• Skip to main content

penfist

stories are the bones of everything

  • About Penfist
    • Pen’s FAQ
    • Contact Pen
  • Books by Penfist
  • Evolve!

the journey

To flow freely

October 25, 2014 by Pen Leave a Comment

There are a million things you can be. Will be. You will not be told this secret by most you meet. For they are afraid. They live in a world that is finite without the understanding that all things begin and end over and over. Finite fits inside infinite. We are again and again. We are eternal. Not in the small way that some storybooks tell us.

The inevitability is that your atoms will, at some point you do not fully control, be scattered and rearranged. You are composed now. Your story has a start and a finish. There are only so many chapters. What most people fail to see clearly is that the story of you and the story of me are part of a bigger story. The story of us. All of us. We all swim together in an ocean of time. At different moments we might tread in its gentle flow and float together for a while. I know that the moments when I can swim with you might be fleeting.

That is why, when I am bobbing along in the timestream and you happen to be caught in the same current I am, that is important. You might be my companion for a moment or a lifetime. I don’t know. To flow freely is my destiny. I have spent too much time and energy trying to do something that no one swimming in an ocean of time should try to do. Staying in one place should not be the goal.

I will flow freely. To wherever it is that I end. To begin again in a new incarnation that is not going to be what I expect. As I wait for the gloriousness of not knowing to arrive and wash me away it occurs to me that I would like to touch you. I’ll try to remember your eyes. Their color. I’ll try to remember if you laughed and what it sounded like. I will write down the one thing you said to me in that moment that was worth remembering and learning from. Even if it is only for a moment. You were trying to teach me something in the moment that we floated together. I’ll ponder and remember and try to know what it was.

What if that moment turns into a lifetime? It could you know. The ripples and echos and eddies of us seem like beautiful untapped potential. At the beginning of this story I did not understand that I will pass a million faces floating in the sea of time with me and perhaps only see them once. That all of those faces contain something I should try to know.

It’s why now, if you see me float by, and are paying attention you will notice that I am staring. I want to know because I do not. Know how much time is left before my story ends. Or your story ends. And where the ocean will receive this thing I call me into itself. So I look deep into your eyes as you pass by. To see if you will give me something worth chewing on, worth writing about, worth a dance or a song or a painting.

And when the next me comes along without remembering the last me I hope that something I knew in the part of the ocean where I met you helps the you and I who come next know something new. We are all meant to flow freely, to swim until we are tired, and then to sink down into dreams and be remade.

There are a million things you can be. Will be. Which one would you like to know about before this story ends? Let’s take a moment together and float in the question.

Filed Under: Dear Reader, Essays, Personal Tagged With: existence, freewrite, life, the journey, writing

The simplest lesson

March 8, 2014 by Pen Leave a Comment

[dropcap background=”yes” color=”#333333″]I[/dropcap]t is the simplest lesson. To be good for anyone else, you must first understand how to be good for yourself. It is the hardest lesson. That the only way you can be good for you and others is by living honestly. You and others. They all need honesty to truly thrive. You cannot arrive at truth until this lesson has become your paradigm.

I am speaking to myself by writing these words. I am hoping you will wander by and hear them. For 40 years, I lied to myself about who I was. Denied myself what I needed to truly thrive. In that state of existence, my mind became a wasteland littered with the debris of everyone else’s expectations, demands and goals. No one else’s expectations, demands and goals will ever make you feel fulfilled. I know this lesson well.

This essay may, on the surface, appear to be an argument for a selfish existence. There is truth to that viewpoint. Every viewpoint has merit. If it did not, it wouldn’t be a viewpoint to begin with. The trick is learning to understand that not every viewpoint has enough merit to be my viewpoint. Or yours.

I am not bound to your truths. I am not bound to your worldview. I am not bound to anything you expect from me. If we collaborate synchronously I will be grateful for the exchange and for the sharing. If we do not, I will walk alone. Content with my own companions – the truths I have chosen for myself.

It is the simplest lesson. My path cannot belong to you. Yours cannot belong to me. If we join hands for a while, I will be grateful for the warmth we share. If we journey together for a lifetime it will likely assure that I smile more often than I would without you.

It is the hardest lesson. I cannot live for your truths. Only mine. That is the key to unlocking myself. Would you like a copy of my key? I will give you one without expecting anything in return. That’s why I left it here. In the lock where I hoped you would see it.

Please come inside. I am waiting to greet you.

Filed Under: Dear Reader, Essays Tagged With: life, simple truth, the journey

Copyright © 2023 · Author Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in