Dao and Will

"Heaven goes on forever.
Earth endures forever.

There's a reason heaven and earth go on forever:
their life isn't their own
so their life goes on forever.

Hence, in putting himself last
the sage puts himself first,
and in giving himself up
he preserves himself.

If you aren't free of yourself
how will you ever become yourself?"

~chapter 7, Tao Te Ching

I once asked myself in writing,

"How can you achieve something beyond your wildest dreams
if you keep dreaming?"

We love to dream, I know. It is such a significant part of who we are. But there is a fine line we walk every time we do it. On one side, a dream is a tool we can use to manifest the truths we sense in our lives. On the other, the tool becomes that by which we measure truth, and so we are lost. Dreams are certainly real, and powerful, but they are not all there is. As REM emerges from a deeper sleep, so do dreams spring forth from a deeper truth.

I have no will in the matter. I find myself saying this more and more lately. It is startling every time I hear it. If not me, then who? Who is driving this thing? This life, these events? I couldn't tell you.

No, really. I couldn't tell you, even if I tried. I know. I've tried.

I feel this way when I'm at my strongest. Balanced, calm. When the past is no longer clawing at my heels and the future is just taken as it comes, one second/sec, when I feel the need of nothing and I can just be present in the present, then... I seem to get pushed aside. It's a little aggravating, let me tell you, but... I think I'm getting used to it, now.

Invariably, this gets me doing things I'd never do if I was puzzling out the decisions logically. Invariably, I start doing things that scare me. Excite me. Fulfill me in ways I had never dreamed I could be fulfilled. But there I am, smiling anyway. And crying. And punching pillows 'cause I'm just so damned happy (and other equally paradoxical actions).

I have things that I want, sure. And I act in accordance with those desires at times. A lot of the time, actually... probably most of it. But you can't always get what you want (so the lyric of the truism goes), but, you always get what you've got.

So,

(Idiot)
Slow down,
Look at what you've actually got. I guarantee it's more than you thought.

For all the relationships I've lost, I have the wisdom they gave me. Now, let's bother to use some of it: Nothing can ever leave if it never arrives in the first place, so that wall you built was never to protect you from loneliness, it was to prevent something that happened before you built it. And yeah, I'm sorry, but I gotta say it... that's just stupid.

Okay, maybe that was a little uncouth, but really, it's that simple, no?

With no walls, the water and the way go where they will. Or rather, without will, water and way meet no walls. They are not their own. They belong to everyone, and everyone finds themselves within them. Whoever needs drink, shall drink. Whoever will walk alongside, will walk.

I have no idea what this looks like when it's done, but,

I'm paying attention.

Et, comme toujours,
Je t'aime.