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.