The Fading Glow of a Brilliant Light
Tomorrow never dies, it remains a precious thing, at the surface of your ambition
When we are young we want to be things, we want to do things, we want to learn things. Then, like the rapid fog over a bright day, we become educated. From the surface of the sea, we begin a descent. We are anchored by life paths: best practices, good jobs, acceptable ideas, muted versions of ourself, minimal expression, social norms, conventional wisdom.
By ‘education’ I don’t really mean formal education, I am talking about the general school of life - the gross gamut of shady teachers and bad lessons and vacuous peer pressure we all face. The mass under the surface of the pretty ice-tip is conformity. Endless, inescapable schools of living. Schools on class, on wealth, on power, on behaviour, on desire, on ideas. We are surrounded and crushed by these schools of slippery things, torrential swirls of grey shapes swarm us. We're unable to grab or catch, let alone feel. We’re caught up in tides that become great oceans, pulling us out to places we do not recognise.
So here you are. Whatever has come before, you have been brought here by these invisible currents. Take a breath. The whispers of parents and teachers in your formative years became the shouting truths of today. Your hard knocks have scarred, limiting mobility. A world fixed in water.
Why would you have questioned things? When the questions could never occur to you.
If you prick your ears and listen softly, you will hear something, at the surface of the sea of conformity. Perhaps it’s music, perhaps it’s someone you used to know calling you, perhaps you’re hearing the deep calls that have always interested you and drawn you in, perhaps there are words you’ve never allowed yourself to hear.
The way you value the world, it was never up to you. In your personal contest of values (money, power, ideas, expression, love, the sacred) - most votes were cast to the bottom of the well before you could have a say. Even if you feel or think otherwise.
But now, you’re reading this, you may relook at the murky pool of your values. You are allowed a moment of quiet. In this quiet moment, you may discover something. Do you spend your time and energy and attention in the best way possible? Do you live for yourself or with others? Do you enjoy your days? Do you still learn new things? Are you connected to life?
The sheer brilliance of living is that each morning we get to wake up and do it all again, and best of all, we get to do it differently. Even if we won't. I probably won’t, the tides are too strong. But I could. You could too.
Isn’t that thought intoxicating? That we could start to swim. That we could really, actually, meaningfully, do things differently. That each day offers more experiments of living. Aspiration is a dangerous drug, one that more people should consume. Every story you’ve ever loved is about people swimming against an oppressive tide. Sometimes our efforts change the course only slightly, but we tried. There is power in your stroke, there is light above the surface, there is warmth from the sun.
