Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Growing With Purpose

I’m reading Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, and it’s making me more conscious – and self-conscious – about the ways I think, the ideas I have about life, and where it all comes from.
Among other things, it led to thoughts about what I live for. And it came to me that, if I were to choose a motto, I could do a lot worse than this:
Living Well
Living Well with others
Supporting the striving of others to Live Well
If I adopted it though, I’d have to admit that it’s more of a summary drawn from looking backward than it ever was a mission statement as I moved forward. I haven’t been as intentional in life as I once aimed to be. Now, that seems not such a bad thing. I’ve repressed, edited, muted myself in lots of ways. But this has stemmed, in part anyway, from wishing never to cause harm. I’ve been careful.
And, I’ve been afraid. I’ve feared the potential, unrealized repercussions from a world I haven’t easily allowed myself to trust. Only gradually have I realize that I belong here, that Earth, life, this moment are where I belong, where I was created, designed, or simply evolved to be.  There’s no escaping the harm. It’s built into the Living.
So my intention has always been, in part, to hurt as few, as seldom, and as lovingly and humbly as possible. And I believe I’ve done alright by that. I’m also aware that my own share of hurt has been relatively small, and that so, so much has gone right for me, all my life long. So much love and consideration has flowed inward. And so often from souls who didn’t owe me a thing, who maybe didn’t even know me.
A plane on which I’ve been a failure so far is in creating something that in and of itself shifts living toward the good. A book is such a thing. A food bank is another. A child, however it may seem to turn out. Some forms of creation are indeed abandonment to a creative power that is beyond us, that we cannot wield like swords, or pens, but which we can only aspire to be the swords and pens of. Yes. Good. Or God. Even Science, if you refer to that science beyond what we think we  already know, the science that pulls us forward, into what we haven’t even imagined.
In keeping with my motto, I’ve been trying to reconstruct myself. Sounds brutal, but it’s not. But I do mean a repairing, a cleaning, the tossing out of some junk. About time. And just in time for a last act, if the Good be willing. I intend to repair my relationship with time, that I’ve abused and blamed for so much that burdens me. I’ve always made it time’s fault, even to the point of sometimes wishing it would just go away. Now, I’m learning to cherish every minute. Still learning, yes. And trying to make amends to this ally of all my life.
And I’m wanting to relieve myself of all the things I’ve clung to and used, in hope that they would soothe the hurts and dispel the fears in me. What are all these things? Too many to name. Too limiting to name. They are everything under the Sun, all that it provides that nourishes and enhances, and wanting it all too much. Love, sex, food, control…..oh, why do I even start!
I want to stretch open a space that’s always been there in me. It’s a space of total connection to life, of freedom so complete that it makes the word superfluous, a space in which being me stops being a protection against life, but a submersion into it: like that very favorite experience of mime – floating on the skin of a lake, muscles completely relaxed, face turned upward toward the infinite sky. Kissed by Earth, on the tip of the tongue of the Universe.


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