Have you ever picked up a novel and merely glanced at the
first and last pages inoffensively thinking you would understand the entirety
of the story? Yeah, me too. As a kid at the grocery store, I was in the book
aisle rummaging through novels and magazines trying to consume as much
information as I could. Like you, I thought that the beginning and the end were
the only finite details I needed. Did she end up with the guy? Did the Box Car
Children make it to the train? Would he get her letter before it was too late?
I would succumb to the answers in either the happy or sometimes, not-so-happy,
conclusion.
That being said, I was always doing it wrong. I constantly
hunted for an end point thinking it would create realization and achievement
and meaning even. The ironic thing is that as I came to those realizations,
they faded just as easily as they came. The answers became irrelevant over
time. I never remembered if the girl ended up with the guy or if the children
made it to the train. I needed to feel the story and to become consumed by it.
Like so, life so frequently becomes constrained by what we did in the past and
what we are planning on for the future. Consequently, we lose touch with what
the actual word, “life”, means. At a simple level, life is the existing
presence of a human being through time.
Presence. All too often nonexistent in our rushed and
muddled world today. We grow into creatures of fixation as we mature. Whether
it’s through upbringing, education, maybe even both, we are trained to find the
answers. First, we establish our problems. To solve the issue of money, we get
the perfect job. Loneliness? Marriage. Health? Strict diet and exercise. The
list goes on and is so often communally similar, we just never say it. Now,
fast forward. You’re old and gray, over the big hill. You look back on your
life collection. You got the education, the job, the perfect family, and all
the success you strived for. In those final moments of reflection, you might
realize that you got answers but that they were not the answers you wanted.
Maybe we thought we needed them, sure. But, they weren’t the answers that made
us happy. And you see that had you been present always, you might have defied
conformity sooner. And in doing so, maybe you would have lived life the way you
wanted to, not the way you thought you had to.
Recently, my BC years came to a close. I got the degree and
the vital answer was received. For a while, I looked back and said, how did I
end up here? There it was. Wrong approach. There is no crossing line. No end
point. I made the best of friends—truly the most sincere and thoughtful people
I have come to know thus far. There were highs, lows, and almost everything in between. I changed directions, got comfortable, and then
changed again. It was a series of choices, people, and me. And those three are
always renewing and adapting. Is there fulfillment? Absolutely, but fulfillment
should not be confused with an ending. It encourages us to maintain it, hell,
even make room for more of it. There is always room for a little more.
So, where do you and I go from here? I’m not really sure. We
just have to go. But, I think I’m going to enjoy that unknown. No expectations,
no fixations, no answers. Just you. Just me. And, a promise. We carry with us
the fulfillment of past experiences but ensure that we are present to more
opportunities and people that can become a part of us. We leave room for the
old verities and truths of the heart. We will carry with us our own personal
truths and the universal ones lacking which any story is ephemeral and fated.
William Faulkner, one of my favorite writers, never believed in the end of man.
He believed that we don’t merely endure but that we will prevail. That
transcendence of man exists when we lead with our hearts. Living that way will
liberate us. Then, the answers will find us and if we’re truly living, we won’t
even notice them when they do come. They will just come and we will go.
Everlasting. Way better than any ending I ever heard of.
Here's to a better tomorrow.
-M
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