Often the difference between a very exciting life and a boring one is a matter of observation. A life is not exciting unless we are in tune with what is going on inside of us as well as what is going on in the wider world. Once we are aware of something going on beneath the surface of our lives, we can find endless material of interest in life to examine, to ponder, and to analyze. We may not always find novelty, as many of the material will have the same kind of patterns across different realms, nor may we always find the material to be very enjoyable, but we will always find enough to make life interesting and worthwhile, even if difficult.

This morning, an actor died because of a drug overdose. This is not a rare occurrence, as drug overdoses among celebrities, or drug busts, or stops for DUI, are all alarmingly common. As a creative and reflective soul who was considered to be an attention whore as a teenager, I tend to be very considerate of those who are similarly interested in receiving the respect and praise of others as a way of bolstering their own self-esteem. Creative and sensitive people in general are often fairly fragile and damaged souls. While this world is full of people who will adore others simply because of celebrity, because they are good at writing or acting or singing or dancing or some other creative art, the world is also full of people who will be intensely critical of others for reasons of envy or a misguided thought that being critical for the sake of being critical is a way of helping to defend quality standards in art. To base one’s well-being on popularity is a dangerous matter, especially if one’s desire for material well-being leads one to sacrifice artistic integrity for profit, or if one ends up acting in a villainous role and being seen by undiscerning people as a villain as a result. This sort of stress can easily destroy the life of a sensitive person.

Today, in the midst of everything else I was doing, I managed to read a couple of chapters of a book that someone had loaned to me rather unexpectedly at church services yesterday. Without giving too much of the story away, since it will be a book review at some point (hopefully soon), it is intriguing to look at the larger context of what are very familiar events. In looking at the context of events, we are faced with some immediate difficulties. Among the most powerful difficulties we face in fairly evaluating ourselves or others is the line between responsibility and constraints. It is immensely tempting to absolve ourselves (or those we support) of responsibility by overemphasizing the constraints that people are under, and to overly emphasize personal responsibility if we wish to avoid any sort of action in making this life more just and fair, which is a task that is immensely difficult and unpleasant. Being just in our judgment of ourselves of others is not an easy task, and we often fancy ourselves to be more impartial and discerning than we often turn out to be.

There is much in our lives and in our world that can glimpse into if we take the time and effort to look beneath the surface and wrestle with what is buried there. Sometimes, though, it is better if you don’t understand. Or rather, it is better if you do not fancy that you understand more than you do, or better if you realize that the effort it takes to understand the way this world is, unless it is combined with a great deal of resilience and hope in a better future, it can be a path to despair. There is far too much darkness in this world to sleep easily if one is committed to bringing it into the light of day, unless one has some understanding of the larger purpose and larger power that allows such a darkness for a time as a result to a commitment in giving the beings of this planet the freedom to choose among themselves, and to face the repercussions of their own choices and that of others, while those choices are ultimately redeemed in ways that are all the more touching and hauntingly beautiful for it. All too often, it is easy for us to be lost in the difficulties that result from the first look beneath the surface, whether we are rulers or creative individuals, each seeking to work out our own destinies and achieve the tasks set out for us while we inhabit this earth.