▼ CLICK BELOW TO EXPLORE ▼
A DECADE+ OF STORYTELLING POWERED BY THE BEST WRITERS ON THE PLANET

BE PART OF THE LEGACY

TAMPA BAY • FEBRUARY 23-24 2026

This FINAL encore experience will be unlike any other. Because like everything we do, it's been "reimagined" from beginning to end. It's not a virtual or hybrid event. It's not a conference. It's not a seminar, a workshop, a meeting, or a symposium. And it's not your typical run-of-the-mill everyday event crammed with stages, keynote speeches, team-building exercises, PowerPoint presentations, and all the other conventional humdrum. Because it's up close & personal by design. Where conversation trumps presentation. And where authentic connection runs deep.

I Can See You But How Can I See You?

I can see you but how can I see you? I can hear you but how can I hear you? I can know you but how do I know you? I love you but how do I love you? I need you but how do I need you? You know I want you but why do I want you? Questions upon question with each question becoming more absurd.

So many lonely people living without love singing songs of hope and life. So much life to give for love with nowhere to give it. Snow white-capped mountainsides in a make-believe land for the lonely to live in tears. If I could see you undoubtedly I would forewarn you not to disturb the serenity of those not knowing how but want to be seen to be known. Wait as your turn is hidden by the shadow of the sun or light of a distant moon far away in another galaxy.

How do you want me to see? What should I recognize you as? You are my brother perhaps even my lover. I can see you through the thumping of your heartbeat and your pulsating pulse. I can see through each desperately dying breath. The death which is your death I can clearly see with my ears wide open. But how can I see you?

A multi-colored tapestry born in a loom which each strand stretched across one way or over the other in a different way is illustrated as a mitt to fit into your precious tiny little hand. A simple touch allows me to see your peacock tail hand. How can I know this to be like you are which is to be seen but not able to be seen through a corneal abrasion?

Do you know me? How can you see me but how can you really see through and into me? A touched-up blemished target unbeknownst to the anonymous asphalt road that runs through cloaked time. Here a gaunt ghost of a man sits alone by himself wishing he could see what he sees of himself what he sees of them. Yes, he or I or them can see you but how can I see you?

In the unblemished garden that is my mind, I know my senses are intact but you are still an illusion to me as you are to yourself. Hidden in the middle of fog so thick the proverbial knife cannot cut through it. Yet there you are now unobstructed by obstructions yet still so opaque but through it all, I can see you. You are there in the wilderness of wasted minds whose window of humanity is shuttered shut.

There is your skin so red, raw and ravaged from wars fought for a chance to be known. A hand to shake or a smile to see but by and from whom? Who among them can see you? I can see you but how can I really see you? No, it’s not that I have known you for a long time coming. In truth, we have never met person to person or inner-self to inner-self. I caution you not to concern yourself with things that you can never understand as that will not be a catharsis for you.

From a far-flung fantasy perhaps even from a trumped-up dream (not that Trump who is our President) there is a you waiting to be released from the safety of your mother’s womb into her loving arms.  Feel her holding you so close to her chest while her heartbeat comforts and consoles you as a world scathing with rage waits for you to open your tiny eyes. Let the light you project protect you shield you away from the brooding darkness in a man’s soul. I can see you. Yes, I can see you. Your voice with softly unspoken words announces you have arrived. In body, soul, and mind you are here on our best sides that are unmistakenly protruding. The day comes for you to judge us on our merits and our sins. If I can see you I think I can he too can see you.

Each morning you when you arise you joyfully realize you have been given yet another day of life. Another chance to see be seen to grow in the containers of your feet. Look at you as being what or who are you seeing. How will your life be remembered? What is written in your book? Have you knowingly or unknowingly created a flock of followers that will retrace and repeat every misstep you make while the eyes menacingly peer down at you dejectedly by what has been witnessed? What comes next in the race before the close of the chapter to reverberate your mournful cries for mercy for forgiveness with a pledge to effect positive change in your life as well as the lives of others. I am not empowered to defend you while pleading your case. Turn yourself around 180 degrees while extolling others to do the same. Is it too late to replicate your life while the air still flows from your nostrils? Where this will take you only G-d really knows.

I can see you but how can I see you? I want I need to feel you near me to be closer to you so I can see you. This is how I can see you. The mirror does not lie. What is reflected back at you is an image. The image can be what is or what is to be or perhaps who you are when you have to be or chose to be somebody that you are not.

Won’t you be my friend? NO said he! Will you be my father? I am your father your loving father. That is how I and I alone can see you. What others see is the façade I created for you. You can control your destiny but only up until a certain point. Keep your decisions straight and true minus any hidden purposeful deceptions.

All of our lives we dance the dance of the Tai-Chi waiting for somebody else to see us. There is a vindication we feel when our actions cause others to cease and desist to pay us attention. Ask yourself is how you are being seen the way in good conscious you want to be seen. The perception of you the person as you currently exist while you carry yourself along through the day may be the ones that did not have to be. When you are cognizant of your actions only then can change come. So there on a unicycle, you stand in front of passerby’s with a painted face as you juggle the pins catch light them on fire, place them in your mouth, roll, roll, roll. When you are done extinguish the flames gulp down some water. Finally, gracefully bow to the ovations that you get. Congratulate yourself on a performance that left no indelible impressions.

You were a sad smiling clown in the spotlight on a sunny feeling day. I can see you. For who am I that I can see you, know you, dispense you to your death, hold onto you until …….  My name is…. You know me. You know me very well. Your flesh is the flesh I gave you. The fire from your nostrils was my breath that breathed life into you. Yes, I can see you. Unequivocally I can see you. Illogical, impetuous, ominously ambiguous, nefarious, haughty, helpless, soulless, self-serving are adjectives known as you.

There are traps laid for all of us along the way. When we lose sight of what was right that we did not stand up for where does our allegiance fall? Beware of false prophecies from as espoused by pseudo visionaries who seek to imprison you into a world of doom, gloom, with endings that never begin. Slowdown, speed-up, but never stop to allow your failings to catch you from behind. Though you may succeed in failure know that failure is success waiting for a moment to seize the reigns for the righteous to lead us to return.

FE know that Robin Martinez-Dixon remembers you with love while continuing to mourn for you. You were the teacher that touched her so with your kindness and tender heart. October 12th, 1979 is 40 years gone now. You will forever be in our hearts. One day may your blood be avenged.

Seek that which within lies waiting to begin the fight of your life that is every day.

~Ian Anderson

Joel Elveson
Joel Elvesonhttps://jelveson.wixsite.com/recruitersite
INDEPENDENT Executive Recruiting By Joel is an "up and coming" Executive Search Firm formed and headed up by Joel Elveson whose visionary ideas, leadership & creativity have brought to life a more "user-friendly" approach to recruiting. His clients and candidates form powerful strategic partnerships that we use to help you. Joel’s Firm offers Permanent, Temporary (case by case), & Temporary To Permanent staffing solutions for all of your Human Capital Requirements. Contract IT/Consultants are available if needed. Above and beyond they are experts (by way of their personal industry work experience) with mortgage, mortgage banking, middle-market banking, accounting, along with many others under the vast financial spectrum of disciplines. Their business goes beyond candidate recruiting as they also train, mentor and develop your internal recruiting staff with an eye towards helping you reduce the cost of hiring. They will also work in areas such as compensation, effective onboarding processes and alike. In other words, their business is to help your business by becoming an extension of you by filling in gaps that cause delay or waste. The recruiting methods employed by Joel’s team are time tested that results in a high rate of successful placements. Joel was trained in the art of recruiting by some of the top staffing industry executives in addition to the best recruiter trainers who to this day drive me to exceed the lofty goals he has set forth.

DO YOU HAVE THE "WRITE" STUFF? If you’re ready to share your wisdom of experience, we’re ready to share it with our massive global audience – by giving you the opportunity to become a published Contributor on our award-winning Site with (your own byline). And who knows? – it may be your first step in discovering your “hidden Hemmingway”. LEARN MORE HERE


12 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Joel…
    Beautiful, descriptive and passionate phrases. Thought provoking and altering to crack this “perspective! Thank you for your lovely words
    “…but never stop to allow your failings to catch you from behind. Though you may succeed in failure know that failure is success waiting for a moment to seize the reigns for the righteous to lead us to return….”
    Paula

    • Thank you, Paula. I want and love when people read my articles in addition to commenting on them as kindly as they (you) do. I have fallen into this style of writing where you really have to delve deep into the article to discover what I am writing about. My influences are deeply rooted in philosophy, Chaucer and others who were not easy to read by any stretch of the imagination.

        • Thank you, Paula. While I want people to understand what I am writing about I once saw a quote from this fellow by the name of Ian Anderson who was the lead singer and flutist for band by the name of Jethro Tull that basically said both the writer and the reader may have to struggle to get to the same place but possible not get there. There are many writers whose style was hard to understand but if you put in the effort the meanings will become clear.

RECIPIENT OF THE 2024 "MOST COMPREHENSIVE LIFE & CULTURE MULTIMEDIA DIGEST" AWARD

WE ARE NOW FEATURED ON

EXPLORE 360° NATION

ENJOY OUR FREE EVENTS

OUR COMMUNITIES