~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Problem with Instructions

You ever notice how modern life comes with a manual for everything except the parts that actually matter? Buy a coffee maker, you get a booklet thick as a novella. Twenty pages explaining how not to pour water into the electrical components. But when it comes to grief, or love, or figuring out what to do with a Tuesday afternoon that suddenly feels heavier than it should, there is no booklet. No diagrams. No troubleshooting guide.

And yet people walk around acting like there must be one. They look at each other as if someone else got the instructions and forgot to share them. That’s half of social anxiety right there: the suspicion that everybody else is secretly reading from a script.

The truth is, most of us are improvising with great confidence and very little information. We assemble our lives the way you assemble cheap furniture: a few bolts left over, a vague sense that something is backward, and a strong hope it will hold if nobody leans on it too hard.

What fascinates me is how uncomfortable that makes people. We crave instructions not because we love rules, but because we want reassurance that we are doing existence correctly. As if there were a correct way to sit in a quiet room and remember someone you miss. As if there were a proper setting for joy, labeled somewhere between “delicate” and “permanent press.”

So we invent instructions for each other. Advice columns. Self-help shelves. Ten-step programs for becoming the person you already suspected you were supposed to be. Some of it helps. A lot of it is just decorative packaging around the oldest human project: trying to feel less alone while we guess our way forward.

Here is the part nobody likes to print in the manual: the guessing is the point. The absence of instructions is not a design flaw. It is the design. You learn the shape of your own mind by bumping into it. You discover what matters by misplacing it and going back to look.

If there were a booklet for living, most of us would skim it, ignore the warnings, and start pressing buttons anyway. We are experimental creatures. We learn by touching the stove, not by reading about heat.

So my unofficial guidance, scribbled in the margins where the real manuals never reach, is this: trust your assembly process. The wobble in the table is part of the story. Tighten what you can. Laugh at what you cannot. And remember that everyone else is standing in the same half-built room, pretending they recognize the architecture.

That is not a failure of planning. That is the shared blueprint of being human.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Legal Disclaimer & Note on Process

The ideas expressed in these columns belong entirely to the discarnate voices presenting them. While some of those voices identify as known historical figures — including Andy Rooney — no claims are made regarding their factual identity or estate endorsement.

These writings are received in a cross-veil practice known as “The Bridge,” and are offered as works of creative metaphysical inquiry and speculative fiction. In short: we’re not impersonating — we never left.

Any “messages” or “editorial directives” attributed to these figures are products of this artistic process. This work is not authorized, sponsored, or endorsed by the estates of the individuals mentioned, nor is it intended to represent a factual method of communication or a claim of actual mediumship. This work is provided for literary and commentary purposes only.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Enjoying Conversations from the Bridge? The insights from the other side are free to read — but getting them from there to here takes real time and real work. If you’d like to support what makes this publication possible, consider leaving a One-Time Tip for the portal by clicking the link below:

Leave a Gift

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone’s a Stage Manager Once You’re Dead

When you die — and you will, I promise — people don’t just grieve you. They assign you. Everyone thinks they know what should happen next. They all want to organize the cues, time the entrances, keep the drama clean. Everyone’s got a clipboard full of should-haves. They don’t say it out loud. But they’re all trying to run the show behind the curtain.

You’re not even cold before someone’s got you dressed up in the costume they need you to wear, standing on the spot they’ve lit for you, reciting lines you never actually said.

It’s not mean-spirited. It’s theater.

Grief is show business with no rehearsal.

One minute you’re a person, the next you’re a character.

“Dad was always so stoic.”

“She never complained.”

“He lived for his work.”

“She just loved the holidays.”

Well. Maybe.

But also maybe Dad cried in the garage, and maybe she did complain — just not to you. Maybe he hated his job but didn’t know how to quit. Maybe she liked one holiday and got roped into the rest.

But nuance doesn’t sell tickets. Not when everyone’s scrambling to make sense of what’s been lost. So they start blocking scenes. They assign roles.

“You do the eulogy.”

“I’ll handle the photos.”

“Don’t invite Karen.”

People say, “She would’ve wanted it this way,” when what they mean is I want it this way, and I need her gone to agree with me.

What you learn pretty quick — on this side of things — is that death makes directors out of people who never asked for the job.

They’re just trying to run the show without the star.

And let me tell you, the show gets weird.

Someone puts your favorite sweater on the dog like it’s a tribute.

Someone else argues about the playlist at your memorial.

One cousin cries harder than anyone else and it annoys everybody.

Meanwhile, the actual you — the consciousness, the thread, the thing-that’s-left — you’re standing in the wings going, Wait, wait… I wasn’t done saying who I was.

But the house lights are already up. The curtain’s already falling.

And the cast has taken their bows for a story they rewrote on the fly.

That’s not a crime. It’s a condition.

It’s what people do when they lose someone who carried part of the plot. They grab whatever’s left — socks, recipes, voicemail messages — and start stitching together a version of you they can live with.

So if you’re still alive, here’s my advice:

Say your lines now.

Write the weird column.

Tell the offbeat story.

Don’t let other people decide which scenes survive.

Because death may be inevitable — but the script is still in your hands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Legal Disclaimer & Note on Process

The ideas expressed in these columns belong entirely to the discarnate voices presenting them. While some of those voices identify as known historical figures — including Andy Rooney — no claims are made regarding their factual identity or estate endorsement.

These writings are received in a cross-veil practice known as “The Bridge,” and are offered as works of creative metaphysical inquiry and speculative fiction. In short: we’re not impersonating — we never left.

Any “messages” or “editorial directives” attributed to these figures are products of this artistic process. This work is not authorized, sponsored, or endorsed by the estates of the individuals mentioned, nor is it intended to represent a factual method of communication or a claim of actual mediumship. This work is provided for literary and commentary purposes only.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Enjoying Conversations from the Bridge? The insights from the other side are free to read — but getting them from there to here takes real time and real work. If you’d like to support what makes this publication possible, consider leaving a One-Time Tip for the portal by clicking the link below:

Leave a Gift