#original self

Who You Are Meant to Be

Following Your Destiny

Long life is indeed a blessing, but maybe we overdo our concern for the length of our lives and give insufficient attention to the passion we bring to whatever time we have.  The meaning and purpose of life are great mysteries, and in that light a very brief life, of only minutes, can be full and rounded.  The soul has appeared in the flesh; then it returns to its home of origin.

Memory is potent.  It does something to us.  It makes us who we are.  It gives us depth.  It ties our past to our present to overcome the disjunction of a too literal life.  It focuses our attention on the imagination of events rather than on events taken literally.  Memory is a kind of poetry.

However bright or dim we are, we will still make mistakes.  If I kept a diary of all the bad decisions I have made in my life, it would be too thick to carry.  But as in most things, it may take a bundle of mistakes to arrive at something sublime, just as it takes thousands of flowers to produce a few drops of perfume.

Simplifying the externals allows us to cultivate a rich inner and outer life.  A cluttered existence may keep us busy, but busyness doesn't mean that we are fully engaged in what we are going.  Usually, just the opposite, we feel busy because we are neurotically active at things that don't matter much in the long run.  It does little good to be successful in a business that requires sixty hours of work a week, while the simple pleasures of home life are neglected.  A complicated person can simplify life and in that simplicity find a sharp articulation of values.  Complicated lives often do the opposite: they show to what extent the person is lost in the busyness of the world.