Thank You

"Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none."
-Shakespeare

For a moment I have come to think on life and the value of such. For a moment I have stopped the monumental task of fixing and providing that consumes my daily awareness. For a few moments I have laid aside the words of others who question my integrity so easily .. without thought .. and with this I also laid aside the lance of truth that I meet each instance in the belief that if at least one person lets others know how damaging their thoughtless words can be ... that perhaps next time they will think before they speak to others.

I ask myself every day if it is worth it. Worth being strait with people. They rarely appreciate it .. usually get defensive and tell me all I see is the negative about them. Once more they focus on a very small piece of the picture and miss the very real panoramic view of what kind of energy and caring and positive outlook that it takes to care enough to even shed some light on what it is that they are doing that strains the relationship. How easy it would be to ignore them .. knowing they do not mean to question my identity and just letting it slide. It is not motive that I question .. I question technique. I question the lazy attitude that allows people to say whatever they want as long as their motive is provably pure. That ... supposedly gives them this "get out of jail" free card.

But not with me.

So I am at risk for people believing that all I see is the negative .. all I think about are the rules.

Today I set that aside. The questions ... the introspection. The high measure of what I hold myself up to.

I set aside the drive for what is right. The quest for what is real. The need to be as good a person as I can to those around me. The desire to never allow a moment of weakness to hurt another whether or not I am successful at every turn. And I also set aside the protectiveness that I have for me. That which does not allow others to have too much power to destroy for they surely will in their naivety. I put away my own selfish desire to survive.

Like a slow dissolving of a salt block .. or a puzzle box gently and methodically taken apart I set each burden .. each motive ... each rule and each concern aside. I put down every lie and every truth. I put down every experience .. both good and bad. I set aside every other person who meant something to me either in a positive way or a negative way. I stripped my identity from my bones until there was nothing left but the stark white of my skeletal structure.

And there with ocular holes open to the Sky I questioned why I leave myself alive. Why I am here ... why I subject myself to the pain and ecstasy of life. There were no voices to tell me they needed me. There was no guilt .. no expectations of what I do that negated my leaving this mortal coil of existence. It was just me. Without my drives without my wants without my desires or quests .. just me.

And I could not find a reason for me to be. I could find no cause to breathe life into my existence here. I searched .. but I could not find one. Nothing left to breed motive. I raged with this feeling for a moment .. how could this be that I am nothing and no one without my burdens? Without my pain? without my happiness? Can this really be all there is? I wept for all I had lost .. all that I could no longer believe in that lay scattered upon the grass around me like lifeless idols.

And then ... there was silence. And in the silence I came to the realization that though I was no longer made up of all these things .. I was still here.

It started with a single drop of water. An entire universe held within a single tiny drop of life giving moisture. Breathless beauty in simplicity that held more complicated life than I could ever aspire to contain. Slowly .. as I fell inward in that thought it expanded building cell upon cell .. tendon and sinew upon bone and flesh upon flesh .. skin ... organs .. eyes. It was all so simple. All so profound.

I was not made up of the things I had laid aside. I had a reason to be despite them or with them. And I stooped to pick up each one in turn by choice ... and not by conviction for I had not donned that cloak yet.

In truth I picked up everyone I had carried before. Not one was left behind. Not one burden .. not one problem ... not one ounce of pressure. No desire .. no want .. no quest ... no conviction ... no righteous war against that which need not be was given away. And I realized that I was no stronger for the realization. I was the same man I was before. I carried the same weight with the same conviction. But what I did have was the knowledge that I was not made up of all these things ... and each one was a choice .. not a need. And that given the chance I would choose them all as I had in the beginning.

No regrets.

Thank you.