04.09.07

Pensées: Cost of Living

Posted in Personal at 6:08 pm by Moody

There is a cost to living, to having a life: you can’t go back; you cannot change what has come to pass. But you can change your interpretation of a lot of it, use it to further yourself, to grow your awareness and understanding, use it to make a better person of yourself. It’s not always possible. Some things, some events in life, are overwhelming in their enormity and scar the body of what some people call the soul. Still, as you grow older you can come to some sort of peace with even a good number of those scars.

The ones who really love you will want to touch them, caress them, soothe you because they will be troubled by the hidden history of those old wounds. Sometimes it will help, and sometimes it won’t. I think that you have to decide on how best to deal with their concern. Most times, I try at least not to flinch. I try to be gentle in telling them they can’t heal such a scar and that it’s best not to touch it. And when it comes to touching another, I seek some sign that it’s OK, that I can, that it’s allowed or even desired.

The sky compasses us all in its embrace, but we cannot always know what the weather is like for someone where they are. I tend to carry an umbrella with me even when my sky is blue and clear, because sometimes another’s sky is raging with rain. And even though a person you care for won’t always take that umbrella, you will both perhaps feel a little better because you had one with you just in case.

For love, I will exert myself, make the effort, stand tall and be all ears. My personal pain has taught me that much at least. I will give you my love and I will listen to you in acknowledgment that you matter. You matter. This life matters… because we can make meaning out of it, which is the same as finding meaning in it. Your meaning and my meaning, her meaning and his, — they are all uniquely our own, and what we share enriches us and each other (if we are fortunate). Where our myriad facets of meaning meet there is a chance for understanding just a little more of this life while we live it.

The most important thing you have is conscious perception. It is the tool with which your imagination builds experience. The goal of enlightenment (should you choose to call it that) is not only to make the lens of the tool as clear and clean as you can; you must learn to how to focus it, turn it, zoom in and pull back with it, so that you can see as much of the full picture as possible while retaining the ability to choose your frame. In the end, you will want to become the artist of life. In the end, you will disappear into the world.

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