The Center
My whole life seems one gigantic investigation into the collision of chance and necessity. What are the laws that govern such a fight, such a clash? Where does the center hold?
The 2nd law of thermodynamics is the most profound expression of this question. How is it that things fall down, not up? Why does everything fall apart? Why do things get dirty and not cleaner? Who has wiped away the sky and what rules does he play by and impose?
You walk around every day, day after day. You try to find a way to pull back the curtain and understand how the magician got the rabbit in the hat. But you can't. Things are born and die and we don’t know why this happens.
Of course, you get excited upon certain glimpses of logic and uniformity. The brain relaxes from its spasms. Alcohol, drugs, sex, recklessness - they too are great antidotes. Do not deny us our sedatives. However, at the end of the day, or just after the beginning, the fog rolls in and nothing makes sense. There is no center which holds.
I wrote these words long ago, they are from one of my many old notebooks filled with jottings, aphorisms, and thoughts. I must have been reading Ecclesiastes at that time. A profoundly pessimistic book of the bible but which if you see it through to its end, DOES have redemption. For the sage says that if logic tells us that life is a meaningless accident, don't give up on life. Give up on logic.
Too many of us want a final answer to all our questions. One thing, one song, one phrase, one scientific law that sums it all up and lets us understand the mystery of life, the veil we all are dressed behind. This is where we err.
We are like someone eating a huge meal, stuffing themself, all in the hope that after this feast, they’ll never again be hungry. It doesn’t work like that.
Snack, enjoy life in its bits and pieces. The answer is ongoing and about playing our role, enjoying the fortune we have - each moment here and now.
Necessity
There is a reason you are here.
There is.
The problem is it isn’t one of the normal courses of events or outcomes.
It’s not to build a better mousetrap. It isn’t.
It isn’t saving children, stray dogs, or your soul.
It’s not to run a 4-minute mile, or stand atop Everest.
It isn’t even just being a nice person or the perfect killer.
So, what is it then? Your purpose? What is the reason you are here?
YOU ARE HERE TO BE.
Simply put
you must find a way
to dance that dance
that is you,
to figure out and swing
from that small thread
given to you
so you may be here
right now
until it breaks
and you dance no more
and fall into the all.
It’s hard to BE.
Culture’s creepy hands
keep you in place.
The marketeers blowin’ their trumpets.
The want of money, success, fame and
the having to survive.
So many things corrupt us
and keep us from the light,
the light inside
burning as necessity
revealing what we are
and are meant to be
as necessity.