INHALE, SWALLOW: EXAMINE, EXULT, EXPLAIN: EXHALE, EXIT
Sunday, March 28, 2021 - daily column #6711
Arrival at any place, any physical one, is painless to explain.
Birth, rebirth, finding ourselves, or feeling lost – it’s all the same. Assess surroundings, feel air temperature, appraise our situation – we grow acclimatized to our temporary resting place. It might a long journey’s stopover; it might be arriving at a new home, new job, or dead-end of a long winding road. Or our last resort …
Arrival at any cerebral place, any emotional one, seems like a different place entirely – but is it?
Like that first journey, it could have started anywhere. We might be at our final destination or simply changing planes ….
Whether emotional plane or jet plane doesn’t matter because the more critical questions are about what we are doing and where we are going. And what we’ll do when we get there. There is no need to fully understand the why portion of that equation because it doesn’t pencil-out like a math problem. It’s more of a heart/head problem. Or maybe, it’s more opportunity-driven.
Milestones, people, and the terrain along the way are exciting in their moment but more likely to be emotional distractions when we most need or feel we need to focus on the issue at hand.
Where I am, where I am going – whether it will matter, are better questions to answer silently when nobody is watching because they won’t see our anguish?
Our existence inside our head, and what we do with thoughts and how we bake our feelings into every action is, rightly, a selfish act – but because we don’t want to share, but because nobody has time to care, because they are so caught up in their own existential tug-o-war.
They don’t call because they can’t, but because they don’t care.
As we must remind ourselves, caring is not an absolute thing – it exists on a sliding scale, and most other things and people are more important than we are. I hear from people I am close with, and they hear from me.
Beyond that, the more distant we are in time and space, the less connected we are.
Sadly.
From seeding soil to harvest – cradle to grave, or re-starting, our paths will change, but our inevitable destination, not.
p.s. as plants and animals are being re-engineered to be free of plants or animals, free of fat or gluten, or taste – I wonder if they could cross a garden vegetable and a pet dog: would we get melon-collie?