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If you are looking only for easy answers to life's questions, for only the easiest ways to skip through your existence, I suggest you check out other websites. I am not opposed to ease and simplicity; I often like them, and sometimes insist on them (to my detriment). It has been my observation and experience, however, that life is simple and complex; and that our feelings, our decisions, about what is simple, and what is complex, can change, and often do.
In LukeyoutheU (its website, books, podcast series), I express, through stories--examples, thoughts written and spoken--ways and means of thinking, and doing, that I have found useful and good. Useful and good for and in my own individual life; and ways others, and our species, and the other species on the planet, can grow towards more Life. What you take and employ from the stories is up to you. I am not, on this website or otherwise, going to try to squeeze you into my understanding of life. I have my opinions and I present them. You, of course, will have yours. I believe and find life to be wondrous, astonishing, mystifying; and, sometimes, quite difficult indeed. I love life often; like it, on most days; and, on some days, and during dark hours, find it an irritating bother. And worse. In those nonoptimal times, I ask myself if anything I think or do makes any difference at all. If I matter at all. Once upon a time, way back when I was in college, I took a modernist art class. I did not seek the class out but was suggested it by a close friend. She took the course with me. Naturally enough, in it all of us were shown photos of some of the world's most famous modern art. I appreciated much of the art visually; some of it viscerally; maybe a few examples intellectually; as for other pieces, well, they had me scratching my head. We listened to well-supported theories on the work of Pablo Picasso from our instructor, a renowned scholar of the famous artist and his art; I wrote a paper on Jean DuBuffet's l'Hourloupe series, considering how his black lines did not separate but instead connect. Over the semester, I began to understand something. Art (life) has a creator and a viewer, if you want to see it that way; but in the bigger, dare I say realer, picture, art involves/ reflects both the artist(s) who produced it and the viewer/ reader who considers it. Art (life) can seem like a one-way street, feel like a one-way street and probably many see it that way, we viewers looking at fixed work. Really, though; art is a two-way thoroughfare. Consciously or unconsciously, we decide what the art/ life means to us, even if that meaning is "nothing." Take that understanding, and make it broader. Apply it to your experienced life. You get this: each and every one of us and all of us apply meaning all the time. We apply it, sometimes multiple types of it, to all the things, events, and people in our lives. We do so, usually, on an unconscious level. Thank goodness for that; otherwise we would be consciously overwhelmed. Nevertheless, we do. Consciously aware of it, or not. The meanings we give, the truth we hold on to, are the footings and foundations of our lives. We reveal the meanings we have given/ are giving, I think, by the stories we tell. By the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, speech we use. We describe/ ascribe meaning to the people (foolhardy, smart, attractive), things (shiny, clunky, ancient, new), and events (thrilling, devastating, boring, significant) in our lives. I carry in me stories that help me make sense of life, and to live. I would guess you do, too. The particular story I hold among the uppermost: Life, including my little, itty-bitty life being lived out here in a suburban town not too far from the western edge of the North American continent, has meaning. Multiple meanings. My life has meaning beyond only my getting up every day, and working for money on most of them. It is more meaning than my keeping myself fed, sheltered, and looking respectable (though all of these activities are important, useful, and good). My life has more meaning, even, that my relationships with others (though others are sources of much joy and vital and I love them). Never forget that LukeyoutheU is a story. A collection of stories. That everyone, every human-created organization and object is telling a story. Please do not forget that you, dear reader, are writing, and telling, your own story. Thanks for reading. Jake Knight I have noticed that it is oftentimes the shouters, and the promisers of something new, and the repeaters, who get most people's attention. In LyU, I try not to shout. I offer useful repackaging more often than the brand spanking new. I aim to often enough reiterate, but not too often repeat. I am not trying to dazzle, inveigle, or hoodwink. I am trying to intrigue, encourage, and invite. Some notes, notes which can help you with this site. -If you are unsure about a word or phrase's meaning, look it up. You are likely on a computer that is connected to the internet. If not, find one; or look in a book called a dictionary. A richer vocabulary can help build for you a more creative mind. If you think I have used a word or phrase poorly or wrong, let me know. You can see how in the footer. -There are, quite possibly, parts of LyU that will not appeal to you. One or more of the podcast's series, or the topic of a book, for example. Great! I am telling you parts of my story. I am not telling you about, or predicting, yours. Now you know what you do not like. What not to consider further. There is likely still much available. -I ask you in LyU to think BIG but not only BIG. I ask you to be willing to think small. Medium. Even tiny. -You are a marvelous being, dear reader. Really, you are. You have a body, a mind, physical senses; an inkling that there is more to know, more ways to grow, that you have yet experienced. In addition to who you currently are, and what you have already given to the world, you are a being who can know, perhaps already knows, that you want to Live. We are players in, active characters in, inexorably part of, Life. The decisions you make, yes you, dear reader, you, even now, have an impact on, sometimes visibly determine, your future; the futures of those in your orbit; and, even, The Future. -LukeyoutheU is not a religious faith. It does, however, ask for faith: for you to have faith that you can be, and that it would be good for you to be, at least partially aware of your greater self. Your next step is yours to decide. Life awaits; it often seems/ does respond to decisions acted out (even if that decision is not to decide). There are options before you. more |