Reasons

What are my reasons for being? What makes up me?

Most things can be explained. In the age of reason and in the realms of advancing science, it seems the logical loose ends and mysterious physical phenomena are being tied off. Given enough time, we can figure most things out.

And, as an extension of that logic, can we figure anyone out? What do you make of a person – with all of their motivations, their dreams, their hidden emotions and inner truths? To a certain extent and with enough concentrated observation, we can see people’s private universes in their actions and in their environments. Over time, can you figure someone out? I think you can get 90% of the way there. There will always be something remaining, some unknowable truth, some subconscious secret. Even in the light of a sincere relationship long standing, just a little darkness remains inside. To varying degrees, everyone has their own complexities. With this line of thinking, perhaps you can never completely know a person, even after years, even if you feel like you do.

Applying this narrative to my own life, my self, who am I? Do I know my complete self? What am I still figuring out, what darkness remains? Considering my own history, what are my reasons for being? And given a complete understanding of my past – what does this comprehension mean? How can it best be used to better my future choices?

There are, of course, definitive reasons and full explanations for why I am who I am today. Everything I have ever done, everyone I’ve ever interacted with or seen, every thought that has ever come into my head, has shaped and contributed to exactly where I am right now. I am influenced by the world and my behavior, in turn, acts as an influencer on those around me. Decisions and opportunities, taken or missed, have determined my current station.

This is definitive truth. And in this is light and darkness.

The question becomes: how does one think about the past? For in the state of mind, one can choose where to focus. Succumbing to the dark, I could choose to dwell on the mistakes and misses, playing out what should have been, how things could have been better for me given different courses of action. But in every decision, no matter how ill-conceived, there is a silver lining. Something else, a lightness, can be pulled from the darkest of places.

One could choose to blot out the darkness and consider only the good memories, the happy moments, the nostalgic reveries of one’s childhood. These thoughts might build confidence or better our mood temporarily, but the best times are still times that have past. Those efforts to go back can threaten to soften us to coming adversity and stunt current ambitions. There’s no progression in dreams uninitiated. It’s important to acknowledge the darkness we often find ourselves in and face up with the demons which haunt us. Just as it is important to feel the gratitude for the light on our skin when the sun shines down upon our lives.

In the mind’s spaces, one must find the balance between these two opposing forces. In this balancing act is a better path to interpreting all our experience thus far. There is a singular purpose in this mindfulness.

In a sense, we have this choice; there is dynamism based in free will of thought even after events have come to pass. How I choose to consider my current station is just as significant as the real decisions that delivered it.

There is great power here. The perspective I choose to take, and the thoughts I choose to empower, will determine my chain of consequences and dictate my futures, endlessly. Here and now, I am to determine my own reasons for being.

To these ends, all reasonable perspectives must be considered.

~

~ Impression Sunrise by Claude Monet