Belle Photos

I was talking with Adham tonight about the Rose bowl game that we watched, and I was thinking about how the players worked every day for the majority of their lives, eating right, lifting weights, going over form and technique, just to get to that one moment where they could face their greatest match. And when they did, they essentially played against themselves, their greatest competitors.

And I thought about it further, and it seems to me that as they finally reach that pinnacle of achievement, and they finally win their accolades, something would be missing within them; there would be some form or substance that they knew they were without. And so some would go onto the nfl and play every game to get to that greater championship where they would have another chance to play at the height of their extension.

But then there would be a small few who took a different path.

They would finally realize that ultimately, there were no other players, that they were really only playing against themselves. And when they would think about that, they would start to look within, and they would begin to understand their own unique abilities and unique talents. They would see their position and extension in life, and instead of using those traits to aggrandize themselves with money and power, they would embrace their authentic selves. And when they did this, they would play with such form and comprehension that each move and each catch would become works of beauty. They’re motion would become poetry. They’re life would be art.

And finally, when they no longer cared for the awards of the other, they would begin to understand that their expression became a substantive creation of life. They’re actions would then lead others to contemplate their own existence. Not by anything they said, or even their greatest achievements, but by their very essence. This is art. This is true expression, and I believe that this is the way to a higher level of consciousness: the authentic expression of our own creation.