When I was a young man… Or a younger man than I am at the time of this writing.
I was convinced that I had figured all the secrets of the known Universe out in a matter of weeks. I was inclined to bellow all the wisdom that I had mystically procured to anyone that could bear to listen to my ramblings, God forbid if they agreed as it would give me an empyreal second wind of sorts.
My grandmother’s old adage “that sometimes you’re so dumb that you’re stupid” did not have any substance that I was able to discern, especially as it applied to me. Then one day the bottom fell out and I was compelled to face my demons who showed me the ugly truth, that I really didn’t know shit…
Initially, the reality stung as I crashed to the Earth with a proverbial thud, humbled and bruised, but after the pain subsided this realization that I knew squat was nothing short of liberating.
This is a feeling that I revisit on occasion whenever I suffer from brief delusions of grandeur. Humility is something that I swallow faithfully, but begrudgingly like the castor oil that my mother would make me swallow by the spoonful with the promise of the benefits that could be realized from its bitter taste.
As a more seasoned incarnation of the young man than I used to be, I now harken to the wisdom of my elders, something that I used to hear on the regular is something that I try to adhere to religiously.
“Sit your rump down somewhere”
Admittedly, it is something that I do with a passion and it is nothing short of therapeutic. It is a goal of mine to make time for a forcible extraction from my “life” so that I can sit and ruminate until some semblance of peace infects me. For me, being cognizant that the world, the day-to-day hustle and sometimes what we do for a living is toxic and requires an out-of-body experience of sorts.
At this juncture of my life I’ve come face to face with this grand epiphany that…
Living in the moment is a fallacy as the resounding truth is that… We are living on borrowed time, it is the moment that lives within us.
Being still and drawn in by the sound of solace and the rippling of the water around me is like a ritual baptism of sorts. It is empowering to know that I am ignorantly aware, but wisdom is knowing that I have the power that opportunity affords me to make it a thing of the past.
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