Blog Full - Maurice Leavitt | Personal Essays, Travel Writing & Reflections

3 Sep 2025

Madonna: Material Girl to Mystical Struggles

by Maurice | posted in: philosophy, reflections, Spirituality, Vulnerability | 0

Preface

This is not just an essay about Madonna. It’s about all of us — about how the ego shows up in our lives. Our hunger for recognition. The resistance to limits. The clash with authority, and the yearning to be seen on our own terms. Madonna’s career gives us a vivid stage where ego plays out in the spotlight. But, the same dynamics unfold quietly in our families, workplaces, and inner lives. What follows is less a biography than a mirror.

From Boy Toy to Ego Battle

Madonna has never been just a pop star. She has been a mirror, a provocation, and at times, a spiritual experiment played out on the world’s stage. To watch her career is to watch someone wrestle with ego in public. Not only flaunting it, but also trying, again and again, to transcend it.

It took me a while to become fond of Madonna. I didn’t see the appeal of her pop music or style when she made her first appearance in the 80s. She seemed hungry for attention and was willing to push the limits of the music industry and of society itself.

But by the late 90’s and early 2000s came, her music shifted. The sharp edges of ego softened as well as some of her self-centeredness. She became a mother, embraced yoga and Kabbalah, and her spiritual practice showed in the evolution of her music. She seemed more interested in growth and self-examination than in controversy … at least for a time.

This evolution feels familiar: how we go from “I”-centered, to “we”-centered over the course of life. David Brooks writes in The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life … “The first mountain is about building up the ego and defining the self; the second mountain is about shedding the ego and losing the self”.

I became more interested after I watched Madonna’s video Die Another Day for the 100^th or so time. I hadn’t seen it in years and this time I noticed something new. The Hebrew letters tattooed on her arm … ל (Lamed), א (Aleph), ו (Vav). In Kabbalah, ל־א־ו is traditionally linked with ego-dissolution, the movement from selfishness to humility. That detail pulled me in and motivated me to write about Madonna’s musical expression as an ego battle.

Express Yourself: Ego as Empowerment

She broke through in the 80’s with her songs “Material Girl” and “Like a Virgin”. Her style was bold and unapologetically self-focused. With lace gloves, crucifixes, tulle skirts and her “boy toy” belt buckle. It screamed: look at me, I’m in charge of my sexuality, I make the rules. Young women copied her, creating the Madonna craze.
Then came Express Yourself (1989). Here, Madonna turned ego into an anthem — the will to want more, demand more, and refusing to settle.

“Don’t go for second best, baby, put your love to the test.”

It wasn’t just a hunger for attention. It was about knowing your worth, self-respect, self-assertion, and a refusal to accept crumbs.

This was Madonna’s “ego era”. She fueled dignity, empowerment, and liberation for women in a culture that often-told women to stay small. Through ambition, grabbing attention, eroticism, and breaking rules, she made ego a force of self-empowerment.

Blond Ambition: Wrestling with Authority

By the 1990’s ego became the spectacle. The Blonde Ambition Tour. Jean Paul Gaultier’s cone bras, simulated sex acts, and Catholic imagery. Madonna pushed the limits of taste, art, and religion. Her stagecraft turned into an open war against authority.

This was the Vatican’s first condemnation. Officials pressured the Italian government to intervene, calling the show “blasphemous”. (It also happened again during her “confessions” world tour.) In Toronto, police threatened to arrest her for “indecency” because of her simulated masturbation scene during “Like a Virgin”. She refused to change, went ahead, and no arrests followed. What began as self-promotion was now rebellion.

Through the 90s, Madonna wore ego like a mask. Vogue glamorized reinvention. Erotica flaunted provocation. Bedtime Stories softened her image. Ray of Light shifted toward spirituality and motherhood. The decade was experimentation: ego not erased, but fluid, changing masks at will.

Madonna wasn’t just hungry for attention; she was experimenting with identity itself. Her study of Kabbalah and her becoming a mother added layers of depth to her reinventions. Through her songwriting, she demonstrated that her ego was still central — but no longer rigid. It became more fluid, a mask she could slip on and off, a tool for exploring who she might become.

Die Another Day: The Inner Duel

By the early 2000s, her relationship with ego shifted again and she turned inward and became more reflective. Motherhood and Kabbalah deepened her themes. What once was done for shock value, turned into a self-examination. Nowhere clearer than in her James Bond soundtrack single, Die Another Day (2002).

In the video, she doesn’t fight Bond villains — she fights herself. The ego that once gave her self-empowerment now becomes her opponent. Tied, gagged, shocked, drowned, fencing with her own double. These aren’t just spy-movie clichés. They mirror the everyday battle with ego … craving more, never being satisfied, the pride that keeps us armored, the fear of letting go. Ego doesn’t just sit quietly — it drags us into battles we didn’t ask for and leaves us exhausted.

Madonna herself said the song was about inner conflict and transformation. The Hebrew letters ל־א־ו tattooed on her arm marked that struggle. These letters are connected to “transcending the ego”. Ego, in this sense, is what traps us in destructive cycles — pride, rage, fear, self-importance.

In Kabbalah, ego isn’t destroyed — it’s redirected. The vessel of self can either hoard for itself or open to share. Kabbalah doesn’t call for ego death but for restriction. The learning to pause before acting, so the same fire that fuels self-centeredness can be turned outward to serve. Madonna’s video shows the duel between those two impulses — the self that clings, and the self that surrenders.

The Shadow of Service

Even as her music shifted, Madonna’s public life reflected the same paradox.

Over the years, Madonna was involved in many philanthropic efforts. During the height of the AIDS crisis. She was one of the few megastars to speak openly and fundraise for research. She has been a consistent ally to the LGBTQ+ community. Raising money and awareness for LGBTQ+ rights, HIV prevention, and anti-discrimination campaigns.
She performed at Live Aid (1985), for Ethiopian famine relief, and at Live 8 (2005) to raise awareness about global poverty. She appeared on the Tsunami Aid (2005) telethon and donated proceeds from her “Hung Up” single to Hurricane Katrina disaster victims.

In 2006 she founded Raising Malawi, a nonprofit to support orphans and vulnerable children. She built 10 schools and created the Mercy James Centre for Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care in Lilongwe. The hospital named after her adopted daughter. She adopted four children from Malawi. With the documentary I Am Because We Are (2008) she tried to spotlight the crisis. Some critics accused her of this being another one of her famous publicity stunts.

From her perspective, this was Kabbalah in action — tikkun olam, repairing the world with the platform she’d been given. From her critics’ view, it was ego masquerading as service, the “white savior” centering herself in another people’s story. The truth is probably both. The same ego she tried to shed was also the engine that made her philanthropy visible.

That paradox is as human as it gets.

Ego’s True Work

Madonna never killed her ego. Maybe she never needed to. Is the ego meant to be destroyed? Kabbalah doesn’t teach ego death. It teaches restriction. The discipline of pausing before acting. So the same fire that fuels self-centeredness can be redirected toward something larger than the self.

Sometimes her ego betrayed her. Sometimes it lifted others. But the fight with the ego itself … and the endless wrestling between self-centeredness and service, between spotlight and surrender … is what made her career more than a pop music and superstar spectacle.

In the end, Madonna’s journey shows us something true: the ego doesn’t die. It doesn’t need to. It cannot. What matters is not erasing the ego but choosing how we wield it. Whether for our own personal gain, or for something greater that reaches beyond ourselves.

24 Aug 2025

The Truth-Teller, the Disturber, and the Black Sheep

by Maurice | posted in: Compassionate Conversation, Conflict Resolution, Retirement, Speaking Your Truth, Thailand, Truth | 1

How silence shapes families, workplaces, and cultures — and those who dare to break it.

Every human group — families, workplaces, communities, even entire cultures — develops its own agreements, spoken and unspoken, about what can be said and what must be left unsaid. Some of those agreements are written into policy or passed down through cultural norms and rituals, but many are silent, enforced only by the fear of what happens someone dares to break them.

These silences shape the families we grow up in, the workplaces we adapt to, and the cultures we move within. Often, we don’t notice any of this happening –until suddenly, we do.

The Roles We Inherit

It is within these environments that our roles emerge. There will always be the caretakers, the over-achievers, the peacekeepers. And often, there is the truth-teller – sometimes called the disturber, more often branded the black sheep. The one who feels the weight of oppressive silence pressing down until words rise up against it. The one who names what others would rather keep hidden, whether in a living room, a boardroom, or a culture that values harmony over honesty.

I know this role well. It wasn’t one I chose for myself, but one I seemed to fall into again and again. I have vivid memories of starting conversations about difficult things as early as 6 years old. At that age, I didn’t have any language for it – I just felt the pressure of building silence and I couldn’t hold it.

What I did learn, even back then, was the cost. Speaking carried risk. Sometimes it meant facing someone’s anger or sadness and sometimes being dismissed as “too much”.

“Learning when to tell the truth and when to hold it has been a lifelong practice — not because I doubt the truth itself, but because I’ve had to weigh when the relationship could bear it.”

Seeing What Others Avoid

The role of a truth-teller is carried out by those who see clearly in places where others prefer the illusion of harmony. Families guard their appearance of peace, workplaces their measures of productivity and profit, and nations their performance of stability. Cracks in these images can feel like threats to the fragile sense of belonging everyone depends on, however illusory it may be. When the truth teller names those cracks, they are branded disruptive, disloyal, or ungrateful.

I learned this first in the atmosphere of my family home. Frustration with a situation was expressed as anger. Silence met that anger just as often, and avoidance carried its own cost – solving nothing, only postponing what would eventually return. One parent would provoke, escalating the situation, while the other would deny and retreat, until the pressure built into eruption — but never a resolution. The cycle repeated itself again and again: provocation, withdrawal, blow-up, retreat.

As a child, I felt the cycle itself … and the tension of it surrounding me, even when nobody spoke. Others coped by running out of the room or forgetting altogether, hoping it would magically vanish if no one brought it up again. But for reasons I didn’t fully understand, my way was different. I remembered — and I spoke to the shadow of the elephant in the room.

I have memories of being terrified, yet still starting conversations about the things no one wanted to talk about. I didn’t know then that I was playing the role of the truth-teller, or what others would later call the black sheep. I only knew that something was not right and the silence around the problem was suffocating.

And yet, I also learned the cost. Telling the truth often drew an angry reaction or could send someone into a heavy silence that slipped into sadness. Sometimes the conflict from truth telling ended in physical distancing, rejection or outright abandonment. It set me apart from the rest of the family, who chose silence over confrontation. I was disrupting the fragile harmony that the silence was supposed to protecting.

Still, those early experiences became the foundation for how I would later understand human connection and conflict when truth is buried. I became aware of the price of avoidance, and I was unwilling to pretend that silence heals what it is trying to hide.

Sometimes families create triangles. One person avoids, another confronts, and the parent in the middle feels indispensable. Instead of healing rifts, the pattern keeps them alive — because the person in the middle needs to be needed. What’s lost is the clean connection between siblings, or between any two people who might otherwise meet each other honestly. It’s heartbreaking, because you long for that connection — but the system keeps pulling you apart.

Beyond the Family

What begins in families rarely stays contained there. The same patterns of silence and avoidance repeat themselves in larger systems. Workplaces, communities, and even entire cultures develop their own ways of rewarding conformity while shaming or punishing disruption. All of them have their truth-tellers … tolerated at best, rarely welcomed, half-exiled, yet quietly necessary.

I experienced this firsthand during my years in education. At one point, the college president hired a department head for Culinary Arts who had no background in the field. At the same time, the curriculum we were teaching from was more than twenty years old, hopelessly behind a profession that had already reinvented itself many times over. Everyone knew it, but few said anything. Silence felt safer.

I was beside myself. Was I the only one seeing this? Why wasn’t anyone from my industry or department speaking up? Directly questioning the president of the college would mean stepping out of line, drawing the label of being “difficult” or “not a team player” or worse, insubordinate. And yet, to remain silent would hold its own kind of betrayal — to the students who trusted us, to the profession I had given my life to, and to my own integrity.

I was told to “give it some time”, year after year.

That same tension showed up on a larger scale here in Thailand. Here, saving face is everywhere— not simply politeness; it’s a cultural protocol that avoids public discomfort and preserves social harmony. It can feel like grace—protecting dignity in moments of slip. But when it becomes a mask that protects image over truth, what grows in the shadows can turn toxic. To speak directly, especially to someone “above” you in age or rank, can be seen as disrespectful, even dishonorable.

That delicate tightrope—between grace and suppression, compassion and control—is where many conversations fail to land. Truth becomes the casualty.

The Paradox

To tell the truth is both gift and exile. Some people thank me for it — I appreciate you because you are courageous to tell the truth and you’re not afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. Others ask why I would cause such unnecessary disruption — Why bring conflict onto yourself by speaking up? The truth-teller never gets to choose how their role will be received.

There is clarity, relief, and a kind of integrity in no longer feeling the need to pretend. But it also carries isolation and loneliness. The truth-teller knows that relationships without reciprocity are not sustainable. They learn to keep the door cracked — enough to let love through if it comes honestly, but not wide open to harm. To speak what others avoid often means risking belonging — but preserving courage and integrity.

“Belonging built on silence is not belonging at all.”

The paradox is this: the truth-teller is not seeking approval for their actions. Their role is not to comfort but to disrupt unhealthy patterns. They are the ones who remind us that belonging built on silence is not belonging at all. Without truth-tellers, our illusions harden into a make-believe reality, and the denial and avoidance becomes the norm. With them, there is at least the possibility of change — though rarely without friction.

And maybe that is the deeper gift. Not to destroy, but to refuse false harmony. Not to wound, but to keep alive the possibility that relationships — families, communities, even whole societies — might grow strong enough to hold the truth.

For me, the role has always been both blessing and curse. It has set me apart, sometimes painfully so, yet it has also given me clarity and integrity. I have come to accept and appreciate that tension — the strange necessity of the truth-teller , and the half-exile of the black sheep.

15 Aug 2025

Vocation: Presence Over Performance … Service Over Self

by Maurice | posted in: Adventure | 0

At first, I thought “vocation” meant chasing a dream.

Cooking was the vocation I had a fire for—I had the taste, the instincts, the skill, and the determination. I wanted to make food that moved people. And for a long time, I carried the titles I thought I was supposed to have in my life, and was doing the thing I believed I was meant to be doing.

Looking back, I was in service to other people’s pleasure. And I still believe there’s something sacred in that. Feeding someone well. Providing pleasure to a partner. Offering yourself for another’s delight—it’s intimate, human, and even holy. But when you do it while abandoning yourself, it stops being generous. It becomes a performance. Maybe even a transaction. Like touching someone’s body, making love … just going through the motions. Giving, but with a closed fist.

After ten years in professional kitchens, working under celebrity chefs, opening restaurants, pushing for perfection—I hit a wall. The competition, repetition, the egos battling, became unbearable. I once thrived on the stress, the culture and the pressure to keep producing. But, I was burning out. The very thing that once gave me pride and identity had become a source of suffering.

In the kitchen, discipline wasn’t optional. You showed up … worked hard … get shit done. And that kind of rigor suited me. A disciplined work ethic came naturally. But I started to realize that pulling off perfect service meant nothing if I was disconnected from my own center. Success wasn’t just about performance—it was about how I related to myself.

That was the harder work: resisting my own indifference, showing up without having to prove anything to anyone, learning to notice when my own self-indulgence or emotional laziness was creeping in. My real growth wasn’t in the technical or professional—it was in my personal habits, in developing the kind of self-respect that leads to peace of mind.

The beginnings of figuring out what it means to live a good life.

I was struggling with what to do next. Unemployed, going from one small job to another. Then I saw a job listing in the newspaper. A local community college was looking for a culinary instructor. These jobs almost never opened up, especially not full-time, not with benefits. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I applied … luck was on my side … Got the job.

I didn’t set out to become a teacher. But the truth is, I was already doing the work. Training cooks, mentoring staff, modeling how to show up—not just for the food, but for life. Responsibility, presence, integrity. These weren’t lessons on the menu, but they were part of what I offered. And something about that began to feel true.

And maybe it took my suffering in the kitchen—the burnout, the deadening repetition, the disillusionment, my quiet collapse—to make space for that truth to surface. I tried ignoring it and looking away. Masking my suffering through alcohol and marijuana had stopped working. And in that clarity, a new path opened for me. Not one born from comfort or ambition, but from the recognition: my life no longer fit what I was doing.

The discovery of my vocation revealed itself quietly through that ache of exhaustive suffering … the kind that comes from performing, pleasing, and avoiding pain for too long. Eventually, the cost of abandoning myself became too high. So I started turning inward.

I began taking responsibility—for my reactions, my past, my choices, the stories I told myself. Not to achieve enlightenment or perfection, but to feel whole again. And I’ve come to believe that’s where real vocation begins: not with external validation, but with inner integration.

Getting the teaching job wasn’t the end of my growth, it was just the beginning. The vocation kept unfolding in me, and through the students I taught. Teaching culinary arts became the doorway, but my real work was about something more.

Sure, teaching the cooking techniques mattered because that’s what I was being paid to do. But what was really shaping us were the things no textbook could teach: how to deal with our mistakes, how to adapt when food didn’t get delivered, how to receive public critique, and most of all … how to respond to the unexpected and uncontrollable.

Those were the moments that revealed our character … both for teacher and student. The moments that taught us more than any academic lesson ever could.

Suffering: The Doorway to Clarity and Initiation

The deeper truth is this: it wasn’t the burnout or the disappointment in my jobs that changed me. It was what the discomfort revealed. Suffering has a way of burning through illusion if we let it. Revealing what we’d rather not see. It asks more of us than most people want to give. But if we’re willing to stay with it, suffering becomes the doorway to seeing things more clearly.

At the time, I was just trying to survive. But looking back, I can see that the life I was living wasn’t genuine. My anger and reactivity were self-protections. The suffering was showing me what wasn’t working anymore. Not just in my job, but in my way of being and seeing the world.

What became clear was how much of my energy had gone into managing my image: competent, reliable, and in control. A man society told me I was supposed to be. But underneath that facade was a mess of avoidance—emotional bypassing, substance use, perfectionism, and a low-grade diminishment of self-worth I had no idea how to name. The gap between how I looked from the outside and how I felt from the inside was widening. The light and darkness in me were no longer playing well together.

These realizations didn’t come quickly. What I’m describing now happened many years ago—but I remember the shift like it was yesterday. And as I build a new life in Thailand, I find myself revisiting this process again. Not in the same form, but with the same essential question: Am I still willing to live honestly—with myself, and with others?

There’s not enough talk about our inner duality—the ways we split ourselves.

The images of ourselves we show the world, and the one we carry in silence when the mind turns against us. The part that appears strong on the outside, and the part that’s quietly crumbling on the inside. But suffering doesn’t care about our polished performance. It strips us down until all that’s left is what’s real… and that, in the end, is rarely as harsh as the voice in our head would have us believe.

What I came to see was that I was learning how to live in alignment with myself. I had mastered output and control. But internally… peace of mind? Emotional honesty? The ability to hold pain without fleeing? How to ask for what I wanted? That was all still ahead of me.

As I began to slow down and feel my life more clearly, I started seeing the deeper ways I had been hiding—from myself, and from others. Not just in my professional life. But in love, family and sexuality. I could spot the avoidance in others because I was beginning to recognize it in myself. It was a harsh reality I needed to follow.

So many of us say we want love and connection. We want deep relationships, fulfilling sex and real intimacy. But we won’t speak our truth. We don’t ask for what we want. Staying vague, polite, emotionally distant. We use humor, caretaking, or silence to sidestep being vulnerable. And then we wonder why we feel so alone.

The more I sat with and faced the pain born from my own true feelings…. the more I saw how much of my life had been shaped by escaping. Avoiding the confrontation within myself. Ignoring my desires. Not acknowledging my grief. And I started to understand that suffering wasn’t just something to get through—it was the teacher that helped me stop hiding.

This was my real initiation. The beginning of a more genuine, undivided life. One where I could ask for what I wanted without apology. One where intimacy meant honesty—not just comfort.

And that realization—that suffering could open, rather than close—changed everything.

From Clarity to Vocation: The Call to Service

For me, this didn’t just happen in isolation or through journaling. Once I realized I was not living my best life, an authentic life—once I could no longer deny the disconnection between who I was and how I was living—I began to seek out the people and places that could hold that transformation.

I went to retreat centers, to ashrams. Sat meditating in silence for 10 hours a day. Joined men’s circles, where the masks we wear around masculinity were stripped bare. I did sexual healing work—not because it was trendy, but because I needed to face the places in me that had been distorted, hidden, or numbed. I wanted to understand what a healthy relationship looked like. What intimacy really was. I was ready to stop pretending.

These spaces weren’t comfortable, but they were real. They helped me confront what I had avoided and integrate parts of myself I had long denied. These people and places weren’t escapes from myself—they were containers where I could show up as my full self in all my suffering and perceived brokenness.

These experiences became initiations into a life I had only dreamed of living. And I walked into them willingly, because I knew that what I needed wasn’t another goal to chase, but a more honest relationship with myself.
The more I returned to myself, the more I stopped trying to accommodate, avoid conflict or perform according to someone else’s standards. And the more I could offer my unique self to others … not through unsolicited advice or ready-made answers, but through pure presence and undivided attention. A willingness to sit with others, to stay with what’s hard and not turn away. So the answers that live deep within each of us have the space to reveal themselves.

Once we demonstrate we can truly show up for ourselves, something shifts. We begin to show up for others—not because we want to be needed, but because we want everyone to find their own way back to themselves. To find their own peace, like we were able to find.

This kind of service doesn’t come because we feel guilty about our past. It doesn’t come because we want to avoid our own pain by tending to someone else’s. It isn’t about fixing others, or performing like the culture wants us to in order to earn our place in the world.

That, to me, is the mark of someone living their vocation: they carry a quiet integrity.

They’re not chasing identity or a title or a career. They’re simply becoming more aligned with their truest self … and from that place, they bring a willingness to be with others in their truth. Because they’ve finally stopped running from themselves.

And that’s what I believe real service is:
not an escape from the self,
but an offering that includes the self—
refined, scarred, softened, and awake.

The Quiet Labor

My heart gravitates to people who have taken responsibility for themselves… their emotions, behaviors, past mistakes … and who have done and continue to do the work necessary to become a more integrated human beings. One breakthrough at a time, over the course of a life. Because the learning doesn’t end … unless we return to behaviors that numb us from reality… or we die.

We evolve in layers, becoming more aligned with our unique self-nature. And then there is a moment, after the clarity, after the alignment. When you look around and realize—not everyone is coming with you.

Not because they are bad, or because they don’t suffer like you do. But because this path—of turning inward, taking responsibility, facing truth, and letting suffering shape you— asks more than most people are willing to give. And for good reason. It’s easier to go numb than to face reality. Most people don’t want to feel. They’d rather keep performing. They’d rather stay comfortable, keep up appearances, and avoid anything that might undo the life they carefully constructed.

The Offering We Make

But once you’ve stopped pretending—allowing life’s suffering to humble you—you stop needing to prove anything. There’s no more chasing approval or admiration. Only the quiet pull to live a genuine honest existence. And from that place, being useful to other’s becomes the priority. Not because you have anyone’s answers, but because you’re no longer trying to be someone you’re not.

People can feel your authenticity and that’s what makes you trustworthy. In my own life this began to take shape during my years as a teacher. I realized I wasn’t just passing on techniques—I was helping students navigate failure, pressure, discipline, and self-respect. I was teaching them what it meant to show up for themselves—not just for their work, or for their boss, but for their own lives.

That kind of service isn’t limited to the classroom. It can show up anywhere. In kitchens, offices, families and friendships.

The roles we play for each other begin to change. They become less about achievement or status, and more about something quieter: raising each other up, human to human, in every contact we make. That might mean reminding someone they’re not the worst thing they’ve done. It might mean seeing through their defensiveness to the part of themselves that still wants to grow.

It’s not about rescuing anyone from their pain or negative self-talk. It’s about believing in people—especially when they can’t believe in themselves. Not indulging the self-pity or blaming we may fall into, but helping each other remember that they’re still worthy of becoming who we’re meant to be.

Walking the Path of Service

And eventually, we begin to start living for something different.
Not for success or approval. Not for safety or self-image.
But, being of service to one another.
Not to become a savior or to fix the world’s pain.

The service I’m talking about isn’t self-sacrificing. It’s doesn’t require losing yourself or carrying the weight of others’ pain. Instead, it’s the quiet, humble kind of confidence that comes from knowing who you are. From living in alignment with the person you’ve come to know yourself to be. And from realizing that nothing—nothing—matters more than presence, honesty, and the capacity to walk alongside others in their own becoming.

That’s what suffering gives you, if you let it: not just personal insight, but a devotion to each other. A sense that presence—more than answers—is what matters. That the real work of this life isn’t to prove anything. It’s to show up. To make space. To accept life as it is.

And to offer yourself—not from a place of hierarchy, because none of us are above or below one another, but as someone unwilling to turn away from anyone’s suffering.

And no, not everyone will walk this path with you.
Many will continue to hide behind their own illusion of control, false positivity, bliss masks, or pain.
But once you’ve found that deeper place in yourself—the one beneath societal performance—you stop expecting others to accept you or to come with you.

You just keep walking. And when someone else reaches their own edge, you’re simply there beside them.

That, to me, is what it means to live a meaningful life… and to be of service.

2 Aug 2025

What’s Been Asking to Be Written Lately

by Maurice | posted in: Embrace Change, letters to self, Vulnerability, writing | 0

When I first decided to bring my writing out of my personal journaling and into the public blog back in 2012, I imagined sharing a few learnings and moments from my life experiences that helped me feel like a more complete, unbroken and kind human. I wove in some travel, retreats and workshops along the way.
Now my writing includes the markets of the world I walk through, the food I cook, and the quiet rhythms of creating a simple and slower life.

And that’s only part of it.

Lately, what’s been asking to be written isn’t just where I am—but what’s moving through me. And some of that has been uncomfortable for me to write, let alone click the “publish” button on.

Over the past few months, I’ve been writing about relational honesty, emotional intelligence, saving face, moral development, and the invisible dynamics that shape how we relate to ourselves and each other. I’ve also written about my family—my real experiences, my reflections, the truths I carry.

It’s personal. And I know it’s touched nerves.

Recently, I received an email from a former student of mine who was upset—accusing me of something from nearly ten years ago. I couldn’t even recall the situation they were describing. But their pain was real. I could feel it through their words. And while I don’t share their version of the story, I sat with it.

I’m also aware that some of what I’ve written about my family may have been hard for them to read—especially when I’ve made direct correlations to family dynamics, or mentioned people who are still living. The opposite is also true… they might not share my version of the story, or may be upset that I that I’ve chosen to write about it in a public space at all.

It reminded me that when you share your truth in the world, not everyone will agree with it, see it the same way, or appreciate it. Some may feel hurt. Some may feel confronted.

And still—I believe it’s worth writing.

I’m not here to provoke or expose. I’m here to try to understand. To stay in relationship with the parts of myself—and the world—that don’t fit easily into a postcard version of life. I don’t believe growth happens without discomfort. I don’t think believe connection happens without truth.

Lately, I’ve become a little self-conscious about what I’m putting out there. There’s a familiar discomfort returning—the same one I felt years ago when I was first trying to shape some raw thoughts into words. I catch myself checking if I’ve lost subscribers, even though I say I’m not writing to please anyone or build a following.

If you’ve felt a shift in my writing, you’re not wrong. This space has become more reflective. More layered. Less about travel. More about what gets stirred as I move through a new stage of life.

If you’re still here—quietly reading—I’m grateful. If something I’ve written has resonated, I’d love to know. Click here to send me an email. (If you hit reply to this email, it won’t go through.)

And if this no longer feels like the right fit, you can unsubscribe below. No guilt, no hard feelings. We all grow in different directions.

But I’ll be following what’s asking to be written.
Writing what feels true. Even when it’s messy.
—Maurice

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