Ericcalvario's Blog

At times, the world seems so hyper-focused on marketing enhanced versions of ourselves that we lose sight of the connecting factors that weave us together. We forget that insecurity is not only inherent with being a human…it’s vital to being a human. We are all insecure, we are all vulnerable and we all stumble through transitions in life. It’s the crack in a shell that I find much more riveting and impressive. If you’re beautiful, which you are, people will see it…and there will be so much more longevity of appreciation if they are able to see it organically. I think maturity should come with a sharpened ability to decipher between false confidence and true self-embodiment. A child may not be able to see past smoke and mirrors but mirrors and smoke were manifested by adults and, therefore, should be recognized by adults. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve done the “look how strong and impressive I am” dance before, but I am here saying that I strive not to. I’m attempting to evolve into something I can be proud of, because at the end of the day, the most important person that we have to answer to is ourselves. Don’t estrange yourself from yourself because then you miss the opportunity to truly blend what you’ve learned with who you are. Consequentially, having a friendship with yourself makes you a better friend to others. If you over-prioritize your desire to convey, you under-prioritize your ability to impact.

Instinctively, human nature provokes an inward interception of what we should and shouldn’t be. Life is easier to control when we compartmentalize. Consequently, we often decipher what we are by what we claim not to be. When you break it all down though, aren’t we all a little bit of everything? Instead of pushing claims of what we aren’t perhaps true control comes from accepting what we struggle with. The question then arises: If we admit to being impulsive, how do we commit ourselves to what we want permanently? I think we’d be better equipped for that if we dropped the emphasis on fitting into a box and focus inward at what we want out of life. Love and monogamy are two strong institutions that need to be counter-balanced by a general acceptance that we are a magnitude of things. We are all tempted by the temporary, illuminated by our imperfections and bound to a reality that the ebbs and flows of life can sometimes shine a light on what we don’t want to see. I think the beauty of human nature falls within its resilience. We are all deep people. There’s a depth in art, a depth in insecurity and a depth in the waves of emotions we often feel but don’t always have the capacity to articulate. Instead of hiding behind self proclamations and judgements, perhaps the key to prosperity is funneling a full acceptance of ourselves into what we aspire to achieve.

A common perception of “hard work” entails following through with an action to achieve a valued outcome.  As complex individuals, when the valued outcome is to cultivate ourselves, the very meat of the follow through has to involve sequences of stepping away and stepping back in. Something as basic of a concept as travel can hold so much gravity in parallel to the enigma of “working on ourselves”. We need to step out in order to truly step in. So what does this all mean? It means that when it comes to working on ourselves, follow through is not a one directional track. It’s more like sewing together a strand of actions, failures and accomplishments to gain perspective….and you can’t be the seamstress if you’re wrapped up in the threads. It’s a complex route to follow. The paradox is that hard work often entails giving up on some short term things in order to attack the bigger goal…and sometimes it’s those short term threads of the past are what you’ve been preparing yourself to step back into all along.

STEP: Experience is a doorway, not a destination. You can cultivate your internal resume by travelling around the world and still know nothing about it. Quantitative steps don’t pull your mind forward. It’s the lens we choose to view those steps through that evolve our outlook. In a world abundant with options, our own personal luxury sometimes handicaps us from the simplicity of appreciation. Walk with purpose and the world will run to you.

MAINTAIN: Euphoria is a strange feeling. It amplifies your appreciation of life but you also lose a part of yourself in a struggle to maintain it. You don’t realize what you’re capable of until you’re placed in a position of extreme emotional commitment…until you’ve allowed something new to replace elements of your life that currently sustain you. Divine intervention knocked our lives together with a “love on steroids” that slipped on like a custom made glove. Love was so blindingly strong that we ignored our colliding dreams. Love got wrapped in a challenge of blending oil and vinegar. Despite the happiness it evoked, I lost myself in the compromise. You are the kindest, most beautiful, deep and selfless person I have ever had the pleasure of loving. This has been one of the most challenging but ultimately inspiring chapters of my life. It redefined “love” to me. The love I knew before had so many more limits. I feel like I’ve released a diamond in order to preserve my ability to walk back to myself. Growth and evolution are vital to the development of human character, but that can’t come without a priority on maintaining ourselves.

I write. It’s a color of my character that I haven’t scribbled with in a while. As my thoughts stumble to access this keypad, I stumble onwards through a new chapter in this evolving but comfortably familiar way….Writing is a crutch I’ve relied on for clarity, so perhaps what I think and what I expose might spark a sense of clarity in you….or even better, maybe it will complicate things. The beauty in the struggle isn’t only the resolve you find at the end. It’s the vulnerable and sometimes chaotic transition between emotion and thought that actualizes the fact that stumbling through life is universal. We all bleed, we all recover and we often times remove that scab that peeled off into a scar from the archives of our memory. My goal in this blog is to convey the transition of that wound into a scar, that perseverance into glory and the comedy and somber and failure and triumph that doesn’t always get captured at the end of a flashing camera. I’m not here to tell you that I’m more interesting or special than anybody else. It’s the fact that I’m absolutely ordinary that I hope will be the most compelling. Consider this the next chapter of www.xanga.com/mr_california. I may not be a new person. I may not even be a better person….but I’m activated, I’m curious, and I’m more me than I’ve ever been willing to share. Let’s walk.