(Audio Available)
Right now, I’m at a liminal stage in my life: a time between times, a period of turmoil and change, sandwiched between lengths of relative stability. I think that our lives – if not just my life – follow a pattern: we enjoy periods of predictability and routine until something interrupts our clockwork, and then we are subject to trying, testing challenges which will shape our next period of peace; we won’t ever be the people we once were, but change – any change – is as inevitable as the constant push and pull of the tides.
In the face of these inevitable in-betweens, what else is there to do during times of peace and stability than to live? And in anticipation of the future’s end to our turmoil, we can hold onto hope, but we should also be deliberate about the next period of stability we wish to build for ourselves. I think that our world, too, is at a liminal stage right now, and we should be careful and deliberate in our navigation through these treacherous waters; as it goes: there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.
Holding onto hope, to me, is interesting, for good endings are never guaranteed; we must work for any chance of them. Without a belief in brighter days, we have nothing to work towards, and so logically, we humor the idea of simply giving up; but, if we never work towards the days we wish to see, then we will never even have the chance to realize that which we hope for. Hope keeps us going in pursuit of a future that we have no way of knowing actually awaits us. Just as real as the Sun’s inevitable peeking through the clouds after a stormy day, life’s unpredictability could just as well extinguish our flame before we ever see it. Our mortality confines us to dance on the stage for only so long; the chance of a tragic end to our stories is just as real as the chance of a peaceful one, for we do not have the luxury of forever and the probabilistic inevitability to see the next ebb and flow that follows.
Tomorrows aren’t guaranteed. Even todays aren’t guaranteed. The only guarantee is the now. None of us know our destination, but we are all on the journey; our paths may dwindle and change, and we may take the wrong fork in the road and need to backtrack for a while to get closer to where it is we want to be. How tragic it is that we will only be able to live one life! How tragic it is that in the decision tree of every probability that’s ever presented itself to us, we can only traverse one path. Our journey through this life will never be perfect, and we might never reach our destination, but maybe – just maybe – we can hope that we’ll make it there one day, and taking those chances… well, that’s better than zero.
Happy trails.