The Breaking of Youth

I remember my twenties. I remember there were smiling, collegial accolades and special dinners in rooms lined with antique books, there were corporate fortresses of glass and steel where people in smart suits and dresses (with just a touch of red or maybe lavender)ran around over gray carpet from one big, white electric machine to another big, white electric machine, there was the shiney, new company car and aparments with polished wood floors and views of midtown. I remember it all.

But what I remember most, what I find myself thinking back to years later, are not the things of I was surrounded by, the precocious cut and measure of youth. Now, late at night, in those times when I feel that all my life has come to nothing, I find myself musing in the dark, lit by the fleeting color of the traffic light outside, about all of the intangibles of youth. Memories arise like the aroma of cinnamon and apples from the stove to crowd the mind with sweet sentiments: the feeling of exuberant power still bound in sheer physicality, the sense of unlimited potential that accompanied new-found adult freedoms, the conviction that everything would come right in the end and that surely a new epoch was upon us.

I cherish those memories, though in time the sentiments of youth were forged into harder things, all blades and armor. The world, I discovered, had been dispatching the dreams of young men and women as far back as the human story goes. And while it is unnecessary to list off the failed relationships all wrapped in crying and moments of painfull stillness, or the professional blunders captured in neat Times New Roman memos informing me of dismissal, let it suffice that I learned what all people learn sooner or later--that I am only one small creature in the vast teaming ocean of time. In other words, I am only one among many.

At first, those realizations stung. Then they burned. Like small slivers, lodging themselves under the skin, those thoughts became the bane of my every movement. Go this way and it jabs; go that way and it stings; dig at it and wound yourself; ignore it and become a coil tensed to snapping. The clever quips and smug self-assurance of youth lost all their flavor. They seemed as rancid meat too long kept. Eventually, a subtle form of despair set in. Before I knew it, my life had become one of enduring routine, filling out mindless forms, and trying not to smash my car into some equally miserable fuck on the interstate.

For a long time, I thought that was all of it. I was sure that adulthood had found me, delivered its letter, and was now just around the corner, laughing its ass off. But things changed.

In stories, we all like to see that one event, one turning point, when the progagonist becomes a hero, when he realizes what his error has been and what he must do. The character transforms and via his realization the whole of creation changes too. The world is re-born and everyone is happy. At least, that is how it goes in the stories. But in life, at least as I have found it, our transformation comes in hard-won drips and drabs, like a giant trying to rouse itself from a sleeping potion.

As I went about the rest of my life, resolved not to kill myself yet certain it would probably be a good idea, I witnessed the whispering of the souls. That changed things, bit by hard-won bit. As I sat in lines for coffee (because that is what your supposed to do in the morning) I watched hate travel from one car to another car as small, digital, console clocks inched, number by number, closer to disapproving looks from a co-workers or just to a banquet of mental self-flagellation. I watched love pass freely between a mother and her child as little hands and feet tried again and again to negotiate a set of stairs. I watched a man who didn't have a dollar to give, but did have five minutes to listen, impart peace to crack head I had seen earlier that week thrown into the backseat of a squad car. Slowly, but surely, I saw how souls whisper to each other beneath all the clatter and meaning of our simple languages.

Before I knew it, I was doing and being things I did not fully understand. Friends would tell me of how they hate their significant others, and I would buy them ice-cream. Willie, the old veteran turned hobo, and I would laugh and as we drank coffee together in the train station (Willie actually isn't a hobo--that is just the act he runs to get money in his hat). Soon, the people and halls of work became painted with a thousand beautiful dream-colors of my co-workers hopes for their children and loved ones. In time, I even found myself happily letting people cut me off on the highway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not relating any of this because I want you to know I'm a swell guy. I still continue to do as much wrong as I do right. If values like that even apply. But what I have found, what has sustained me, is that we have power. Maybe it's not the genie-like magnificence that youth dreams will deliver its every wish (and maybe that's a good thing). Yet we have an undeniable power to affect those about us, to spread compassion, to assuage fear, to fan the sparks of joy to an all-consuming fire. The mountains will still "crumble to the sea" and the universe will continue to turn in violent, awe-inspiring waves, but in the small spaces of this reality, in the closeness of two souls whispering, we can change the world for the people we meet. And in the end, I am OK with that.

God damn, it took a long time to grow up ;)

Life

We all experience life. It is almost absurdly obvious to even state it, but sometimes simpler truths make paths that seemingly higher truths can not. We go through our days and lives, striving for this ideal or that, measuring ourselves versus systems, principles, and assets; and all about us, we see the turmoil, ugliness, and suffering of the world. And no matter how hard we try to look away, or reinterpret the difficulties we see as boons, the problems of human life, ours and those about us, are still evident. Even if we find our own enlightenment, salvation, or some other windy mountain top, still those about us suffer. We rack our minds and bodies, bending those same systems and principles, ideals and assets, trying to make sense of it and undo the great woes we witness. Yet for all our trying, for all our cleverness, conflict and misery arises again and again. It is in all that trying, all that effort and activity, that simpler truths have a way of leveling seemingly complex obstacles.

We live. We all experience this thing called life. Whether we find ourselves in the great cities, the remote towns and villages, a far away island or other remote place, we are all experiencing very similar things. We feel, we wonder, we hope, we fear, we think, we plan. We live in the constant change of time where all things about us and within us are in a state of flux. We live knowing our lives are fragile, that at any moment the very thing that allows us to be might be snuffed out. We live wanting to experience happiness, joy, peace and love. We are all frustrated by things. We all have beliefs, we all have opinions.

"So what" cries out our small mindedness, "how does that solve anything".

"Whatever our different beliefs, feelings, and actions are, we are fundamentally having the same experience"

"Bullshit" it responds, "I'm nothing like them, and they are nothing like me; this is all some sort of namby-pamby we-are-all-one fantasy"

"No, they might not be like you, but that isn't what we're discussing; we discussing experience"

Finally, our resistance shouts, "this is all stupid"

The commonality of our experience as human beings is for many of us a dangerous thing because of its simple power. It erases our individual merits and misdeeds; it does away with distinctions that we raise ourselves up on or lean upon as crutch. The fundamental sameness of our experience equalizes us. And left in society of equals, all sorts of things become imperative: courtesy, compassion, dignity, tenderness, justice, discipline, wisdom, etc. Holding the idea that we all experience the same sorts of things as a lens with which to view the world, solutions begin to arise--simple solutions. Though these solutions may be simple in nature, they are often radical in implementation. Our sameness demands actions that challenge the established order of things. We avoid these obvious truths for just that reason: they call to us for revolutions against the norm. They call to us to care for others when we will be mocked for it. They call for us to bring powers to task when we will outcast for it.

Again, this all may sound ridiculously simple, but examine it closely in your views of people--of people you think selfish, or negative, or even monsters. Examine this truth with those who vex you and with those who you hold above reproach.

Seekers

Our time here, living amongst all this rock and water on a little sphere spinning in space, is very short. And the end, for some, is near, even if they can not see it. Yet, despite all this, we spend our precious, uncertain quantity of time striving. We grasp at love in imagined, silver-screen fantasies, we look to avoid suffering like an ant trying to escape the rain; always seeking. But seeking what? Some say we are looking for meaning--for some significance for our own existence; others are sure we are only seeking our own pleasures. There are those that say we are yearning for truth or transcendence.

 

Regardless of what may actually be the case, the question arises, "how will we live well amidst all this striving".  

Of the many things we seek, every shade and hue can be found. But one thing is common: seeking. And that one commonality of our individual experience of living is the very fulcrum upon which human relationships balance. Sometimes we seek things that are at odds with our fellows, sometimes we seek things that align. Out of the the various conflicts and harmonies of all this seeking, nearly all situations of the human experience manifest. The mundane banality of it all is seen every day: "I want this, but she wants that"; "he won't quit, but we want him gone"; "you would like to buy this, she would like to sell it"; "we want control; they want dominance"; etc etc. The seeking-nature of life is everywhere apparent.  

So this brings us back to the question: how do we live well amidst all this striving. Obviously, we can not seek to simply impose our will or mindset upon those about us--this only increases the potential for conflict. Nor can we only seek to constantly convert those near by through good will and aligning what we seek with what others seek--this eventually leads to oppressive personal compromise or blind allegiance. If we are concerned with the question above (which all certainly are not), it is often more fruitful to concentrate only on how we, as individuals, deal with this seeking-nature of life.  

The first step in living well with this reality is accepting it as reality. We will always seek, others will always seek, the scales will always tip back and forth. We are seekers, not finders, not keepers; we seek, and we always will.