06 Aug Have you ever been
Have you ever been
somewhere that elated you?
Where are you?
do you ever stop and recognize where you are? not your place, but where you’ve come to be, who you’ve come to be?
I’ve asked people what it means to live well, one of those questions people seem to ask when they are on the verge of death. Did I love? Did I laugh, did I enjoy the day to day experiences with my fellow man?
Did I allow people in? Was I vulnerable? Was I able to stop and take a step back so that someone else might step into what I’m experiencing? Did I step or leap? Did I smirk or belly-laugh? How did I look at every moment? With excitement and curiosity, or biased forecasting?
Success without a companion is hindered happiness, a horse with blinders is tame.
And here we have your standard twenty-first century human
You can be so much more than you if you’ll allow another to share your experience, if only temporarily. That’s not something to be afraid of (many are because there’s the potential for loss, and thus pain). The idea that every relationship we have should be the one (why this fascination with the number that we learned before any of the others?), is a misguiding and illusory misnomer.
Also, tiptoing in the rain doesn’t have the same felt-sense of fun, does it?
It’s an easy mistake, believing our first relationship is the one (numbers again..). Essentially, one we all make. Of course by all I’m excluding the fraction of people who meet their life partner before they’ve completed high school. The more common story is that I met the love of my life and, later, he/she turned out to be the worst person for me. Of course, later in life, it can be less dramatic, but we still feel this disappointment that feeling of, “man, that one had potential”.
Another note here: you can’t look back at something if you never took the chance.
It’s a feature of being born into culture. (Most) cultures tend to believe that we each will find and need to find a partner pretty much as soon as possible. It’s like rushing to get in bed at night. How quickly can I get comfortable so I may begin the end of my life?
Now, I’m a bit of a romantic. I do believe there are kindred spirits in this life. My question for all of you, for myself, is:
What about all the ones between now and the “one”?
??
This has to be important.
Maybe we need to take the precedent of those cultures that arrange marriage before a child is born, but in the way that we line up relationships (probably better thought of in this context as friendships) from age 2-12 with completely different people from ourselves, different beliefs, eating habits, lifestyle choices, music preferences. Afterall, the original idea behind arranged marriage was to create peace between two cultures or tribes, to create some sort of understanding so that conflict might be averted. Doesn’t that same principal apply right her in modern American culture? Don’t we need to start understanding each other so that we aren’t raised believing there’s a enemy right down the street to be afraid of?
I can’t help but be sure that most children are raised believing that (most) people are dangerous and (most) people who look different than themselves especially so.
Probably not many gun carrying americans on this street.
I met a lady last night who just came to mind. She said to her table mates:
“..tell him to accept every dance asked of him. I’ve never said no to a first date.”
Stop looking for that person to spend the rest of your life with. Instead look for what is beautiful, what is worthy of spending right now with in ANY person. Your life will unfold, there’s no avoiding it, but you don’t need to know who will be there with you as it does. You’ve gotta be there with yourself and whoever shows up. You’ve gotta be important enough to yourself to try and learn the absolute truth in every situation because you deserve to know.
every moment is a crack in the mirror. you can dig in or ignore it. down the rabbit hole or step over it. whatever you want, whatever you’re feeling.
Just make sure you ask yourself before you decide:
“if I look back at this moment, one, three, fifteen years from now, will I regret having plunged into this?”
And if you’re living your life in fear, sure that every person you see could be the next terrorist or hitman, well, go right ahead. I suppose people like me need people like you, until society changes it’s ways.
Oh inverted world, won’t you change your ways?
What starts as a commitment to become a conversationalist, an adventurer, a writer, a musician, a sweetheart or a dog owner will lead you to your next set of choices, of pools to plunge into. Step up, jump high, and raise your hands before you go because you’re going headfirst and you might as well touch the sky.
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