From Jun 25, 2009
I’m beginning to realize that all of the “rules” I’ve learned up til now are becoming fuzzy.
The lives that those of us in this Western society lead have us thinking that we Must Work, and we Must Do What Everyone Else Does. We’ve created this fancy concept of time, and because time is our greatest asset, we must trade it for money. Because we Must Have Money in order to Have What We Want.
The only problem I see here, aside from the circular thinking, is that if we spend all of our time working, we don’t really have time to enjoy those things that we really want.
My life changed about six weeks ago. Maybe more, maybe less… I’ve always told you that time is difficult for me to grasp. Along with the formal academic education, I have been taught by nearly everyone around me that THIS is what it looks like to be successful. Sadly, many of the folks who told me these stories are ones who also do not have time to enjoy the things that they desire, as well. I’m betting it wasn’t even a malicious, intentional lie they told me. I’m betting it was passed on to me with good intentions simply because they believed it, too.
I can hear my grandparents gasp out with trepidation. Dear Jesus, is Ash going to quit her job and travel the world like a vagabond? Not likely. I like money. Don’t get me wrong. I just don’t see the purpose in spending so much time working towards it when there are many other folks who are able to Do What They Love and simultaneously be millionaires. I don’t know that I want to be a millionaire, honestly. I mean, it would be nice to not have to ever consider money… but I think what’s really important here is my desire to have time to do what I want.
This shift in perspective knocked me right out of my chair. Suddenly everything I hoped for became worthless. I was going to have to put in grueling hours for something I might not even like in the end. Western medicine is sterile and empirically proven. The things *I* believe in are spiritual. Pseudoscience. Fake. That sort of internal paradigm sounds intriguing at first, but after much thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a little too paradoxical for me to not want to simultaneously push myself or someone else off of a cliff. And that’s no way to lead this life. Life is very short, indeed.
What if someone told you that, once and for all, the purpose of life had been solved? Aside from the fanatics who would desperately grasp at whatever tool they could use to defend themselves, most people would be skeptical. Most people would want proof. I’m not going to tell you I’ve found proof in God or any other deity. But I am going to tell you what the scientific “facts” tell us:
We are a tiny speck in the scheme of things. We believe that there are billions of stars out there, hundreds of thousands of galaxies. The universe appears to be expanding. The constellations are changing. Eventually our galaxy will either move farther out, or it will stop and begin to contract back to where it came from. Either way, the daily dramas that go on in our little heads are useless drivel.
What if I take this amazing opportunity for life, grasping it by the horns, riding it out like a cowgirl on a wild horse? For all I know, this opportunity, this very day–today–may NEVER happen again. And here I am wasting it punching hours on a clock. Here we ALL are wasting it. Wasting. Gone.
Some people sort of grasp the magnitude of life. I’d put down bets with high dollar stakes to guess that most people can’t bother to consider it. Hence the unending battles we fight against each other… Hence the hatred that is brewed up, the violence, the terrorism, the drama of it all. If you were thinking about things on a Universal level, though, none of this would be worth it. There would be no crime because we’d all acknowledge that none of this matters anyway. There’d be no wars because we’d all acknowledge that every single one of us, in our own ways, are praying to the same God, caught on our hands and knees for the same sorts of desires and wishes… we’d all acknowledge that no one can “own” part of an Earth that’s not interested in selling her parts… We could be harmonious.
I know, I know, that’s awfully idealistic of me.
I can’t necessarily change the world like that. I can’t necessarily convince you that the way we’ve been taught is a smoke screen for something– anything… but I can change how and what I do with these precious moments that are flying past me before my eyes. I can envision hundreds of people dancing in circles around a massive fire. I can imagine the spark of life within me growing so massive that nothing can stop me from doing what I will. I can imagine becoming one with the things that increase my energy. None of that is far fetched, especially since the things I do have control over fall within my own experience. Do what you will, but I am moving onto something new and different from the rat race that I’ve been so obsessed with all these years. I’m ready to find gratification in every single movement. Every moment.