-Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Anyone who's known me for very long and had many conversations with me has likely heard me say that quote. Indeed, it's one of my favorite quotes from any character in any work of fiction. More than a quote to me, it's a mental puzzle I work out in my head quite often. A Chinese Box in the very real sense that, every time I consider the statement, I arrive at a new conclusion, much like opening the box and finding a completely new and independent box nested within. The very act of attempting to understand the statement and how it should apply to my life brings forth a revelation that also reveals a new challenge, a new question to be considered.
Tonight, I was considering the statement from a completely new perspective. I've recently taken a complete u-turn in my life. No, not a u-turn, precisely. Think of it more like traveling down a road and coming to a fork. You look down both roads and see very little that gives you any indication that either direction is heading where you want to go, because, in reality, you don't even know for certain where you want to go. You simply know that to stand still means death since life, at its very essence, is motion and change. Therefore death, by its very nature, is lack of motion and stasis. Indeed, cryogenic scientists even sometimes refer to suspended animation or cryogenic sleep as "reversible death". But that's another blog altogether.
Back to the fork. So you pick one direction or the other, perhaps you just flip a coin. Heads, go left; tails, right. Either choice seems appropriate because you have little information on which to form a reasonable decision. Yet, deep inside, your intuition tells you, "go left". You take the left path and after a considerable time pursuing your choice, you begin to understand your destination. A bit further down the path and it becomes clear that the road you're on is not taking you any closer to that place you want to get to. At that moment, you have a new decision to make: turn around and go all the way back to the fork, or try to gain your bearings and head off into the wilderness.
The wilderness is not fun, believe me. I've made several failed attempts to blaze my own trail. A mathematician will tell you that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Anyone who's done much hiking in the mountains will tell you that's insanity. So after several attempts to strike my own way, I decided to turn back and find that old fork. And an interesting thing happened when I did: I found that getting back to the fork took far less time than traveling from the fork to the point where I turned back. Most people, I think, have experienced this illogical phenomenon. Ever travel somewhere, then travel back to your original location and marvel over how much less time it seemed to take coming back? Weird, huh?
In what seemed to be the blink of an eye, I found myself back at the fork. This time, however, the choice was so much more clear. I could see so much further down both roads that I scratched my head a little at why I'd ever decided to go down the left road in the first place. Intuition. Huh, who said that? Shrugging it off without much thought, I began down the right road. Pun intended.
I see the craggy peaks and dense forests ahead of me along this right road. Challenges lie ahead, but I'm ready to not only attack them with ferocity but overcome them. I wasn't ready eleven years ago when I took the left road. A mountain climber doesn't immediately go out and climb Everest. They train extensively, climbing several smaller mountains as they work themselves up to the task of Everest. In the same way, that left road was important as it trained me for the right road.
Life is not linear. A friend sent me an email recently that reminded me of this. Time is merely the fourth dimension and we exist in far more dimensions than four. We are eternal beings. So why do we always have to put our lives in terms of Point A and Point B? Origin and destination? What if we're already at the destination even if we cannot fully perceive it? Why can't we simply be? Or can we? This world, by which I mean this culture and the powers that drive the culture, would have us believe that we must reach forward and attain to some future goal, some future point to which we are traveling and have not yet reached. I lost track of how many people have told me that I should be setting goals and then working toward them. Huh? What kind of linear thinking is that? So I'm supposed to designate an imaginary Point B, realize I'm at Point A, and begin plotting points between and move through four-dimensional space-time toward Point B? That's the key to life and success? Sounds like algebra to me.
The problem, as I see it, with this type of thinking is that it backloads all sense of validation and identity to the achievement of these imaginary points in our lives. But what if I get half-way down that left road toward Point B and realize I have to turn around? Have I failed, somehow? Have I lost my identity? Not a chance! I've succeeded in being me. I've been. What I do is not nearly as important as who I am. I have a new way of thinking. I know who I am and, therefore, I can perceive where I'm going. Not the other way around. I lived like that for much of my life, striving toward everything I wanted without enjoying every moment because I perceived a lack. I perceived that I had to move forward. I had to become. No more. God sees who I am and loves me completely, and now so do I. Not where I'm going, not who I'm going to become. That's illusion. I am. I am eternal, imbued with the very breath of the divine. Outside of time, I simply am and that's who God sees. Me. The real me. All of me. Can you see yourself? The left road taught me how to see myself.
What about Oscar Wilde and the quote? Well, didn't I say it was a Chinese Box? Besides, it would only really make sense to me. The destination isn't as important as the journey. The journey teaches us the importance of being. Welcome to my world.
Anyone who's known me for very long and had many conversations with me has likely heard me say that quote. Indeed, it's one of my favorite quotes from any character in any work of fiction. More than a quote to me, it's a mental puzzle I work out in my head quite often. A Chinese Box in the very real sense that, every time I consider the statement, I arrive at a new conclusion, much like opening the box and finding a completely new and independent box nested within. The very act of attempting to understand the statement and how it should apply to my life brings forth a revelation that also reveals a new challenge, a new question to be considered.
Tonight, I was considering the statement from a completely new perspective. I've recently taken a complete u-turn in my life. No, not a u-turn, precisely. Think of it more like traveling down a road and coming to a fork. You look down both roads and see very little that gives you any indication that either direction is heading where you want to go, because, in reality, you don't even know for certain where you want to go. You simply know that to stand still means death since life, at its very essence, is motion and change. Therefore death, by its very nature, is lack of motion and stasis. Indeed, cryogenic scientists even sometimes refer to suspended animation or cryogenic sleep as "reversible death". But that's another blog altogether.
Back to the fork. So you pick one direction or the other, perhaps you just flip a coin. Heads, go left; tails, right. Either choice seems appropriate because you have little information on which to form a reasonable decision. Yet, deep inside, your intuition tells you, "go left". You take the left path and after a considerable time pursuing your choice, you begin to understand your destination. A bit further down the path and it becomes clear that the road you're on is not taking you any closer to that place you want to get to. At that moment, you have a new decision to make: turn around and go all the way back to the fork, or try to gain your bearings and head off into the wilderness.
The wilderness is not fun, believe me. I've made several failed attempts to blaze my own trail. A mathematician will tell you that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Anyone who's done much hiking in the mountains will tell you that's insanity. So after several attempts to strike my own way, I decided to turn back and find that old fork. And an interesting thing happened when I did: I found that getting back to the fork took far less time than traveling from the fork to the point where I turned back. Most people, I think, have experienced this illogical phenomenon. Ever travel somewhere, then travel back to your original location and marvel over how much less time it seemed to take coming back? Weird, huh?
In what seemed to be the blink of an eye, I found myself back at the fork. This time, however, the choice was so much more clear. I could see so much further down both roads that I scratched my head a little at why I'd ever decided to go down the left road in the first place. Intuition. Huh, who said that? Shrugging it off without much thought, I began down the right road. Pun intended.
I see the craggy peaks and dense forests ahead of me along this right road. Challenges lie ahead, but I'm ready to not only attack them with ferocity but overcome them. I wasn't ready eleven years ago when I took the left road. A mountain climber doesn't immediately go out and climb Everest. They train extensively, climbing several smaller mountains as they work themselves up to the task of Everest. In the same way, that left road was important as it trained me for the right road.
Life is not linear. A friend sent me an email recently that reminded me of this. Time is merely the fourth dimension and we exist in far more dimensions than four. We are eternal beings. So why do we always have to put our lives in terms of Point A and Point B? Origin and destination? What if we're already at the destination even if we cannot fully perceive it? Why can't we simply be? Or can we? This world, by which I mean this culture and the powers that drive the culture, would have us believe that we must reach forward and attain to some future goal, some future point to which we are traveling and have not yet reached. I lost track of how many people have told me that I should be setting goals and then working toward them. Huh? What kind of linear thinking is that? So I'm supposed to designate an imaginary Point B, realize I'm at Point A, and begin plotting points between and move through four-dimensional space-time toward Point B? That's the key to life and success? Sounds like algebra to me.
The problem, as I see it, with this type of thinking is that it backloads all sense of validation and identity to the achievement of these imaginary points in our lives. But what if I get half-way down that left road toward Point B and realize I have to turn around? Have I failed, somehow? Have I lost my identity? Not a chance! I've succeeded in being me. I've been. What I do is not nearly as important as who I am. I have a new way of thinking. I know who I am and, therefore, I can perceive where I'm going. Not the other way around. I lived like that for much of my life, striving toward everything I wanted without enjoying every moment because I perceived a lack. I perceived that I had to move forward. I had to become. No more. God sees who I am and loves me completely, and now so do I. Not where I'm going, not who I'm going to become. That's illusion. I am. I am eternal, imbued with the very breath of the divine. Outside of time, I simply am and that's who God sees. Me. The real me. All of me. Can you see yourself? The left road taught me how to see myself.
What about Oscar Wilde and the quote? Well, didn't I say it was a Chinese Box? Besides, it would only really make sense to me. The destination isn't as important as the journey. The journey teaches us the importance of being. Welcome to my world.
1 comment:
Ah yes. Finally! I'm soo glad your blogging here. I almost need to go paragraph by paragraph to add my comments on this amazing piece.
Nevertheless, I'm diggin it. Completely. Makes me think though..."Without vision/revelation my people perish". To me it eludes to something within and inclusive of time. Even if you are simply 'turning on the lights' on a room that already existed. In this realm, the lights are being turned on in the comprehension of time.
Oh, by the by, loved your comments on "cleavage". Ha.
Oh yes. But the journey. It is defining and complimentary to who we are. I'm still trying to "simply" (ha) be me. And at the same time be a lover of knowledge and learning. The subject of adoration and the lifestyle to go along with it....
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