Do you ever see your own reflected image in a mirror and wonder what made the person you see before you? One morning, in early September, such a thought occurred to me. In a new apartment, looking in a new mirror, I came to wonder at the young man in front of me. Dressed in plain clothes very much after the manner of many young men my age: a slightly-too-small v-neck undershirt, distressed jeans, an old sun-faded baseball hat and glasses with thick, black frames. Just yesterday, and yet across a vast gulf of time, it seemed I was wishing for spiky hair in elementary school, or shunning jeans in favor of khaki slacks to set myself apart in high school, or wearing Converse All-Stars day-in and day-out as a reserved freshman in college.
Only 23 years, 9 months and 18 days have I counted and, yet, the history of my life already seems vast and beginning to lose its clarity in the hazy reflection of memory. So many choices, both willful and unintentional, brought me thus along this path. Some decisions which, at their time, seemed unbearably important and over which I spent untold hours weighing, contemplating, and worrying, have now faded into obscurity, near to irrelevance. I would say 'irrelevance' without qualification, if it weren't for the eerily-subtle complexity with which choices affect our lives. Conversely, some judgments and decisions which, at the time, I paid no more heed than the choice of "soup or salad?" have altogether ruled my intervening years and continue to dominate my actions.
In my current, reflective state-of-mind, I feel overwhelmed by a dual feeling of helplessness and terrifying freedom. The feeling of helplessness, to my mind, comes from the seemingly-impossible task of discerning what choices will lead me to the life I desire to live and which choices will never again trouble my mind, either in reflection or in memory. Freedom, it seems, comes from the vast possibilities that lay before me, even if I cannot know for certain that my decisions will lead me to those that I prefer.
Truly, my first 23 years, 9 months and 18 days have been very formative but, with any luck, my life is less than one-third over. I am at but the mid-morning of my years; sometimes feeling as though I am just arriving to have brunch with this person I've become after a lazy morning of sleeping-in and, at other times, feeling very hungry and ready for lunch after rising to an early breakfast and a morning full of toil.
Almost, I am paralyzed with despair at the seeming-futility of decision and indecision. What strange mysteries and surprises, joys and sorrows, await me in the early afternoon? The evening? At dusk? Or in the nighttime? Words written by Tolkien come to mind: "'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?'" So said Éomer to Aragorn in Book Three of The Lord of the Rings. The answer: "'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'"
To this, a small part of myself responds; perhaps, that part of every person that drives them forth. That small part seems nourished and renewed by the endless possibilities, and even by the blindness with which I make every decision. Although an illusion Free Will may be, I still desire and struggle to be the master of my own destiny. I think everyone does, in his or her own ways.
Finally, I'll end with words from Richard Linklater's film entitled Waking Life. Words which I seem to carry with me wherever I go.
"The quest is to be liberated from the negative, which is really our own will to nothingness. And once having said yes to the instant, the affirmation is contagious. It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit. To say yes to one instant is to say yes to all of existence."
No comments:
Post a Comment