I dare you to move.
Alone
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then-in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life-was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
~Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a time, this was my favorite poem out of any poem I'd ever read. It still is a favorite in many respects. A source of refuge when the storms of life had beaten me into submission. Something to cling to and know that at least some point in time, another human being had felt exactly as I did. It's important to have that sense of kinship, even if it's with a soul you have no possibility of ever encountering.
I've been around a while. I'd like to think that I've learned a lot. From my mistakes, from others' mistakes, from triumphs and losses. From being a spectator to the human condition. Because I am nothing if not that. Watching. Learning. Being.
I have a friend who has gone through some extraordinarily difficult times recently. When that friend came to me for advice, it got me thinking about a lot of things. About what is really important in life, and what is decidedly not. About what a person can do when they think they can do nothing, and about how little a person can really do when they think they can do it all. And so, I decided to write it all down so that perhaps it could help someone. I know it's helped me, even when I didn't even know it had.
Welcome to the planet. Welcome to existence. We're not guaranteed that life is going to be pretty. In fact, if past experience is any indication, it's going to be alternately frightening and thrilling, equal parts light and dark, but certainly anything but pretty. We will fall down. We will bump our knees, and THEN comes the best part of life.
What's that, you say?
Free will. Choice. The ability to choose whether or not we are going to sit on the pavement, clutching our knees and wailing, bemoaning something that has already happened and hence can't UNhappen, or pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and continue on...looking for further cracks in the pavement like the one we already tripped on so that we can avoid falling down again.
Welcome to the fallout. Welcome to resistance. Sometimes, the cracks in the pavement are well hidden. Sometimes, we trip over our own feet (especially the less coordinated of us). And sometimes, we are so distracted by the scenery around us that we're simply not looking. All of this is part of the ride. You have to ask yourself, 'Was the beauty of the scenery worth the possibility of tripping over a crack?' I think, most times, the answer to that is yes. And even if the answer is no, well, at least you weren't looking at the same old pavement. It was something different. Something new. Because how dull would it be to never look up from the grey, dreary pavement?
What happens next?
I've always had a motto. Do you know the spectacular thing about yesterday, as bad as it may have been? It's already been. It's done. There's nothing you can do to change it, so why waste the energy on dwelling on it? And the even more amazing thing about tomorrow is that anything, ANYTHING can happen. There's no telling what may come your way. More pavement, sure, but outside of that, who knows? And it's all ours to shape. Because we have choice. We have free will.
You are not your khakis. You're not your circumstances, you shape them. You are not a victim to them, you are the master of them. Our friends don't define us. They comfort us, they advise us...but they don't define us. Our past doesn't define us. We define how we grow from it. Our heartbreaks don't decide who we are. Our choices do. Our decisions. Our actions. Which are ultimately based upon our choices. Our perception determines our reality. We can either choose to leave things as they are, or look at life and the world as it truly is...a blank canvas upon which we can leave whatever mark we want to. And given that, why would we choose to stop painting? The possibilities are infinite. They are only limited by...our choices.
A very good friend once said to me, 'Every day you wake up breathing, you have another chance'. That's so true. You have a clean piece of paper upon which to write the story of your life, and since you are the author, you determine the way the story plays out. Sometimes characters run away write themselves. That happens to all good authors. Look at it as a sign of talent.
Take another look at the poem I placed above. At first read, it seems so desolate, so hopeless. But it's not. How amazing is it that we are all so individually made that the first stanza rings true? No two children are exactly alike. No two adults are exactly the same. No two people percieve things the exact same way. That same cloud that became a demon to Poe's eye could have been a puppy, or a kitten, or a horse, or even an Oldsmobile to another person...because they chose to percieve it that way. And their perception determined their reality.
In closing, because every good author is inspired by other authors, I offer two poems that have always been close to my heart, and further illustrate the meaning of this entire ramble.
'If"
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
~Rudyard Kipling
'Invictus'
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
~William Ernest Henley
~taraleigh~
Cut so I don't rape your friends page. But please read. I'm pretty proud of it, and I'd like some input!