In Plain Sight

In Plain Sight

Jan 1, 2023 | Spoken Poetry

In Plain Sight

by Robert Levey

As
I lay hiding,
confiding
to no one
and no thing,
the remnants of past selves
bring
me pain
inside the heart
I pretend is my brain
is a boy,
so scared
to share himself
with a world
that seems so hard,
harsh,
and yet the metal
I think I see
outside of myself
is actually inside me,
within each reverie,
each dream,
every intent,
all waves,
one sea,
three of me,
the man before,
the one now,
and the one yet to be,
we three
have a responsibility
to each other
and to me,
the man with tears in every lie,
every half-truth,
every story
I’ve ever told,
or held,
or allowed to meld
inside the blood
that runs through every vein
in my heart,
so big,
so small,
insignificant,
but aren’t we all,
I ask myself
in half jest
lest I come to believe
that the pain I love
will never leave
and that the man I thought I was becoming
was the same figment,
the same mirage
in a lifetime full of dreams
and expectations
that go unfulfilled,
because I won’t fill them.

What is Love?

What is Love?

Dec 21, 2022 | Love

Sure, I know love. It is a feeling, right? Is it an action, too? Or is it a sequence of actions? Is it formulaic? When I read my last post on love, I am forcibly reminded that perhaps I do not know what love is it all.

Written by Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now is a song whose lyrics have always haunted me, this stanza in particular:

I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all

As I try and unpack the above sentiment in my heart now that I am clearly past childhood (or am I?), I have a feeling that the way I have experienced love throughout my entire life has been remarkably selfish in some ways. I reduce love to (non)actions. I can do this, but I cannot do that, etc.

What does that really mean? I do not know except in hypothetical scenarios that, well, are hypotheses on what I ‘might’ or ‘might not’ do in a given circumstance. Perhaps, however, I limit my life and those of others when I imagine what I either can or cannot do.

Heinz von Foerster developed an ethical imperative, which states: Act always so as to increase the total number of choices. I find this statement profound in many ways. When I look at the sum of my life and various specifics, I do not see I have embodied this principle very well, if at all.

Recent events in my life actually call into question the extent to which this imperative currently serves as a guiding beacon in my relationships with others. I am obtuse. I am aloof, and I have discovered long-cycle patterns of behavior that take years to unfold. My discovery of these long-cycle patterns provide fuller context into my assertion that I am broken as a man.

What is love? Unlike some in this world who cling to ‘absolute’ truth, I cannot definitively say one way or another. What I do feel, though, is that the quest to love others deeply has intrinsic value in ways that affect past, present, and future. Whose past? Whose present? Whose future?

Nothing should ever be taken for granted.

Soft Feelings

Soft Feelings

Nov 11, 2022 | Spoken Poetry

Soft Feelings

by Robert Levey

Soft feelings are hard to let go,
especially when they bleed
into dreams
and streams
of consciousness
that meander and flow
into places I do not understand
or know.

Broken people made whole
inside the hole
within the sphere of the heart
of the soul
and liquid dreams,
streams
of tears,
cascading fears,
the undulating,
rapturous years
bent around
a tree
and its roots,
offshoots
of self
and sky
and earth,
the branches of time,
the hidden,
unforeseen,
the sublime,
the hands of time…

…constructs of mind,
the lost,
the blind,
the dreams of humankind
held inside the womb
of space and time,
floating free
within a revery
of a man who asks himself,
to be or not to be
and how it came to be,
and the feeling lingers,
rests on his fingers
and fills the hole
in his crimson heart…

Decisions

Decisions

Nov 1, 2022 | Leadership

In an office, who makes the decisions?

Is it the manager? Supervisor? General staff?

Do these questions matter? Absolutely, because how this question is answered reveals much about how an individual views reality itself.

While a manager is responsible for the strategic direction of a particular unit of people, he/she cannot be responsible or privy to every decision made by staff.

Often times, a manager can become bogged down in the ‘what’ of something rather than the ‘how’ and/or ‘why,’ and the distinction between the two mindsets is not one of semantics. If a manager is to guide a team, this individual must lead by example as opposed to attempting to direct the behaviors and actions of those under his/her care.

It is an easy trap into which one may fall, however, as managers experience psychological pressures that differ substantially from those of general staff. Whereas managers often become enmeshed in the pursuit of tangible benchmarks for success — units sold, numbers served, etc — staff are more concerned with how to complete the tasks presented to them.

Whereas managers have some discretion to make any number of decisions, staff often are ‘forced’ into a decision based on sets of variables not under their control.

When making a decision, a manager should take into account several factors that have nothing — and yet everything — to do with the business problem at hand. These factors include the organization’s culture, general philosophy and the people expected to behave and perform differently as a result of the decision that has been made.

How will this decision impact my staff? Is it logical? Is it achievable? Does it make general sense?

When making decisions for others, it is important to recognize that what might make the most business sense may not make the most sense given available resources and human capital at hand…

The Truth

The Truth

Apr 20, 2022 | Power

The truth.

It is a fascinating concept and one that supports how many of us go through our everyday lives. There is some sort of ‘truth’ that supports our cultural values, approach to life, or how we build our business(es).

Really? Is there really such a thing as truth when it comes to something as nebulous as our very existence? Are we going to take control of our lives from that big, black, large universe that still begins even as it ends billions of light years away? Can we monetize this somehow?

There is something incredibly hollow about a life defined only by cultural rules and mores designed by others–namely, men. Culture is a construct. If you were born in India, your paradigm would be different. If you were born in 1953, you would be different. 

If all we can do to answer a question is to reference cultural constructs–the very nature of which we purportedly are trying to bring down–then are we not in fact supporting their efficacy?

What do you think about yourself? What do you love? What are you? What are you at 9:45 pm at the end of the day and you feel as if you wasted another day in a life you would rather not believe is finite?

There is a wonderful beauty in allowing ourselves the opportunity to experience and fully digest the very real possibility that our truth may be that we simply do not know. When we bounce around purchasing products or another series of “Masterclasses” that provide us with canned sets of unoriginal, but beautifully presented ideas, we feed the machine we are trying to overthrow.

What is the machine? The machine is the voice in your head from which you seek your counsel. Yes, that voice. Is it the only voice in your head? Only you know that. Only you know your truth.

This does not mean there is no value in sharing your thoughts and feelings with others. Rather, it means there is a deeper context to reality we all sense, but rarely discuss. 

We are all mortal and we are all going to die. That, folks, is the ultimate truth…