A Mind Is Not A Finite Space

Life is a journey. The Way is long. The road to heaven, or hell, is paved with good intentions. It all brings to mind some sort of straight path with a beginning and an end.

I suspect it is more like the branches of a tree. Somehow I get up the trunk, which may be childhood and whether I am lifted, boosted, chased, or driven, I don’t know. Then I have to start choosing which branch to try next and I keep on having to choose again and again. Sometimes falling off one and landing on another without any real intentions at all.

If I wanted to carry this metaphor onward, I could take it to great lengths, including leaps, of faith at the end of a branch, but that is not what I am thinking of tonight.

I am thinking of all the layers that surround each step, the thoughts and feelings that influence me, the nuances and passions that accompany each one and how it colors life with a richness that has viscosity as well as direction. It sort of brings me back to that old reacting, or responding idea my friend wrote about not so long ago.

My life sometimes seems more adventuresome to other people than theirs is. I think the difference is often only in the way I choose to look at it and sometimes that I choose to go after what I want in spite of all the admonitions and rules that stand between me and it. I am not a reckless person, nor am I thoughtless, but I find life fascinating and I find many rules only exist in the minds of people afraid to step outside the lines a bit. There is safety in finite spaces. There is safety in a rabbit cage too, but I would go insane there.

So, I tend to open myself up, lay out there in black and white, what many people don’t even want to dream of. Why not? Well, one reason is that I can be hurt, have been hurt, will be again for sure, but I’ll tell you a secret. The hurt is not half as bad as missing the entire experience. Some things are worth the pain. In fact, sometimes the pain makes things clearer, more poignant, gives definition to an otherwise uninspiring life.

How a heart can ache! Yet how could I possibly trade the experience back to avoid that ache? There are things I would do again and again, knowing ahead of time all the pain that will follow, because in the balance -- it was more than worth it.