This Sludgy Maze of Perspectives
In the end, what actually matters when we consider how quickly we are ripped from this world?
How soon this flash of consciousness is extinguished, and the echoes of the masses evaporate into memory, ether.
Well, I'll bet it's sooner than we thought.
Because we typically look at life through the heavily curated reductive valve of our perceptions.
And perhaps, like Arjuna witnessing Krishna's true form or Moses quivering in front of the burning bush, the narrowness of our daily awareness is a necessary insulator against the unfathomable reality somewhere "out there."
And while the filters of our individual biases, fears, and memories can assist us in navigating the sociocultural landscape safely, they tend to blur the deepest, most profound truths, preventing us from connecting with very necessary realisations.
These realisations, such as the brevity of our mortality, are naturally undesirable mediations amidst a whirlwind of supermarket trips, sexual encounters, and family milestones.
But isn't it curious that the central tenet of all prayer and meditative practices is the dissolution of the ego and surrender to a higher power than our intellect?
A death of waking consciousness and a reconnection to the spout of life.
Because when we gift ourselves even a moment to digest the reality of our eventual dissolution, we reconnect to the most fundamental facet of existence. That, contrary to the delusional subtextual narratives espoused by our culture, we're all steadily marching towards the grave.
In the face of this, what is change?
Judgement? Ostracization? Vanity?
In the face of the startling shortness of life, the reality that everyone in sight will be topsoil within little over a century at most, what is a single compelling, endurable reason not to pursue our deepest desires?
To discard the whims of society and allow ourselves to be called by the silent magnetism of our intuition?
We have conditioned ourselves to stay small.
We bathe in the fears of others, and we carry the products and putrifying beliefs of people and institutions we couldn't care less about.
We allow the reductive, self-protecting valves of others to lord their power over us.
We forget that the same people we feel judged and diminished by are being carried relentlessly and helplessly by the same current.
That no one has a clue what is going on here, despite the multitudinous masquerades and accolades we drape over each other.
Therefore, the greatest form of self-love is the permission to reflect on the magnitude of life. The reality that we arrive from and return to an unknown that cannot be easily dismissed and sedated by Super Bowls and Golden Globe ceremonies.
If pursued with courageous, reckless abandon, we realise that all of life is a daring jump.
Everything matters, and nothing matters simultaneously: the great, liberating surrender.
We sigh in the realisation that we have navigated our experience through the sludgy maze of perspectives, not truth.
Imprisoned and freed by our beliefs.
And that, in the face of the great ungraspable existential truth, makes all the difference.
