The Way I Am

I get now that many people in my life (even my parents) don't have quite the understanding of me that they think they do. They see what they see, and that's a part of me, but they assume it to be the whole, not taking whatever inner life I might possess into account, and they judge me - not unkindly, not harshly, and almost always with love - incorrectly. Hell, there are people with virtually unlimited access to my inner life who don't have anywhere near the whole picture.

I imagine this is the case with you too, reader.

I dunno about you, but I'm constantly thinking, constantly reevaluating, constantly in flux. I am no more or less David at any given moment of my day, but wholly different world-views may be operating within me from one portion of my day to the next. My central thesis, if I must state one, would be that given all possibilities, all the "what ifs" and "if only's," all the more favorable or less favorable outcomes we could wish for; given the magnitude of the quantum possibilities for change in a given life at any given moment, and how they're compounded exponentially from one choice to the next, one action to the next; the best manner to dispense with all of these considerations, the most useful and spiritually sound approach to the question of "where am I right now in relationship to others, to the world, to the god-consciousness," is to assume that I'm where I'm supposed to be, and that I'm supposed to be in the best place there is for me to be. This is close enough to Candide that I'm moderately shocked with myself for being there, but it's not a statement of unflagging optimism; rather, it's a functional assumption that carries me through the shit-times. Because I'm more than capable of imagining, as I often do, a significant percentage of the myriad ways in which my life could be "better" than it is now. But my life is, now. And that's both an inescapable, immutable fact (inasmuch as inescapable, immutable facts are ever really inescapable or immutable - or facts), and something for which to be profoundly grateful. I've managed to free myself of the debilitating tendency I had to live in the past, to pick over each of my past decisions and wonder which ones were the most destructive, and which led me to whichever foul end.

And I've learned that, no matter the present circumstance, my present position in life has some meaning later on; each action I take, if it's the right thing to do, bears later fruit; and, if I abide, this will always be the case. So worrying about others' perceptions of where I am is just about as useful as worrying about my own; which is to say, not useful in the least. All I can do is walk through the day, confident that with each right choice I make (or, most-right, in a choice between equally unappealing alternatives), I'm progressing. I'm headed somewhere, and that's all that matters. We call it staying out of the results.

There's more to the equation, I don't believe in predestination; I believe there's plenty of room for my free will in the Design. And I've shown myself capable, time and again, of fucking up the pattern. But when I'm going with the flow, all I need my will for is putting one foot in front of the other and keeping my eyes, ears, mind and heart open to new information. I can leave the rest up to Somebody Bigger.