So I have this theory.
It's kind of growing into a life philosophy, actually. I've decided that things in life don't get better or worse, really; they just change. Really, I've only come to the conclusion that ancient Taoists came to centuries ago. The only constant is change, and this manifests itself in the laws of karma, which to me is more than a catch phrase reserved for moments of poetic justice, but an ideology that with every good event comes an equal and opposite "reaction" or counterbalance to this event (Newton was seriously on to something).
But I like to take it a step further. I think that there is a finite amount of matter and energy in the universe that is constantly changing and shifting in beautifully geometric and patterned ways. The elements move around, they expand and contract and implode in upon themselves, but the net effect is the same. At my most jaded moments, it seems like every time I get to a point where I'm really happy with my life, something comes along that blows it all away. So I guess it comes down to balance. There are times when life is wonderful and times when life kicks you in the gender-non-specific, but it's all a beautiful balance.
My high school theater director once gave me a metaphor that has stuck with me for years. She was giving me advice for directing a small play we were doing with the elementary and middle school kids, and one of my little actors was supposed to be playing Jesus Christ, standing at a window, "looking out upon the clockwork of the skies." The liner notes are complicated and too poetically written to actually be employed in any kind of set design, but it was important that the look on our Christ's face be appropriately pensive, patiently lonely and beautifully sad. To explain this to a thirteen-year-old, the director said something along the lines of the following:
"Imagine that you are the Son of God; not only that, you ARE God, the Creator of the Universe, and at some point in time, very long ago, you constructed everything that is and will every be, set it all up like the most complex run of dominoes ever conceived, and in one breathless motion, tapped the first domino, sending it toppling irreversibly into the next. And now, you're standing here, watching it all unfold."
I'm paraphrasing, of course, and taking some poetic license, but that's the gist of it. That what's done is done and will unfold as it will, no matter what. As Max Ehrmann wrote, "whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
So, with all this perpetually in the back of my mind, I begin my very first blog! I am a recent college graduate, currently unemployed, but starting a year-long term of service for AmeriCorps in a public service law office in Springfield, Massachusetts in September. I'm not sure I want to be a lawyer at all; in fact, I'm terrified of the future and have no idea at all what I want to do with my life, but that's an issue for another time. I'm living with the love of my life, Tom, in the in-law apartment of his parents' house in the suburbs. It's temporary, while we save up for our own place, but for a back-woods country girl like me, suburban life is definitely strange.
But, big adventures on the horizon! Before I finally enslave myself to the workforce for the rest of my life in September, I'm taking a two-week road trip out to South Dakota with my Dad and his friends for the Sturgis Bike Rally. We'll be taking both our motorcycles and my pickup truck with a trailer so we don't have to be riding the whole 2,000 miles. Mount Rushmore, the Grand Tetons, hairy biker dudes in leather: Oh, the excitement!!! I plan on taking loads of pictures and telling lots of stories, so brace yourselves; we're about to let the good times roll!!!
Motorcycle Rally.
ReplyDeleteAwesome.