Liberat.es
Letting Life Lead
- We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
- Anaïs Nin1
It’s never as it is, is it? Perhaps even the simplest of interactions is full of small nuances that a team of social scientists (not to mention biologists, chemists, and physicists) could study for an entire career. Life is a complex mess. How we flow through that mess comes down, largely, to how we make meaning about it. The funny thing about this meaning is that it includes things that are beyond meaning making.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot (and writing about it a bit). I’m more and more aware that my understanding of this subject is, well, subject to some of those meaning making aspects that contain no concrete meaning. Meaning what2? I think what I’m saying is that there is still much of my makeup, and much of the system that “drives the bus” of my conscious being, that was generated at very young ages. Ages that are far too young for there to be any real meaning aplied, for there was no real language as such to give it meaning. It’s truly just pure energy, pure emotion. The issue, of course, is that the mind must make sense of things. So, when these energies, emotions wiht no content arise, it gives them meaning. Often, this means attaching them to something that is present in the mind (what could be a minor, or even a major, worry, let’s say).
What to do with this? That’s the question, isn’t it? Here’s what’s true for me right now: be with it. Be kind to myself, and be with the energy. Get simple. Get still. Let it flow through. Don’t get too caught up in what happens in the stories in the head, because they are being driven by something that is much deeper. Don’t believe it all. Move energy, and rest. Be with myself. Do the work to settle.
And then? Well, that’s the thing. I think the only “and then” is to simply do this paying attention work, and then to wait. To be patient. To let life happen. It’s not necessarily very satisfying (at least not in the short run), but it’s the process. Trusting our life to take care of itself3 is the process. It’s the “and then.” Life will find it’s way to the sun. It will find its way toward. Following its lead is really our only option.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/483575-we-don-t-see-the-world-as-it-is-we-see↩
(See what I did there?)↩
Not the outward expression. I certainly don’t mean the mechanics of bills, and jobs, and housing. What I mean is the pure energy of life. It has the capacity to lead us toward a fulfilment of its expression. Maybe that makes it more confusing, but it’s what I’m saying here.↩