Frankenstein at the end of the year

At the end of the year, I’m recalling our finitude. Our pure limitation.

It’s more welcome in my life than it used to be.

I’m not creating a list of reflections, learnings, or gratitude. Instead, I’m watching Frankenstein with my partner—a story about someone who couldn’t accept limitation, who needed to transcend, to perfect, to control.

It wasn’t enough, and it didn’t work out.

We don’t need to control the end of the year. We are constructed from odds and ends, anyway.

Human finitude is welcome here. So are unsorted emotions. Designated time for nothing. The edges that don’t align.

This YOUR formal invitation, too.

Childish reframes

For so many children, shame is life’s principal emotion.

Perfectionism comes from believing that if I say or do something “incorrect”, I am a bad person.

It’s not learning. It’s a moral judgment dished out all the time.

This explains so many adult friends who won’t practice their learning English with me. This is a huge reason why people don’t take risks.

What if we changed the language of teaching from “Perfect!” to “Great learning!”?

How might that change the entire course of our lives?

Generosity from above

This enormous mango tree in front of my house—this is abundance. Not the concept. The thing itself.

I gaze at it. I spend time with it. I'm trying to learn what it knows.

The mangos are ripening now, yellowing from green. Each morning I climb to the fourth-floor roof with an enormous stick and pull them down. I lost the carrier bag that was attached to it, but they still come off.

This morning I checked below—no one there. Mangos fell. And the moment they hit the ground, a kid appeared. He started collecting them. Then he looked up at me and waited.

I knocked more down.

This is it.

This is how I want to be.

Knocking generosity out of myself from somewhere above. And when someone shows up to receive it, not stopping. Abundance pulled out from every corner.