“it’s everything behind you that brings you to what’s ahead.” (visa commercial during the olympics)
in depicting the miscellany of experiences that makes up a life, we all would need large pieces of poster board placed side by side by side by side to create some sort of visual timeline, something that might represent life-to-this-point.
we would all have great paragraphs of explanation, large narratives filled with words that describe each event – each dit – on the timeline. we would have many adjectives, many sources, references to places and things, achievements and failures. we might have colors or foggy haze highlighting or distilling sections of our lifeline. we might have sections that make us look like hermits or sections that make us look downright rowdy. we might place large question marks over periods of time or, maybe, exclamation marks over moments of enlightenment.
there is one thing i know, though.
even though we are each – seemingly – the expert at our own life, there are few ways to explain it all. we attempt to connect the dots – deciphering some connections with reasonable reckoning, some connections serendipitous – but some things – the going-on from one time to another – are just, well, kind of unfigureoutable.
olympians, like artists, crawl and are catapulted by both tiny baby steps and big leaps into what’s ahead – the stuff of every nook and cranny lived part of the ingredients that place you at the starting line of next – the gate, the block, the apron of the stage, the blank paper, the record button, the empty canvas.
if you had asked me at 18 if i would ever live in the midwest, i would have firmly told you – in no uncertain terms – no. but there are things at 18 i didn’t know, things i didn’t know would happen to me, things i didn’t know i would choose, people i didn’t know i would meet, places I didn’t know i would go – all the obvious didn’t-knows. … every action, thought or event produces a corresponding result or consequence… uh-huh, yep.
but here’s another thing i also know.
when you gather all that it took to get to this point – the very point you are at right at this very moment – you should actually be a bit astounded at it all. for no matter all the specific details of your life – everything on your poster boards per se, you are still here now. there is still time – even this very minute – to do more, to say more, to make more, to move more. there is the ahead and every step takes us there. we have choices to make about what’s ahead. there are unparalleled surprises and calamities – both – in store for each of us. our poster boards aren’t done. keep the markers and crayons and thesaurus out.
we – here in the united states – live in a country with a rich – though rather brief – history. in the poster-board display of this country it would seem that we are currently lingering under a very big question mark.
i guess i wonder what in our lives would make any of us choose a dark route forward. what would make us choose cruel and abusive over kind and empathetic, with the light of hope for all? what – on this good earth in this finite life – would make us step into next, relishing adjectives of depravity and extremism?
“the road is long, with many a winding turn, that leads us to who knows where, who knows where…” (he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother – bobby scott/bob russell)
what do we want on the mutual poster boards of our country?
*****
read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY
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