thoughts by the graveside - 8/5/14

I don't know much about anything, in fact, I will admit that I don't know anything about so very much. And this thought often makes me feel scared and unwell. I want to feel powerful and and important, well-know and highly esteemed for unearthly, hidden wisdom and knowledge. But in reality, there's an infinite world of mysteries that could not possibly be unveiled to me while I am a wayfarer here on earth.

I simply know what I've learned in my twenty years in this body. I know what I've felt, I know what I've experienced - I know these full well. We are all very different. No two humans alike. And each life and creature that breathes has their own way of understanding the universe. Although I have found that thinking of my awfully limited lifespan, which is confined to this particular body, to be terrifying, I've also found it to be equally beautiful and awakening. I am the only me that will ever be, there will never be one that exists quite like my personal bundle of flesh and bones and thoughts. This is a liberating encouragement to be myself. We aren't required to change ourselves or be who we aren't because because only one of you was made. And there's no pressure to be someone else - that role is already taken.

And when it comes to others, how freeing is it to love others as they come to you? Not to morph them into a being to serve you or to satisfy you, but to notice how they differ from you and to love them anyway? This is so powerful. One of the most noble deeds that you may ever do in your lifetime is to love those that you have no business loving. How lovely is that?

And amidst my cloud of unknowing in this life, the cloud that I often try to pierce and understand (unsuccessfully, I might add), I have learned that uncertainty is okay. In fact, uncertainty is more than okay, it's a vital, driving force that keeps us pressing forward, keeps us awake and alive and on our toes, keeps us searching for our meaning and purpose in life - wherever you may find it. 

I can't help but believe that uncertainty leads to truth, that questions lead to answers,

and that unknowing leads to knowing full well that we will never have all the answers, 

but what's life without the element of mystery? 

one of the bad days 

How would I be capable
of explaining this life,
this series of events,
explaining the way it has
changed me, morphed me,
into a person I no longer know,
to any other soul?

I'm fully convinced
that no other would understand;
I don't feel comfortable in my
own skin, my own mind.

I feel foreign.
My feet travel forward,
immersing themselves in
the continuation of time,
of life, of activity,
but my mind protests.

Where do I belong now?
with a lost father, a lost faith -
at loss of any explanation,
any meaning behind the madness.

I am a lonely wayfarer
consumed with the brutality
of uncertainty.

Life is a crazy occurrence. Reality is unnatural, but we as humans (limited beings) have made it out to be natural, normal, monotonous...

Let's think this through.

People - our feet are bound to a water-filled, land-covered orb suspended in space. There are billions of orbs like ours floating around us, but we inhabit this one. No one is one hundred percent certain as to why we're here, experiencing all these moments of pain and joy, connecting to fellow wayfarer's around us. We can claim ideas and explanations and faiths in an attempt to process why we exist here, in this place, in this time, but I am convinced that nothing is certain. Maybe certainty is overrated. Maybe to be uncertain is to be in the minority - to be in love with life regardless of explanation. How the moments fit together, what they mean, and the excitement of not yet knowing the moments that will come - uncertainty is beautiful.

What I am convinced of is that there is some force greater, beyond our comprehension, that explains the reasoning behind our seemingly irrational existence. We have to trust that force in an attempt to remain sane. If we had no purpose or reason for living, then how could we trek on? We're all trusting something - that something that keeps us alive and feeling worthy of breath. It's keeping us passionate about moving forward, it's our explanation, our flame of existence.

As if contemplating why we're here isn't bewildering enough, there's this all-embracing theory that has been long claimed to explain it all -

Love.

In each religion, spirituality, in each heart and mind, there is this strong universal concept that connects us to people and activities and life in a way that we are unable to fully describe. How interesting that the closest way I can explain my existence on this earth is by a concept of feeling that's nearly unexplainable.

Feelings of love trounce me. Talk of love overwhelms me. Attempting to rationalize why I'm madly in love with my passions burdens me. I don't want to explain it - I can't explain it. I have no answer for it. But I can feel it.

How something can be equally simple and complex at the same moment, as it is with love, strikes me as indescribable. And for some odd reason I am comforted by explaining my existence with an unexplainable concept. This reassures me that the pressure is not on me, a single, minuscule human being, to create a purpose for myself. The purpose already lives inside of me, it flows from me naturally. The purpose is love - a force beyond it all.

Life, the process of existing, is a crazy occurence.
I have found it to in no way be natural, normal, or monotonous.

I can't control the madness
of my mind.
It darts and fly's ten thousand
places at once.
There's no internal resting place.

Some days I want to kill
my mind and
all the questions;
other days I want to
dwell in them,
I want to feel them and the
uncertainty, as if it brings me
some form of cruel comfort.

Tell me, God, where are you
present in these days?

Let Dance Rule

To all flowers,
let beauty grow.
To all sunbeams,
let light overcome.
To all winds,
let uncertainty guide.
To all clouds,
let wandering ensure.
To all birds,
let wings propel.

And to all free souls,
let dance rule
in your hearts.