Posts
I am Day.
I am Night.
I am the World.
I am the Turquoise Woman.
And a traveler like all of you.
You walk miles. I spin through the vastness of space, listening to the ghost songs of the solar winds.
I awakened already spinning through space, hugged to the sun's warmth by his invisible arms of gravity.
But the sun is a distant lover and following his own path through the stars, drawn by bonds of his own.
He is caught like a glistening bead of dew in the web of the solar system.
Together, he and my sisters journey in a cluster which is itself part of a moving community of stars you call the Milky Way.
Travelers all, we can neither turn to the left nor to the right of our own volition.
We are children of gravity and explosion, cast into the darkness by forces we little understand or know.
I used to envy you your freedom of movement, of choice. But the longer I watched your scurrying over my surface, the more a dark truth spoke to me :
You, too, are children of the gravity of your species and the explosion of the times around you which you little understand or know.
You bristle with denial?
If you cannot understand your own heart, how can you understand another's?
Which choices are yours totally?
As gravity and momentum send me on my path, so do your DNA, location, and experience spread the pattern of the paths before you.
You are no more free than I am or the goldfish wandering the narrow confines of its bowl.
From within its bowl, the world seems so large to the goldfish. Yet, it is trapped within invisible walls.
As are you.
Freedom is an illusion to the goldfish, to me, and to you.
Do we choose or do the choices choose us?
*
Check out Wendy's hilarious writer video :
http://waitingforpublication.blogspot.com/2010/10/trials-of-would-be-writer.html
***
I am Night.
I am the World.
I am the Turquoise Woman.
And a traveler like all of you.
You walk miles. I spin through the vastness of space, listening to the ghost songs of the solar winds.
I awakened already spinning through space, hugged to the sun's warmth by his invisible arms of gravity.
But the sun is a distant lover and following his own path through the stars, drawn by bonds of his own.
He is caught like a glistening bead of dew in the web of the solar system.
Together, he and my sisters journey in a cluster which is itself part of a moving community of stars you call the Milky Way.
Travelers all, we can neither turn to the left nor to the right of our own volition.
We are children of gravity and explosion, cast into the darkness by forces we little understand or know.
I used to envy you your freedom of movement, of choice. But the longer I watched your scurrying over my surface, the more a dark truth spoke to me :
You, too, are children of the gravity of your species and the explosion of the times around you which you little understand or know.
You bristle with denial?
If you cannot understand your own heart, how can you understand another's?
Which choices are yours totally?
As gravity and momentum send me on my path, so do your DNA, location, and experience spread the pattern of the paths before you.
You are no more free than I am or the goldfish wandering the narrow confines of its bowl.
From within its bowl, the world seems so large to the goldfish. Yet, it is trapped within invisible walls.
As are you.
Freedom is an illusion to the goldfish, to me, and to you.
Do we choose or do the choices choose us?
*
Check out Wendy's hilarious writer video :
http://waitingforpublication.blogspot.com/2010/10/trials-of-would-be-writer.html
***
In high school, we had this huge discussion and concluded that total freedom was a prison and an illusion.
ReplyDeleteI believe that choice is an action and whether we choose to act or not, it is a choice. An action or inaction-both have consequence.
As for the actual choice-do we really make our own? Is what we choose a result of external factors? Because much of our internal selves are a direct and indirect result of the external...how do we know how much of our essence of 'self' is really ours? Dang. A circular argument....but I really loved the post! Very provocative.
Wow. What a powerful musing. Choices. Hmmmm... you could muse forever really. Thanks for your words. They were a joy to read.
ReplyDeleteIntriguing post. Our world is a complicated place. In order to understand it, we must simplify it or, as commonly happens, have it simplified for us. It is humanly impossible to absorb it all. But by simplifying the world, we also distort it. And while we may be free to make a choice, or not make a choice (which is itself a choice), these choices are by necessity filtered through distortion. We can never know true freedom of choice, because we cannot choose what we do not know.
ReplyDeleteBeing an eternal optimist and frequently wrong - I'd like to think that we have some choices - at the very least on a very personal level - to leave a relationship? to start a family? I'd like to think that I am able to make those kind of choices freely. Oh Tourqoise Woman!!! :-) Enjoy the vastness of infinity!! Lucky you! Take care
ReplyDeletex
Wow! Great post! Hmmmm. Tricksy musing too. My mother, the most grounded and logcial person I know, has always maintained that there are no free choices. I think she believes the Universe has a way of self-correcting itself and doing exactly what it was going to do irrespective of your decision.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Old Kitty though. I like to pretend at least I hae some choice.
;)
It's too early for me to be reading something like this. I'll come back later when I can be meaningful.
ReplyDeleteFabulous! Thanks for always sharing your creative spirit with us. I never tire of your genius!
ReplyDeleteOur choices decide our fate, no one else.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't get the video to play. Shame, it looked interesting!
Good questions . . . I'm of the mind that, in different situations, while we choose some things, other coincidences/incidents may also change our decisions. It's impossible to know, because just by trying to find the answer the very questions are influenced.
ReplyDeleteAlex : Viktor Frankel was dragged to a Nazi concentration camp, stripped of everything : wealth, standing, freedom. He wrote there : "Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms - to choose
ReplyDeleteone's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Nicole : Your kind words were a great birthday gift to me. Thanks. Please come again.
Erin : I wrote this last night so forgive the deep thoughts. I, too, get the bends if my morning thoughts dive too deeply.
Mia : Your mother was a wise woman. I view life as a card game. We have no control over the cards we're dealt, only in how we play them. And of course, we can choose to laugh even if the cards are against us. Maybe especially then.
Kitty : Like you, I believe we have some control. As I said with Mia, we have the choice in how we play the cards life deals us. But as with poker, we also have the choice to discard that which we think hinders us and ask for other cards : education, friends, laughter, and most important ... hope.
VR : How true. We see as through a glass darkly. We walk by what light we have. Sometimes we walk wisely. Sometimes we are lured by the darkness within to step where we know we should not. But I think our wise choices create more light for us, for those who stumble beside us. You are right, too, in that the universe is too vast to contain it all. Sometimes we are like children, who cup a handful of water on the beach, and cry, "I hold the ocean!"
Tabitha : Your comment was a joy to read. Choices are powerful things. A small one can send ripples ahead in our lives to create a tidal wave of possibilities or terrible consequences. Like VR said, we never have enough information, so let us get as much as we can by reading and reflection ... for reading without reflection is like eating without digestion.
Words Crafter : Yes, you're right. Thoughts about choices can become circular. But the Native Americans believed all of life was a circle : the seasons of the year, the seasons of our lives.
I want to be like Viktor Frankel. And that desire brings to mind the poem by Maya Angelou "I KNOW WHY A CAGED BIRD SINGS."
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind,
and floats downstream
till the current ends,
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams;
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream;
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied,
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still,
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill,
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Golden Eagle : How true. All we can do is walk the path before us with what light we have. Have a great weekend.
ReplyDeleteVoltaire said "Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." Tripe? I hope not.
ReplyDeleteThat was beautiful. Loved the sentiment; the writing is nearly poetry.
ReplyDeleteMy what deep thoughts you think Rolands. Intriguing and unusual. I enjoyed this post thoroughly.
Well - I did miss out on the video. I know it will be worth watching, but my kids have the internet connection so bogged down I can't see how far behind my curser is to know if I'm making typing errors.
Want some kids to teach the ways of the universe?
I'll be back later for the video.
Later,
.........dhole
I love the idea of a woman defined by one quality, with all the complexity interwoven in the simplicity of her name!
ReplyDeleteThe Turquoise Woman...a perfect name, in truth!