Shock Waves

We die.  In an incredibly short amount of time in this realm, we are born, we live, and we die; like certain fields of flowers, seemingly ever in bloom, if you look closely, there are whole slaughters, orgies, and birthings going on constantly.   Our time here is so little, and our control over outcomes so limited, it is tempting to believe "whatever will be, will be", and slip into the pursuit of our own satisfactions and drives. For many, such a life is more than enough, and often such types contribute far more than one might think to the welfare of those about them.  But for others, our smallness and our certain approaching end constitute an existentialist crisis from which it can seem there is no escape.   Across time and space, beings have devised ways to deal with such crises: religions, sciences, philosophies, etc.   While such systems can be supremely useful to those who embrace them, where does that leave those who can't?  Must they choose one or dangle over a nihilist pit of blackness that threatens to swallow them whole?

The answers to such a question, the possibilities people offer to resolve the problem of meaning, are obviously varied and often as controversial as  the more institutionalized ways of dealing with our existential dilemma (we are small, time is short, and no one has proof of what comes next).  Yet, there truths that are helpful in facing such questions, though they don't answer them.  Influence is one such truth. 

We influence each other.  Whether we wish to or not, we affect those who we come into contact with and they do the same in return.  Yes, we share ideas and experiences, but beyond those easily measurable things, we influence each other in ways it is difficult to quantify.  As you go through your day, countless people smile at you and you take no notice, but then there is that one; that little old lady (or some such character), blue hair and paisley dress, who though crouched slightly by time still has happy imps dancing behind her eyes: she smiles and some small shock wave travels unseen from heart to heart, from spirit to spirit, and for the briefest of moments we become that connection rather than the parts connected by it.   We move beyond ourselves. "I"s become "we"s.

The truth of such influence is everywhere evident: in hate, love, friendship, conflict, etc.  It is present in moments of sweating ecstasy between bedsheets, and it is there in the simple exchanges of "fuck you" so frequent on the highway.   Influence, and the connection that comes with it, happens in the post office, when reading, at the supermarket, it even happens in the middle vast deserts to men hiding all alone in caves. 

All of this influence, its majesty and mania, can be become blinding if looked at through only the lens of one's own experience.   You can begin to question every feeling, every thought, every action.  Yet, looked at from a broader perspective, it can inspire and calm and, most importantly, begin to reshape those existential questions that brought us here.   

Look back to that field of flowers.  Look beyond the individual comings and goings of its separate inhabitants, beyond the rising and falling of forms, and begin to see the movement of the wind.   Look and see how influence, though seemingly small amongst the individual parts, spreads out in great waves and periods.   See how love expands in silent pathways from one to a family; watch hope drift outward from a home into a community; witness the wisdom of women washing clothes hundreds of years ago forge a path into the heart of a nation.  

We are more than we know.