True Sands

As an increasingly uncomfortable summer rolls along, the tally for the year is an interesting mix. Many have died, and with an entire generation getting into the twilight of their lives, we will only wind up saying more goodbyes to people we know. It should not, ideally, be the case that we appreciate people more in their death than when they were alive; but that is what happens, more often than not. Ideally, we all will know all the answers and do all the right things and be good to everyone around us, all at the same time. But, life is hardly ideal. Neither is it consistent, nor is it always fair or predictable.

On the surface, the truth may look like a deal I made with the devil. But the detail, after a while of living, shows up no devil in it. Nor did I find any god shaped being, in the living, non-living or the dead. What I did find was an infinitely malleable gift of belief that can take any shape I knowingly or unknowingly bestowed it. If I wanted to see good, there was a lot of good. If I wanted to see bad, there was a lot of bad. If I wanted to see nothing, there was a lot of that too. Every belief was as true or as false as every other belief. How can I vouch for the falseness of your belief when I can’t vouch for the trueness of mine?

Everyone gets the choice to stop running at some stage in life. Some stop willingly, others are forced. The violence of this abrupt stoppage is directly proportional to the degree with which you resist change. Most of us give up at this stage, pick a delusion to hide behind; some of us even die literal and metaphorical deaths. At this torrid juncture, only a handful of crazies choose to question their own faces, names and come to understanding that the feeling of the sand that slips between the fingers is as much an expectation as it is an experience. What is this sand?

What if, this is not sand?