbers? Well, they feel rather arbitrary. I only tend to compare myself to people in terms of their age when I am feeling bad about myself for something. Something akin to the notion that perhaps I have not lived up to my potential thus far.

Jesus accomplished so much before he was 34. In fact, he accomplished so much that people wanted him dead for all that he had done in 33 years. That’s impressive, no?

John Lennon died when he was 40 and he was a Beatle, for God’s sake. He was John Lennon, man. Imagine that. He was gunned down just a few blocks from Strawberry Fields Forever.

Martin Luther King Jr. died at 39. He had dreams just like me, but somehow he was able to mobilize a generation and well, yeah, um, they killed him for that.

Each of these role models changed the world, lived revolutionary lives and catalyzed paradigm shifts on the planet, all before they were 40 and they all wound up dead.

Now that I’m here, I suppose the idea that “I have plenty of time” seems a bit foolish. On the other hand, staring at the long list of my personal heroes leads me to wonder whether it is so surprising that I’ve been slightly resistant to changing the world. Everybody ends up dead. Seems like in order to make a profound difference on the planet, the price to be paid is often one’s life. Hmm.

Maybe I can still get something important accomplished and just squeeze under the radar, body, mind and spirit intact. Perhaps that is a worthy goal in and of itself: Develop a new paradigm where changing the world leads to respect and positivity without the desire to snuff out the messenger. I’m on it.

We are hungry, all of us.

Feed me, please. I’m in need of your… touch.

The physical experience of intention activating your body to interact with mine is something most of us never get tired of. We can feel anxious, uncomfortable, scared even- but beneath the defense mechanisms, we want it. Touch me, hold me, just graze your hand on my shoulder, but touch me.

I’m not the same without it and I’m not the same with it. Physical contact transforms me. It illuminates the dark places within my being; the shadowy, whispy caverns that get accustomed to perma-dusk. When I am open to receive the magic embedded in your touch I can feel the cells deep inside leap towards each other, dancing in the sprinkler like kids on a hot summer day. Life is beautiful when it is tactile.

I experimented with Orthodoxy once upon a time. For a year I mindfully moved through the world abstaining from physical contact with members of the opposite sex and it was profound- profoundly troubling. While it was wonderful to expand my willingness to give and receive physical contact with men, the absence of the soft, energetic graze of a woman was intensely present. The power of a good shoulder squeeze and the firmness of a huggable greeting was wonderful from the men I lived and learned with on a daily basis, but the loss of female contact while manageable, became something I decided was not something I’d ever want to live without. Never again.

She was a cute, Macrobiotic, Orthodox woman and it seemed the whole physical touch interdiction thing was getting under her skin as well. A few weeks of sharing smiles, giggles and Tamari roasted pumpkin seeds and it was on. As the sun headed down behind the olive trees, she guided me up the back stairs of an old Armenian spice shop to the roof. We stood and held each other for half an hour as the pink and gray of dusk wove a tapestry of touch into our lives once again. No kisses, No groping. No need. It was sublime and we soaked it up until we were good and done.

I never again voluntarily abstained from touch. There have of course been some “dry spells” here and there but it is something I’m acutely tuned in to as a need that can not ever be satiated. An itch that I will scratch until the cows come home.

I was speaking to someone at the airport this morning about the new, more “invasive”  TSA pat down security screenings at U.S. airports and her response struck me: “I think it is ridiculous that so many people are upset about it. It’s free touch! Who cares who’s touching me? Who can’t use a little feel on a stressful day of connecting flights?” Makes a person think twice before jumping to speed dial an attorney over the governmental grope.

When I was a boy growing up in NY, Channel 5 began to show exceptionally “B” movies at 3pm every Saturday afternoon. Sometimes they were Vincent Price offering a sinister grin or a dark side of humanity, but most of the time these films were poorly dubbed Kung Fu movies, Godzilla and monster films.

I lived for Drive-in movies. These films were oftentimes shown in black and white or really badly colorized, and it was the only time my colorfully spoiled contemporary palette could handle black and white images. Each Saturday afternoon, my brother and I would sit two feet in front of the Sony Trinitron and watch as the beseiged Chinaman of the week learned Crane Technique from the old robed master so as to fend off the band of evil this or that’s. The blood surged through our veins as our hero of the week trained and trained, sailing through the trees, punching wood posts, and carrying buckets of water on his head.

And then it happened. Commercial break. Some sort of primitive testosterone infusion overcame us as soon as Crazy Eddy came on to sell his insanely priced electronics. Instantly on our feet, two brothers morphed into Chinese martial arts experts and began to replay the television show in real life. We gurgled our voices into high pitched shrieks, curled our fingers into animal poses and lifted our legs to the air. The blood pulsed through my wiry arms and legs as I kicked and punched and cut the air with my snarled eyes and unforgiving Chinese-dubbed English.

Four years the elder, I took full advantage of my greater strength and agility much to my brothers’ disappointment. In the four minutes of commercials, I managed to make my brother cry about 34% of the time. I’m sorry about that. But I couldn’t help myself. I was so moved by the spirit of the moment and of thousands of years of my people soaring through the air, fighting off enemies and practicing an ancient craft.

OK, not my people, but on Saturday afternoons, I felt the kinship. I was Chinese. I was the underdog. I was the guy who was weak and defenseless who somehow learned to find that inner thread of brilliance and power. I was unstoppable.

Until the shouts came from downstairs to cease and desist violent behavior or else.

Imagination is a powerful force. As kids, we built cities out of legos, fought battles with action figures and space ships and drew pictures of far away places and homes we would occupy one day. So easy, so natural, so simple. And now? What stops us from creating our fantasy worlds and dream lives? How else do we manifest what we truly want to have and who we want to be?

Imagine yourself soaring through the trees, overwhelming obstacles and mastering ancient wisdom. It’s time to create your own Drive-in Movie.

What is it about our desire to control another that creates monsters both in ourselves and in the people we attempt to harness with our own wishes, directions and demands?

The fear in me that you will do or say something contrary to what I believe is in my best interest or even threatens my way of life is a real problem. It sits in the back of my mind and festers there; I think about it often. What if your way, hurts my way? This fear can easily transition to anxiety and eventually, become panic. The result? Slavery, murder, war, incest, rape, adultery, terrorism and a host of other distorted manifestations of my initial fear.

The concern that an extremist feels that her beliefs or way of life is somehow threatened by my beliefs or way of life can go any of two ways.

1: “Can we talk about something that has been bothering me? I feel a bit triggered by something you are saying or doing…”

2: “Your way of being in the world feels so threatening to me right now that the only way I can cope is to eradicate the thought or lifestyle choice from my world. I will now attempt to control the behavior in you I do not like. If that fails, prepare to die.”

Option 1 typically leads to a dialogue about what I did that created fear or anxiety for you and because I’m not a bad person, I agree to look at what I’m doing to see if there is anything in my behavior that is intentional or malicious and agree to shift those actions if I find I’m not acting from my best self. On the other hand, I may check myself and feel I am acting in full alignment with who I am and opt to just acknowledge that you’re having a hard time and hold space for you to be where you are, in your fear, supporting you to the best of my ability while not altering my behavior.

Option 2 typically leads to removing ones shoes at the airport. I have triggered you in some way but what I hear from you is that if I don’t alter my behavior, that you will force me to change. The fear that you will try to change me creates anxiety for me that has the potential to lead to panic. The fear that you will attempt to hurt me in order to eradicate my way of being in the world typically leads to extreme panic, perhaps even terror. The result? I attempt to control myself, control you, and control the environment so as to gain a sense of safety and security. How do I do this? Extreme measures. Lockdown.

If I am feeling out of control because someone I do not know has made a formal declaration that my way of being must be eradicated, I feel scared and angry. I want to be safe but now I’m also confused and angry that you have made me and my way of being bad or wrong. I feel defensive. I feel like getting you back for making me feel bad. I want to control you to make you understand that you can’t control me. That might feel better for me, perhaps. Maybe I’ll feel more in control;  safer.

I take measures to demand, insist, require, enforce, train, re-educate, enlist, deploy, regiment, segment, quarantine, counteract…

Ahh. I feel safe again. I have you where I want you. Now, what was it that you wanted to talk about?

As you embark on another season of holiday travel I invite you to consider this an opportunity to observe the phenomenon of control in your life. How do I deal with control? How do I deal with other people’s needs to control me?

We have two options in life when faced with a stimulus: We can React and do what we are wired/conditioned to do, or, we can Respond and do what we choose to do based on an inner process between heart and mind. I respond when I consider what my true purpose is and what my desired outcome truly is.

So, as you choose between a full cavity search, groinal pat down or panoramic X-Ray, consider that we always have a choice as to how we will respond to a particular threat, idea or attempt to control. The choice really begins at the beginning of the cycle, however.

I feel fear. How do I want to respond?

This piece was also posted today in America’s Wellness Network Blog.

Yes, it is indeed just days before Thanksgiving so the natural thing to do is to focus on all the things we’re grateful for, right? Well, as I sat down to write THAT article, I became very present to a truth I have been wrestling with for most of my life. While I am eminently grateful for the amazing gifts, experiences and relationships I have encountered, it doesn’t feel honest without offering appreciation for the rough moments, challenges, relationship disasters and personal failures I have experienced along the way. Where would I be…who would I be, without the long list of terrible times?

Thanksgiving is an especially significant holiday for me this year, as it marks a major milestone on my journey. As we all sit down to our roasted birds and baked tofurkies, I will turn 40 years old. While Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, this one in particular feels more than a little symbolic. Lots of things feel like they are coming full circle, returning me to a sense of wholeness and peace that I haven’t felt this completely since I was a small child stumbling around my New World, exploring new things, new people, new foods.

Like the Pilgrims, the journey didn’t truly begin until I got here, and then it was just one new experience after another. How do I live peacefully with others? How do I accept that your story is sacred and unique and that my story isn’t the only truth around? How do I allow my ego to quiet down and hear your wisdom, as you, whomever you are, are always here to teach me something? How do I negotiate the experience of others invading my space, forcing your ideas and beliefs onto me as if your way was the only way? How do I stay true to my commitment to peace and love when you challenge my lizard brain in such an acute manner? How do I remember to be grateful for abundance when I feel there is something missing?

So, yes, be grateful for the things you are unhappy about in your life.  Give thanks that your life is imperfect, your body is too this or that, your health is a little less robust than you’d like, your career is up and down, etc.

We have a tendency to complain about the things we want to change rather than embrace these things as opportunities to grow, lessons to learn, places to heal. Many Buddhists suggest that suffering is a part of life, perhaps the main reason for being in a body. I used to get angry about that concept. My immediate reaction was often a reflexive argument that the goal of life can’t possibly be to suffer, so why embrace it as a simple fact and not work on improving things…

Then I got it- Human life IS, to a large extent, about suffering because otherwise we wouldn’t have any opportunities to move deeper into ourselves, into our love for the Everything, the Everyone. Somehow, my suffering has carved canyons within me that are as gorgeous as the Grand Canyon and that provide me with a tremendous capacity to love and forgive you, YOU, me, ME, for all the suffering to begin with. Talk about gratitude!

40 years ago, on Thanksgiving, my parents gave me the Hebrew name Baruch, which means Blessing. Funny, really, that it has taken so long to truly appreciate their foresight into something as simple (yet gargantuan) as a name. I feel very blessed today to have had the chance for four decades to live and learn, to suffer and heal, to hurt and to love. I’m not sure I could have gotten here today without some serious disasters, so I give thanks for the suffering and for the beauty (and oy, the pain) of the healing that always seems to ensue.