Dearest Daughter: Failure is a null concept, because all concepts are null practically by definition. Except when the map is important, then we like to follow rules that we make up in our heads. Then concepts are relevant but extremely complex and full of contradictions and mitigations.

When we bit the apple of knowledge of good and evil, we began to believe that our maps were actually more important than the territory, which is an affront to reality. That made us unruly and we got kicked out of the garden, not because we are evil, but because we are simply unable to see clearly enough to avoid trampling god's petunias, so to speak...

When we get confused about how to tell the map from the territory, I like to ask the Cat. Cat says HHHuh? Failure? Silly little hominids.... and continues to patiently watch for the mouse that got away....

When the map is more important than the territory, the weight of opinion is enormous. And it is not the opinion we fear from others, because when we truly reach for understanding and consider the source we can forgive them their limitations. It is really the opinion in the mirror we are so afraid of, so we deny it in ourselves because, when we are afraid, we are too afraid to look and see what the truth really is, because the truth might be all the awful stuff we imagine other people are thinking about us, when it is really just our own shapeshifting fear adopting an outside face, where it is actually safer to experience because we can always fall into bitterness and curse other people for being stupid, if that is our wont, or curse ourselves for not measuring up to some inexplicable estimate of perfection, which is really just another null concept. Really! Just ask the Cat! (That's a heck of a run-on sentence, forgive me!)

So, I like to remind myself frequently: "Drive the road you are on, not the one you think you are on!" I believe that driving the map and cursing the territory for not following the rules is the root of all suffering! And so very human...

the territory, or truth, or reality, or whatever that is out there in the fog, is perfectly what it is what it is what it is. It is the creation, and we are a magnificent potential in that field. It is in the act of creating that we are in our full flower, made in the image of that perfection!

I am soooo proud of you: updownbackwardsforwardsrightsideinandinsideout... Bigger than the whole world!!!

Your Mom (mary to the rest of yall!)