It is the advice
we give to others
that sooner or later
comes back to test
our own resolve.
Saturday, April 22, 2023
Newton’s Fourth Law
A chapbook of verses
Should I be searching
for the fountain of youth
ascending among the rocks
or look for
occasional shower of verses
falling from the summer sky?
The former
may bring immortality
the latter,
some peace,
and
a chance to live
on the cover page of a chapbook
printed beyond its first edition.
Building a framework for living #14: The starting point
Once again, I am back on the trail walking through the woods on a sunny afternoon that occasionally comes to grace us when transitioning from winter to summer. It is a beautiful crisp sunny spring afternoon.
Spring is the time of the year for our souls to thaw from its introspection during the winter and embrace the prospects of soaring again.
On the trail, there are signs of resurgence of life. Like our souls, everything else wants to soar.
The trail also has a quaint wooden bridge to walk across a narrow creek.
Walking over creek sometimes I wonder, where did it begin? From a spring beneath the surface? From the collection of small drops sliding down the slopes of a hill coalescing into a fledging thin stream? It is something like when drops run down the side of a glass filled with chilled water on a humid day, and along their journey downward pick others to form a small puddle at the base.
The thought of the beginnings of the creek reminds me that everything has a point of origin. The ultimate beginning for everything around us is the Big Bang from which we all originated. Because of that, like a genealogical tree but vastly more intricate, the Big Bang is also the point of universal connectedness.
Another and much more personal beginning is the day I was born. Starting from that moment, sixty-five years later I am sitting on my laptop, lost in introspection, occasionally touching the keyboard to put my thoughts into words.
Between the day I was born and now, there is much that has come and gone by. Sometimes though I think that I still have not grasped the right perspective about time.
The years of childhood feel so far away, and yet, months and years seem to pass in a hurry. We are already near the end of the March and ¼ of the 2023 is now behind.
But let us stay with the discussion about the beginnings, particularly about where to begin in the context of building an appropriate framework for living for ourselves and be successful in achieving that goal.
The framework for living I have in mind is finding a way to live that reconciles my awareness of mortality with my need to live.
If I do not have the framework for living, the rest of the journey that remains could be hard.
Knowing that it is all going to end, and having that awareness, I must find a way to feel engaged and have a sense of fulfillment as moments tick by. If I fail, life would be filled with cynicism. Each step someone within would ask - why engage in anything, when it is all going to end? What is the purpose of what you are doing?
And so, I am trying to build the framework for living and need to know where to start?
My goal is to have a framework of living that makes me feel that my life is, and will be, well lived. With that goal in mind, finding appropriate engagements that bring that feeling has the potential to reconcile the awareness of mortality and the need to live.
Why so?
Having the sense of fulfillment does not leave a void inside that could be exploited by the trickeries of the awareness of mortality that can leave us feeling lost. To counteract, what I need to have is the right portfolio of engagements (PoE) enacting which makes me feel that the day that just went by was well lived.
With a sequence of such days, their sum would be a life well lived, and I would have achieved my goal.
What goes in the PoE is an individualistic choice, the process of finding the right activities, however, is universal. The process is to ensure that activities that go in my PoE aligns with my values. Having such A PoE would bring a sense of involvement in what I am doing, and further, would also give me a sense of purpose and direction and would shield me from discrete random meanderings.
So, the starting point is to build the right framework for living is to know what I value. It may not be readily evident but looking back at personal history may help. In your past, search for activities that brought fulfillment, satisfaction, flow, and joy. Was it learning a new subject or skill, coming up with a seemingly new idea, finding connection in seemingly unrelated things?
A part of activities in the PoE are those that help us achieve a healthy lifespan which is the foundation on which the rest of me stands. Without health, everything else falls wayside. So activities in the appropriate PoE should have exercising, eating well, having social interactions over pleasant dinner with a glass of wine.
Ultimately, activities in my PoE would form a healthy ecosystem that supports and feedback on each other.
And so, at the center of finding the right framework for living is understanding what I value, and once I have the grasp of that, the next step is trial and error to find engagements that align with my values. Once that happens, nagging existential questions of life will start to fall into place.
As I walk along the creek, it is gradually getting wider, and I know soon it will flow into the lake. It would realize its end.
The journey of the creek reminds me of Bertrand Russell said: An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.
Ciao.
Summary:
My goal is to have a framework of living that makes me feel that my life is, and will be, well lived.
To do that, I need a starting point.
A general starting point would be understanding what I value, and once I have the grasp of that, by trial and error, finding engagements that align with my values.
A collection of such engagements would be the correct portfolio of engagements for me.
Related:
Building a framework for living #1: Becoming aware of mortality
Building a framework for living #2: The basic premise for its need
Building a framework for living #3: Follow the advice from stoics
Building a framework for living #4: The basic principles
Building a framework for living #5: Working with the fundamental unit that makes a life
Building a framework for living #6: The alchemy of fulfilling days
Building a framework for living #7: The yardstick for fulfilling days
Building a framework for living #8: What makes a day anyway?
Building a framework for living #9: A strategy to make a day well lived
Building a framework for living #10: Choosing right engagements to make a day well lived.
Building a framework for living #11: Need for aligning engagements with our values
Building a framework for living #12: Other consequences of portfolio of engagements
Cliffs above the ocean
Point Udall, St. Croix, US Virgin Island.
All three are different specks on the sphere of the globe. They are far apart but have something in common. All three are cliffs high above the ocean and provide a view of infinite vistas. From all three, I have looked at turquoise blue waters of the ocean below. Waters that blend into distant horizons.
If I let my eyes travel across the line on the surface of the ocean, it reaches the horizon. From there, it moves upward into an equally stunning blue sky, and then, continuing its onward journey it descends to travel back to where I stand.
Standing high above the ocean and looking at the sweeping vista, at all three places I have felt the vastness of space and time. Within that vastness, there is also the feeling of how insignificant I am compared to what is out there.
Standing in these places, one can feel the magic of two opposites merging into one. One is the unfathomable extent of the universe, and of the space and time within. The other is the realization of my insignificance.
These are places where I can feel larger than myself, and yet, feel small.
The merging of two opposites – the expansiveness of space and time, and the sense of my own insignificance – also brings a sense of connectedness.
I may be a speck, but I am still part of the infinite.
If I close my eyes, I can see threads that emanate out from me and reach immeasurable distances in space and time and connect me with everything that is out there.
Standing on these cliffs high above the water, within me there is both a feeling of awe and a feeling of peace. Perhaps, both go together.
It is not often that we feel connected with everything that is out there. The feeling of connectedness is having the realization that being in here and now is a long progression of events that started from the moment of the creation.
Starting from that beginning, an infinite sequence of random events made it possible that I stand here, that I breathe the air I breathe, that I am staring back at that distant point in the sky which might as well be in the point where it all started.
Standing on these cliffs makes me realize that in the larger scheme of things, how miniscule are the chances of us being here. And even more, how miniscule are the chances of you and me both being here.
Standing on these cliffs makes me comprehend that if I were to run time backwards then starting from the moments back in time, I am related to everything else that currently exists in now. In that movie, slowly the form I have will emerge from the forms that existed earlier. If I play the movie forward, many other forms will emerge from my present self.
It is like watching squirrels running down a branch on a tree, reaching the point of bifurcation and climbing back up on a different branch. The end point of two branches may be far apart, but somewhere in space they are connected.
Perhaps, that is the meaning of the word reincarnation and of universal connectedness. The forms we were and the forms we will become, and between them is me that provides the link.
The atoms that make me now were part of something else before and they will be part of something else tomorrow.
Standing on these cliffs, for a moment I question, why should I be afraid of my mortality?
I do not even know where my beginning has been and where my end would be. I emerged from a progression of events in the past, and I will be part of a similar progression of events in the future. In that continuum, there does not exist a point that defines my end.
In that realization, there is a sense of peace of having a self that will continue to live, albeit in a different form.
One day, you and I can return to these cliffs for one more time and gaze at the infinite. But let us try not to go to Diamond Head. Our old knees can no longer bear the effort of climbing those steps. We can just drive to Point Udall or take a bus to Cabo de Roca and call ourselves armchair seekers of the meaning of existence.
Ciao
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)