In Retrospect

For Matthew...

I am equally divided between a search for simplicity that leads into complexities. 

There is a significant portion of my personality such as it was formed, that yearns for a childhood never to be regained and the other disassembles that naivety by casting away the beliefs that lie at the core of who I once was.

I suppose in that way, we are not that much different while you are there and I am here. Another aspect of being pulled in two directions at once while trying to reconcile them is the concept of personal loss and gain as a sort of abstracted tally that is subject to change on a daily basis.

The most common aspect of being metaphorically between two worlds is the shedding of past baggage that is accompanied by regret and more accurately expressed amounts to a remorse of conscience.

I suppose my concepts of the world are very similar to my biology, I am both living and dying at the same time just as the ideas I have in my pocket seem to regenerate by their passing.

I suppose it all boils down to “what is this for?” as if there were some grander and operatic scenario behind the scenes that I am playing within but as I grow older, I see that this wistful and grandiose potential is unnecessary and whether this is gaining confidence in requiring less props to propel me forward or a acknowledgement of my finite rope, also seems to stretch between worlds.

I used to think I needed to locate a map or path to navigate this universe as if it were a finely wrought Swiss watch where all the gears and transmissions of life meshed together in a finely tuned predictability and it was my own stupidity that prevented me from seeing what all this was for, and now as I have less time in front of me as I do behind me, I find I no longer require this imagined map.

Gurdjieff used to say that the only individuals he found worthwhile to engage in any conversation with were either the very young or the very old.

It seems that we begin with an essence that becomes abstracted, pulled by spun in a centripetal diffusion of a marketplace of pretenses and by experience, we return to what could be characterized by a return to one’s essence in a second childhood where wonder and naivety may be a truer orientation than bundling up knowledge in some unwieldy backpack as we ascend to the unknown.

I think the turning point for this writer was seeing others, experiencing others without putting my own baggage in front of what I witnessed in a recognition of the sanctity of life in of itself and my own imagined needs seemed to fall way. 
Acceptance for lack of a better word, is a difficult alligator to wrestle when it comes to the transience of other lives, whether it be the loss of a horse or my son or my parents, and I ask myself where does this lead?

I don’t know but do I have to know? 

Probably not.

For me curiosity toward the fragility of life was always inevitable.