As many have noticed (and I probably have said myself many times), I do not live a “traditional” life. I never have. Once, I would have said my life has been one adventure after another, with periods of stagnation of varying size in between. Others might view it differently, with me be anything from a lazy bum to antidisestablishmentarianist (with probably some truth in all views). Some may think they envy my nomadic life, others may ridicule it. Most probably don’t think one way or another about it. However, whatever life any of us lead, we ALL share one thing in common … time passes. By definition this means that change happens. No matter how we PERCEIVE our lives, or those of others, every individual is constantly changing. Even the most well established routine is still a series of changing moments, none exactly the same … though they may appear similar. I have come to realize that this means that ALL lives are an adventure, because no matter how well prepared we think we are, no matter how much we seek to control our own paths, we can truly never know what to expect moment to moment until that moment arrives. Thus those who feel that their lives are not really moving, or are somehow boring, are simply blinding themselves to the newness of moments, only seeing what they want to see.
I am definitely guilty of that.
The past is past. Even if there were moments that we wish we could live over, it is NOT possible. I am not even talking scientifically speaking. If it WERE possible to travel back time, and relive a moment, it would still be our future … CHANGED … self reliving the moment. Either that or locking ourselves into one moment … effectively STOPPING time. So we either live forward, or stop time entirely. Take the metaphysics out and it is simply this … we cannot go back. The future holds similar problems. For no matter how much we might want things to be a certain way, or even plan for it, we will never truly know what future moments hold until we actually experience those moments. And since those moments are created by what is happening in THIS moment, the simple act of visiting the future could change how that future plays out.
If the past paragraph required a bit too much thought, let me simplify with something I say often … the only moment that we TRULY live … the only moment that we can have any true influence over … is NOW. Yet as much as I say this, even BELIEVE it, I all to often fail to LIVE that way. Looking back, my new view of my past is that those moments that I called adventures were just the periods of my life when I actually lived IN the moment, and those moments I call stagnation were the periods I forgot to; those periods where I lost myself in time.
Sadly, I seem to get lost in time more often as I experience more of life.
This is ultimately what the newest part of my adventure, the one that starts in three weeks, is about. I seek to strip away the layers of experience and “knowledge” that have sullied my naiveté. I seek to scrape off the stigma of a life bombarded with the spiritual pollution that modern society is choking the air with, and return myself to the blank slate of a new-born child. And once I find that deeply buried child, I seek to start a fresh work of art, one that I can be proud of; one that maybe will shine for others as well. It is not just my intent to challenge myself. It is not just my intent to have a unique experience that many cannot even imagine. It is my intent to shed the me that has lost its way, and replace it with a me of wonder, similar to the one that arrived on this plane once before. I am no longer compatible with humanity, and I keep blaming it on humanity. Since I seem to have no effect on a world I have lost respect for, maybe that world is not really the problem. Maybe I need to take off the dirty filter that encases me so I can see the world fresh again. THAT is ultimately what I seek.
As a result of this part of my journey, instead of spreading myself out in pieces through the several thousand blogs and other means of expression I seem to have gathered, I am going to focus on the journal of my rebirth … A Tail of a Trail. This means that activity on this (and my other blogs) will slow to a near standstill for the next 6+ months. For those who actually enjoy my wordplay, or have any interest in the newest part of MY adventure, you can see the blog below, or better yet feel free to follow it directly. For those who are not interested, I look forward to introducing the new me to you come next fall. In the mean time, I hope your adventure remains interesting as well!
