In an era when human strength displayed as physical violence remains a form of entertainment, "tapping out" is celebrated as a means to remove ourselves from the unhealthy and life-threatening predicaments that we've put ourselves into. Just ask any MMA fighter. We can all relate, can't we? We find ourselves chasing down that proverbial highway of success thinking that our piece is just around the corner as the bills amount, oil prices rise and as we feel frustrated by all of the damn traffic surrounding us. That 40-hour per week job that once promised so much freedom now feels like a constrictive vice-grip as we unwillingly pull ourselves through the sludge of a repetitive, daily grind. Yet, we hold on to some twisted sense of hope because we're not like the millions of others who are doing the exact same thing, day in and day out. And, the illusion of separation persists. So, we tap out for a week getaway to Hawaii. Or, perhaps, to even find land, off of the grid. Any which way, we just need OUT.
However, per my radical usual, I'm pushing for an alternative. True value resides in our tapping in deeper. Sometimes, this looks like my tapping into the deep well of internal grief that my weeping Feminine wound bleeds for with every media image that distractedly takes us away from our own bodies as well as farther apart from each other. Other times, it simply looks like my sitting up in Grandmother Ficus tree as my neighbors run circles around me at a Golden Hill park. And, I know I'm really onto something when I don't have to speak the words on my tongue to another - when this person is simply tapped in too and picks up on the silent vibration, indicating that he wants to go where my mind was suggesting or by her simply giving voice to the heart song that beats heavily in my chest. These days, it's the TAPPING IN that I'm living for.
