But First, Death.

The end, when it came—after losing my job, contending a lawsuit, and starting a new relationship—arrived as peacefully and unsuspectingly as sleep. I can’t pinpoint a particular feeling or thought, but somehow I realized that whatever I had been before– TV producer, Angeleno, New Yorker– I was no longer. Perhaps more importantly, there was no going back to it. In essence, I had died.

Death exists in many forms: physical, spiritual, economic, psychic, and emotional are a few; and with each death comes its own grief. It is sad to watch something you’ve worked really hard for go away. It’s sad to feel targeted by power and to witness that power being wielded so violently in the service of ignoble ends (namely, more power). There is a lot of sadness in death, but as terrifying and as exhausting as this all is, I recommend it, and I hope it happens to you.

I’m not talking about some cheesy death-and-rebirth cliché, where you triumph over an unexpected inconvenience and then declare yourself enlightened and healed. I’m talking about genuine annihilation. One that forces you to take a hard look at your life strewn about like rags in a ditch— pathetic and limp. Soggy. I hope you experience a neck-stomping, choke-on-your-own-spit bazooka-ing that forces you to confront the transformative work of reinvention—or face a life of living death, which is another way of saying living a lie. 

Why the violence? When has genuine transformation, whether personal or historical, been peaceful? I hope that one day we can make progress without violence, but I need only open my eyes to see that today is not that day. We live in an age of catastrophe. The 20th century was the deadliest ever with 231 million people "killed or allowed to die by human decision", and the 21st century doesn’t seem to be slowing down– every inhabited continent except Australia is experiencing some form of civil unrest, new diseases lurk, racism rages, climate change marches onward, and poverty persists. Through it all, human wickedness reigns, and our failure after all these millennia to find a different way through should fuel the struggle against the waves of domination our greed produces.

We deserve better, and this project, An(Other), is my contribution to that effort. I have spent much of the last two years outside of America, mostly in Cape Town, South Africa—the Mother City where apartheid’s long tail still whips– grappling with life’s raw and heartbreaking realities. I have been welcomed into people’s lives and have had experiences that exposed the narrow boundaries of my imagination. I carry in me the shards of memories of those who have bared themselves, and in doing so reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. Their love moved me to accept how parts of myself I’d rather ignore were actually barriers to our bond; and if we were going to build an honest relationship, I would have to summon the courage to allow those things to die. Much of me has died in these last two years. You join me during a time when I am trying to put what’s left back together, while also discovering the potential in all that is new.

While this is a personal transformation in progress, we need a collective one too. If we are to stretch beyond survival and create a world of ‘Mutually Assured Prosperity’– where all of Earth’s human and non-human species have ample resources to live expansively and harmoniously– then we must transform as a society. Every dusk is a snapshot of the extent to which we are able to govern ourselves, constrain our wickedness, and amplify the best of our individuality. And every dawn provides a fresh opportunity to begin again.

Please don’t approach my words with voyeuristic distance and objectivity. You are not in danger; you are powerful. However, if any of what you read makes you feel defensive, challenged, or not “for you”, it’s only because something has unsettled you. Pay attention to that feeling. Contend with it courageously and with humility. Excavate it. It might be the beginning of new life. Allow it to come. Because for new life to exist, you must first face what must die. 

And that’s ok– death is part of life. There is no life without death.