The Path Is The Point

“I read the news today, oh boy” – A Day In The Life by The Beatles.

I close my eyes to safeguard my heart. I won’t keep them closed forever, but just long enough so that I can be the master of myself once more. I shut off the noise to let my mind think its own thoughts, and hope that the silence is sufficient before the world intrudes once more.

No one has the right to tell us who we should respect, befriend, or love. The world isn’t ready to be color blind so we need to work harder, defend others louder, and treat those who have been downtrodden kinder, every day and in every interaction.

We do all this so that when we close our eyes in sleep, we can rest well knowing that our day was well spent. Without the noise of regret, we can find sufficient silence to dream of a better tomorrow and the strength to make it happen.

2 responses to “The Path Is The Point”

  1. Your Beatles epigraph rather gives the game away – after all, Lennon’s narrator couldn’t resist reading on, could he? There’s something charmingly paradoxical about advocating for closed eyes whilst simultaneously urging louder defence of others; one wonders how precisely one manages both the retreat inward and the charge outward without developing a frightful case of moral whiplash.

    Still, you’ve captured something true about the exhaustion of perpetual engagement- that curious modern affliction where conscience demands constant vigilance yet sanity requires occasional sabbatical. Perhaps the real mastery lies not in choosing silence or noise, but in cultivating the discernment to know which serves better at any given moment.

    1. Ahh I live with whiplash! It’s important to have a flexible mind. Taking time to digest new information, or overwhelming emotion is needed to process what’s coming in. It might go back to when I was working in situations where someone might die. A helpful bit of disassociation is blinking when we have to continue in circumstances where our mind recoils from what we see and what we must do. When there’s no time to process and you have to return to it later. That returning to it later is the hard part and best not done alone if possible.

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