threads

“How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand, there is no going back?”

one concept we talked about in my philosophy class was this idea of sacredness. what does it mean, exactly? are sacred things sacred for everyone? how do you classify something as sacred, and how should you treat sacred things?

i am not claiming to have answers right now, only speculations. but there are experiences that you cannot fully share, that have such an internal significance that even an explanation would not suffice to communicate their importance. even if they are shared, it will only be as one relays a story to a spectator, someone on the outside. you can take a photograph of a beautiful scene, but it can never come close to doing justice to the real thing.

i think, in a broader definition, this is sacredness. when you live with someone for an extended period of time, there grows to be a type of intimacy that you can’t explain. you develop an inside language that is unintelligible from the outside. and it becomes bigger than just your experience. it is a life that is woven together with others, built on shared trust and experience, laughter and suffering. it is no longer yours to do whatever you want with.

this sacredness seems to exist in relationship. i think perhaps it can be forged if necessary. it can be resisted and it can be mutilated. but along with the idea with sacredness, we discussed the idea of reverence—this awe and wonder and respect for something that demands a distinct response. in the most extreme case, this might warrant worship. but perhaps not all cases.

so how do i respond when the natural setting for this sacredness ends? do I lock up the memories to just be cherished, knowing that the situation can never be the same? do I try to perpetuate what i can? i don’t know if there is a universal right answer (i suspect not), but without realizing it, i’ve been asking these questions for years.

it seems that this type of sacredness cannot be preserved. i can try to lock it up, but it will grow withered and musty in the process. or i can run with what’s left, cherishing its origins, but allowing it to change over time, the way it did at first. it’s alive now, so it must adapt or die.

thoughts from a mountain stream

with no careful thought or existential crisis, the river flows,
taking the path of least resistance.
no one tells it where to go,
nor does it spend long hours deciding.
rather, it simply meanders,
residing in the wake of that which came before,
carving the way for that which will come after.

nor do i, as i walk along a forest trail, ever question
how the path was beaten down, or who found its direction.
the journey paved a thousand times over is safe,
for it is certain to lead to a pre-approved place.

but what is more safe than a forest trail? how about more solid roads, of pavers, asphalt, or concrete? each leads somewhere certain, laid out before me in straight lines, like a grid. every destination is already known, every path both plotted and plodded. all questions of the unknown dissipate into the mechanical steps of a trip already taken many times. every step is so certain, it need not be questioned, only mindlessly enacted again and again and again.
i know every sound here.
i recognize every sign.
i understand what everything signifies.
and my mind is a computer, full of circuits and grids.
and i come to the conclusion i'm neither alive nor dead.

thoughtlessly, painlessly, flows the river,
yet in my heart, i know i must differ.
to step off the well-worn trail has become imperative.
though pain is probable and none go before me,
i must step into the unknown,
and by finding something new, know that i have grown.