Be like Picasso who said, “I do not seek. I find.”
Do not stop until you find your kind—the ones you can speak short-hand in a long-hand world to, the ones who inspire rather than compel you to go beyond yourself with the feeling that you could not offer enough.
Find the ones who laugh with you at the same obscure jokes that only those who’ve been through the fire rely on to get through the burn.
Find the ones who get softer rather than harder the more life cooks them, like meat rather than eggs.
Seek out the ones who sit down, ante up all they’ve got, and make you think in the back of your mind, I did not know this was possible.
The ones with the guts and the fortitude to trust after the 1,000 betrayals we’ve all lived through by the time we are 20.
The ones who mitigate the damage, the potential for becoming embittered by making—love, art, new inroads through the sticky thicket that is the human heart.
Find the ones who say, “You don’t scare me,” and, “I don’t think you understand, I’m a ride or die, a stick and stay,” and have the backbone and heart-brawn to mean it.
The ones whose calls make your heart leap when you see their number, even though you’re not much for phone conversations, because you know you’ll be nourished with heart food.
Find the ones who defend you behind your back, by your side, and, most importantly, to your face when you are pulling out the whip of regret and doubt.
You’re right; the crowd thins the further you walk down the path but becomes richer like something that has cooked down in its own juices.
But roads to freedom are never walked alone; they are walked shoulder to shoulder with some fear, but also with the invisible web woven between you and those by your side.
Dare to do it: Love hard, offer it up, show your original face.
Amidst bombs, irritants, and doubts you’ll find that courage enters like gold to fill the crack, the broken parts. You’ll be given just enough light to see where to take the next step. You will have found the “what” there is to find.