My Augusteum...A Gift of Ruin.

I never knew what freedom meant until I came to a place where I realized I was truly free. There were times in the past when I had felt free but that didn’t mean my mind was truly free. You can’t have freedom by feeling free. It is a state of being, one that we need to choose to enter into; where we choose to throw out the shackles of our yesterdays, the spokes in the wheels of our todays and the bumps foreseen in our tomorrows. And that freedom comes only when the heart gets beaten and broken out of its own predisposed cage. A heart that is willfully exposed to love and hate and the various spectrum of emotions in between.

That at the end of it all, what I believe, is the ‘curse’ on humanity. We always get to the gem inside only by digging past the sand, drilling past the rock and beating past the heat. It is the sad state of a species that is cursed to live with the wisdom that in breaking is where we will find our becoming! In hurt is where we will find our most prolific graces. 

You couldn’t possibly write a good song without it coming out of the depths of a broken heart. You couldn’t write a book without its intimate lines being first written on the bleeding walls of a bruised heart. You couldn’t honestly look a person in the eye and proclaim love for them, if you haven’t ever gone to the depths of the pain that love inflicts, to make good on the beauty that love can eventually yield. 

There is a profound teaching in the Kabballah about the development of the soul. Kabballah teaches that the human soul has fallen thru 125 steps from its highest position of godliness and then it spends all its days trying to climb back those steps thru five layers of spirituality. I think, it’s safe to say…that mirrors at least in part what the Bible says about a fallen man and how he needs his mind renewed every day to come to a place where his soul is perfected, like his spirit already has been thru Christ. Quite honestly, you can’t renew what you don’t recognize needs renewal. And you won’t know what needs renewal, if it doesn’t put you through the pain and discomfort that you finally realize you need to break free from!! In short, you can’t remove or add what you don’t even know exists! 

The human soul, if pushed right, sheds layers of its human quality as it attains godliness, or in plain words - renewal. And that shedding always happens thru pain and growth, not general bliss and stagnancy. We lose in order to gain. I didn’t understand it back then, but I do now. To be honest, I have lost more people than I’ve gained, lost more money than I’ve earned, lost more respect than I’ve cared to protect, lost more sanity than I’ve cared to hold on to. But in the process, I also lost the one thing, the only thing that stood between me and God: Me!

Once I lost myself in the vastness of all that can be, well, there was nothing preventing me from reaching higher in my pursuit of what was always meant to be – A higher state of being!

The result: 

I feel emotionally settled. I don’t believe any man or woman can contribute to my joy to the point where I can’t do without them, neither can they deprive me of my joy to a point where I would desperately need them. And I don’t blame the devil anymore like most in church are prone to doing. You can’t blame the thief for stealing, when it was you that chose to keep the door open! There are ‘demons’ that need casting out, but most of them originate on the inside of us, not outside. I have realized that playing the victim and blaming an unseen entity is an excuse for not owning your life! I have no one to blame for what I went through except myself. The day that realization settled in, I was free to fly because the truth dawned on me that the only person that was holding me captive was me, not the devil. Now, I own my actions; roots, leaves, fruits and all. I own my sins. I own my mistakes. I own my choices. I own my pain. I own my love. I own my peace. I own everything from the feelings of my mind to the carnal desires of my body. I own it all. And when I need help from God, let it be because I am fallen and I need help, not because someone made me eat a fruit I wasn’t supposed to! I don’t know any serpent. I don’t know any Eve. I just know Adam…and I am that Adam. It is on me! 

I remember a scene from the movie Eat Pray Love. After visiting the Augusteum, Julia Roberts’ character writes a letter to her ex-boyfriend:

Dear David,

We haven't had any communication in a while...and it's given me time I needed to think. Remember when you said we should live with each other and be unhappy......so we could be happy? Consider it a testimony to how much I love you...that I spent so long pouring myself into that offer...trying to make it work. But a friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It's called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came, they trashed it along with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome's first true great emperor...how could he have imagined that Rome...the whole world, as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins?

During the Dark Ages, someone came in here and stole the emperor's ashes. In the 12th century, it became a fortress...then a bullring. They stored fireworks in here after that. Nowadays, it's a bathroom for the homeless...It's one of the quietest and loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over centuries. It feels like a precious wound...

...like a heartbreak you won't let go of because it hurts too good.

We all want things to stay the same, David. Settle for living in misery...because we're afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked around in this place, at the chaos it's endured...the way it's been adapted, burned, pillaged...then found a way to build itself back up again, and I was reassured.

Maybe my life hasn't been so chaotic. It's just the world that is...and the only real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation. Even in this eternal city, the Augusteum showed me...that we must always be prepared for endless waves of transformation. Both of us deserve better than staying together...because we're afraid we'll be destroyed if we don't. 

My eyes had welled up during that scene from the movie. And it resonates even now. Because, that letter was not to some David. That letter was me writing it to the version of myself that existed six years ago!

That Aden that was standing in front of a tree begging for love, that was holding someone’s feet begging to do their laundry, that was desperately looking for a text and a smile from someone to feel good, that was trying hard to prove to people his innocence or the pretenses of it, that compromised on everything he believed in to get and keep people…that Aden that repeatedly fell in love with less than… that Aden is DEAD! He isn’t alive and he will never come alive anymore. Not as long as there is breath in THIS Aden’s body!

The version of what I am today has forgotten how to hate, has relinquished his ego to attack and has put on a new man that doesn’t feel a thing that is thrown at him. I don’t find the need to defend myself or my theology. I don’t find the need to worry about what someone thinks about me, neither do I wish to gain someone’s approval. And I don’t need anyone to validate me or my heart. Frankly, I think, if you're not the one that’s breathing for me, then it’s none of your fucking business how I process MY Oxygen! There!

I might not be a poster boy for all that’s virtuous but I am still that Roman wound that has allowed God to heal it. Only the scar remains...but it’s not an ugly scar. It is a beautiful scar. It is a scar that is a testament to emotional grit, spiritual strength and plain human survival.

For now, THAT is a definition of fulfillment, I am happy to live with! 

To know who I am, to know who my God is and stand in the fullness of what I am, big or small, good or bad and just breathe… because there is so much to take in and enjoy!

Count Me In Justin...I am a Belieber!

Forgive me…I think I am a Belieber!

Justin Bieber burst onto the scene a couple of years ago, while just a child. I am sure this musically gifted child believed with all his heart that he was going to be thrust into a world of music, not realizing the music business isn’t exactly all about music. Of course, when he came on the scene, apart from the legion of fans that loved his music, there were the so-called music purists that hated him or so they pretended to. You could count me in as one of ‘them’. But the truth is, I couldn’t take the ‘Baby’ chorus off my mind when it came out and as a vocalist myself, it wasn’t too hard for me to see this boy had extraordinary talent. One of those voices that sound seemingly ordinary to casual listeners but if you are a singer, you will know it is anything but. Anyway, like most people, I continued pretending that Justin Bieber was for young girls in need of a boyfriend and grownups needed to stay away. Besides when you are in India where half the ‘in’ crowd pretends to love ‘rock’ more than ‘pop’ because well, rock is cool and pop is Britney…you know what I mean, it gets kind of lonely being a Justin fan! 

(In a way, right now, I am a little proud of my musical evolution…bring me anything that sounds good to my ears and I’ll take it. My days of exclusivity to genres have long gone, when I realized my idea of a vocalist was Mariah and star was Steven Tyler. I began straddling both worlds and realized I didn’t have to necessarily settle for one.)

His next album came out and the first song named ‘Boyfriend’ was a radio nightmare. But the next one (As long as you love me) was vocal bliss! I had it on my playlist for over two years. And then I forgot about Justin because well, that’s what you do with pop stars. They pop.

But Justin never did. 

Years passed and as he became a man, he got into trouble that seemed out of the world…when in fact, what he did or was accused of doing was exactly what all of us have done but never had the curse of the camera following us. And a few endless months of negative press, arrests, complaints of arrogance and absolutely horrendous user comments later, I thought Justin was done. 

The boy sank to music industry hell for mistakes which I still believe are NOT mistakes…they are just stuff that kids do. I’ve done most of what he did and had to apologize to no one, because well…no one was going to make a million bucks talking about me. No one was going to accuse me of sleeping with them because they weren’t going to get big bucks out of it and no one followed me around with a camera…let’s face it, there is only one Justin Bieber and the cameras followed him around for exactly THAT reason! 

And then came ‘Purpose!’

I vividly remember the day I was heading back home on the subway at New York…and noticed I had downloaded ‘Purpose’ on my Spotify and hadn’t listened to it until the end of November. They called it good. They called it a bonafide hit. They called his talent legitimate, as if this boy’s talent was ever anything but. 

Anyway, I began listening and by that evening, I officially became an unashamed, out-of-the-closet belieber…once and for all. That album was so good, that I still have some of the songs on my playlist. I listened to ‘Mark my Words’ yet again, just last evening.

And it wasn’t just me. All over the world, suddenly people in their 20s and 30s woke up and began talking about Justin’s new album being so good, so mature and all the nonsense to somehow explain why they hadn’t listened to him from the beginning.

I think more than the music, more than his showmanship, more than his extraordinary vocal abilities…I love Justin because he went to the depths, found perspective, and came back strong and swinging, with an album that was so good, real good! He went where no one expected him to go and then came back up where no one expected him to rise. And that to me, is a winner! 

I know people like to trash him around. I am from the church and I get to hear it often. ‘Oh, look…he is Christian, but look at what he is doing?’ ‘Look he is wearing a Bible verse on his shirt but he was doing this the other day?’ ‘Oh, he goes to Hillsong church? What’s the use?’ The questions are endless.

Well…the pot calling the kettle black was never a good Sunday sermon, though it is the story of many a ‘people of God’! And my Christian friends don’t realize that being a Bible-wielding hypocrite isn’t all that difficult as being a show-business conquering boy of 22! There!

Now, Is Justin perfect? Of course not. But the question is…is he a musician or is he an example in social behavior?

The answer is: A MUSICIAN…GIFTED NO LESS!

He came to me as one and I am going to look at him as one and know that he qualifies for the time I spend listening to him and for the 9.99$ I pay Spotify every month, to have him on my phone!

So, finally I can proclaim it. I am a proud, lifelong, ardent Belieber and I hope Justin continues making good music, continues loving God the way he knows best, continues performing and bringing happiness to millions of people and hopefully in the process will continue to grow as a man, as fine as the one he has grown into right now. 

That is my wish and my prayer, and somehow I am pretty sure, that is exactly what time is going to show, and show off!

Get The Hell Off My Marriage-Monkey!

I just got off a meeting with a friend, a married friend and you know how those meetings go. Especially, when you are not married and everyone else in the world is.

Last year, another friend of mine got married and I loved being at the wedding for him, but I hated being there for me. Endless questions about when I was going to get married, countless declarations about how I was next, with a few prophetic insights from God Himself, since it was a Christian wedding and all.

So…this person came up to me and asked me the obvious dreadful question, without consent, without permission and without even an attempt at waxing eloquent. I should have just done the whole ‘In-God’s-Time’ routine. But I was so tired and in no mood for concocted religious jargon. My answer was pretty snappy, pretty simple and pretty rude: I don’t find the need to be married. 

Now, that is something you NEVER tell an evangelical Christian! I mean, never!

Her face changed and then with a reaction that conveyed certain doom for my future, she controlled herself and spoke in that gentle Christian charitable tone; you know, the one where we love the gay people until we don’t; the one where we so badly want to pray for the man who is hungry, as opposed to just feeding him? That.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay. I understand, brother. I am not judging you.’

My first reaction should have been: Who the f*** asked you to?

Why can’t my married friends understand, what is extraordinary for them might just be something good in my eyes…and that, something just vaguely good, doesn’t necessarily constitute my idea of a fulfilled life? Why can’t they just understand that I don’t need to have someone to be happy? Why the hell can’t they get that, may be, I have come to a place in life where I am content with my lot in life, being single included. That may be my tether-crazy marriage-horse’s back was broken long ago and now it’s just refusing to want anymore?

Then comes the part, where I am allegedly averse to marriage because of my past relationships. This one’s my favorite because if it is true, then 90% of my friends are all world-class psychiatrists. Unfortunately, it is not! So that just makes them asses with unwarranted mouths!

‘Oh, don’t worry about it, Aden. You must be hurt. One day, you will get over it and want to marry. So, now just deal with whatever you are dealing with! It’s okay. We get it!’

Seriously! Everybody in the world seems to ‘understand’ the self-inflicted predicament of the single-class. We are just hurt, abused and depressed. And one day, like them, we will also have our own revelation, and this dancing doll of a babe with lips like a jewel and breasts like a fawn, will prophetically fall out from one of the songs of Solomon and we will find happiness…the everlasting kind!

Oh God, enough already!

I don’t need someone to rescue me from my so-called ‘solitude-from-hell’. That rescuing was done long ago. And the only thing I needed rescuing from, was from myself…my uncanny ability to self-destruct. Have I done that? Of course. So give me credit for that, married cow!

And the whole idea of a passing phase might hold true if I was still a doe-eyed teenager with more idealism than my raging pants could handle. It just so happens, I am not. My days of idealism are long gone, my emotional institutions are less prone to drama, my hormonal faculties are less predatory and my heart isn’t necessarily looking at every woman in church wondering who that ordained ‘One’ is! 

Don’t get me wrong. I am not hateful towards marriage or the extraordinary life that comes with it. All of my ideals come out of a core belief that I hold dearer than any other theology:

I am not incomplete. I do not need someone to come and complete me. I am not an incomplete half waiting to be made whole. The One that completes me is already on the inside of me. And that One is greater than anyone else in the world. I don’t need rescuing. I am not lonely. I am not starved for love. Period!

Now, will I never get married? I never said that. I might when I feel it is time.  Or maybe not.

But as of today, I am single. And there is an identity in that. The identity that goes with being your own person, being your own muse, being your own unbound, unfettered, untethered song, being your own mindless, poignant, melancholic soliloquy; without being tied down by the selflessness that is the hallmark of any good marriage. 

Instead of talking to me like I’m an idiot, you could just falsely accuse me of being selfish. At least that would sound closer to the truth than the other garbage!

Anyway, coming back to this friend, I just met. Now, I was expecting it to be something of a parade. It was anything but. When he began pouring his heart out, listing all of the issues he was going through in his marriage, telling me how he felt there was a certain kind of beauty in me being single, I was literally beaming with pride but reciprocating with gentle rebukes of the Christian kind. 

‘No, brother. You are so blessed to have someone exclusively for you.’

‘Oh please. Don’t say that. You are in an amazing….’

Well, you know the drill!

Now, here is my own real parade, a little nugget of truth that the married folks need to know, more than the one they are trying to communicate to me:

Your partner is not a cushion for your pain. Your partner was not created to molly-coddle you out of your stupidity. Your partner was not created to compliment your ego. Your partner cannot complete you, when you are a complete incomplete! And your partner is not responsible for your pain. You are. So, stop asking your partner to be your pillow and check if you are a good enough bed. And if you’re lumpy, then well, fix it, before trying to fix the other side.

Take this advice from an absolutely non-judgmental single man. Perhaps, it takes a single man like me, to truly save that illusive perfect union you keep relentlessly boasting about. 

Remember, Hillary, before the advent of Monica’s Stained Blue Dress once wrote: It takes a village!

It does…always!

With love, 

Single Aden.