We can’t reach old age by another man’s road.
Mark Twain
Do you ever feel like you are walking another person’s road? Do you ever think you are just putting one foot in front of the other because the path is pretty and well-paved? Do you ever wonder how you got there, on that road, that road flanked by foliage and fear, big trees and other people’s dreams?
What does your road look like? And how will you find it? Or will it find you?
“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
Buddha
I believe this. That we are shaped by our thoughts; that we become what we think. But my question is whether we can always truly control our thoughts, whether purity of mind is realistically attainable? Or are these just ideals, I imagine? Probably. I don’t know.
What I do know is that I look at the picture above – of a little girl skipping in sunshine, her shadow lovely and loyal, stretched out in her wake – and I smile. In that picture, I see it: Joy.
Do you agree that we become what we think? Do you believe in purity of mind? Where do you glimpse joy in your own life?
I got glasses when I was in fifth grade. I remember putting them on for the first time and being shocked at how crisp the world was. Truth be told, I was also a bit disappointed. Something in little me revered the blurry edges of life before correction.
Well, it’s been many years. And I wear contact lenses 90% of the time and glasses the rest of the time. But there are still those few moments in the morning when I first open my eyes and before I reach to my nightstand to fetch my specs. In those moments, the world is as it was, blurry and beautiful, friendly but full of unknowns.
And then. I put my glasses on, life sharpens, and the day begins.
I am happy to be able to slip those tiny lenses onto my eye and see it all. But I also enjoy the imperfect view of my little corner of the cosmos. Maybe this is why I kind of love blurry photos. I do not discard them all. Some are worth saving. Some are imperfect and exquisite and a bit muddy and mysterious.
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Do you wear glasses or contacts? Do you have an appreciation for blurriness in life and in photos?
“Come to the edge, he said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came.
He pushed them and they flew.”
Guillaume Apollinaire
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What are you afraid of? Are you willing to do what it takes to fly?
“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.”
Rumi
Something that amazes me? That words can stir something in me, something deep and divine, even when I do not understand them. What is a secret sky? What veils will fall? What does it mean to let go of life, to take a step without feet? I don’t know. But even in not knowing, maybe because of not knowing, these words awaken something, some kind of energy, some species of awareness. There is a rumbling, a respect. There is feeling. Isn’t it wonderful that we can love something even if we cannot label it? Isn’t there something majestic about the right kind of confusion?
