Agreement.

Drastic internal change. Sometimes our lives take us exactly where we wanted to go most, by the short cut~ that would be the route that goes right by the trash cans, under the fence, over the gravel, across the swimming pool, into the mud, past the junkyard dogs, through the supermarket at night when it is locked, setting off the alarm.  Life drags us by the arm like a rough older brother, and says "C'MON, you have to come, no questions, run, now, come with me NOW!"  And for some reason you just know it is right, and you go.  Your friends are secretly shocked.  Your family wonders if you will ever grow up, or ever get some common sense, or ever learn to do the normal things without so much WHACK.  You yourself are not sure just why you went down this unlawful road, but you are so sure, wait a minute....are you sure...in fact you are wildly unsure.  Wait a minute.  In fact you are uncomfortable, mad at this perhaps untrustworthy domineering companion who has pulled you through the trash cans.  You don't like the smell of rotting fish and kitty litter.  This is not what you had in mind at all! 

What is our base? 

Everyone is different.  In the human experience of living, of maintaining some sort of viable stability, each of us has a different type of base.  For some, it is the excellence or even the total stasis of the human body~ and we do all kinds of things to keep it stable.  We drink until we really can only fall into bed, every single night, wondering if this isn't actually a little dangerous, but keeping the stable base.  We eat high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar foods, even if we are diabetic, in an effort to find and keep some sort of stasis.  We gain and hold 50 extra pounds, and keep it around our middle like a life raft, to keep our bodies stable.  And, we may run crosstraining, crossfit, kettlebell, raw foods, hoop till dawn, kayak the Columbia, whatever we must do, to keep our wondrous human base.

Perhaps we value our emotional equanimity more than anything.  We need our emotional state to be secure and painless.  It is possible to imagine all kinds of things which would accomplish this.  "No dear, your father didn't mean that."  Or, perhaps our wife or husband will be nicer tomorrow, or our kids more appreciative, or even perhaps we tell ourselves outrageous lies which verge on blind denial, in an effort to look on the bright side, or see the best in people, or never write someone off, declare them hopeless, or give up hope.  Sigh.  Conversely, perhaps we meditate, channel, sing, paint, cook, run with the dog in the beautiful sunset while our heart simply SINGS, perhaps we roll on the floor and roughhouse with the kids, or help the homeless.  We know we want to, we just do it, because it keeps us safe.

But is it our mind which is our stable base?  If we feed ourselves data, information, youtubes, bookclubs, TEDTalks, seminars, webinars, bestsellers, infomercials, post-doctorate education, night classes, foreign languages, or the stock market, can we keep things streaming in a stable way?  If we learn what Plato really had to say, find out what Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus thought, research the Bloomsbury Group~ or watch 6 hours of television or video games every single day, can we keep our good steady state?

Suppose we get sick.  Life overwhelms us with emotional pain or joy which absolutely defies management.  We wake up one day and our memory is not so good and we wonder if the drinking has caused brain cell loss, or if we might have Alzheimers or flouride poisoning, or just don't give a damn anymore, or need more sleep.  We have read the books, we took the course, but cannot remember and do not care.

What is our base in eternity? 

How will we stay steady when the deck is heaving under us, and nothing, nothing can any longer be managed?  It happens~ when people die, when we lose jobs, when our spouse runs off, when the beloved pet must be released.  You know what I mean.  The world finally reveals itself as bigger than our managment system.  What, oh what, are we going to do then?  I mean it.  What?

Wait, here comes that dangerous older brother, er, angel, with a fast cleanup dash to the place we need to be.  We can turn that angel down, to keep our current balance~ no risks!  Or we can simply drop the oar and jump.  It will not make sense.  We will complain, bitch, and cry.  Ultimately, we will rejoice in gratitude that SOMEHOW we found the stamina to ride that out, and to forbear silently when all of our reasonable friends and associates are clucking and tut-tutting from their positions of safety behind their currently stable base.

It is my suspicion that the final discovery, so obvious, that life is incredibly, unavoidably bigger than we are, is a moment of absolute definition.  We may put it off, but one day we will have to deal with this idea of who is bigger, we ourselves or life.  If we have to know what the next moment brings and become unstable if we can't~ I know that beyond there, be dragons, and our free-fall can be horrible~ our outrage and disbelief paralyzing and all-encompassing~ we failed to notice the size of life.  However, if we discover that life is so gigantic we could never possibly understand, and that seems right, perfect, and beautiful in spite of our confusion, then we are also defined. We noticed the size of things beyond direct experience, and we still can't overcome, cope, or steer, but are somehow in trust.  That is a character choice~ a choice, I believe, caused by deliberate investigation and consideration.  I think that either eventuality is a personal choice, based on our preferences, and our willlingness or unwillingness to look at reality, to look directly at a streaming primordial ocean of energy and complexity, with its own weather, which we cannot encompass.  A personal choice~ to know that we may be swept away in fear or in joy, and not understand.  To look, and tell ourselves that we are looking, and to know directly what we sense, and feel, and think, in the fact of our engagement with the living reality.  I could be wrong about that.

I myself am absolutely stunned by the infinite complexity, astounding beauty, and extraordinary joy of everyday life.
I do not understand, but on some level I comprehend at the tiniest level where humans may, in the face of the multiverse, which I believe is alive in its every atom. I embrace the gigantic reality.  I trust it~ that is me, entirely.