es muss sein

i find that i want to write something deep and profound, something that will make anyone who reads this sit back and sigh and tumble it over in their mind. something that will come back, tap you on the shoulder in a day or so. something that has weight.

have you read "the unbearable lightness of being"? is life unbearably light -- a series of coincidences, of events, situations that have ended just so, intersected with something or someone else so that an encounter, based upon 6 or 7 "maybes" is the event that changes you. unbearably light in that we have no way to make decisions, or rather no way to know what the "best" or "right" decision is as we can only do it once and so never compare different outcomes and so nothing can ever really mean anything. those bird of fortuity falling down upon as like rain.

or is life heavy? an "es muss sein" ("it must be") that grounds us, pulls us down to the earth so that everything we do is because of that "es muss sein" : to be a doctor, to be constantly self-sacrificial. Is there an "it must be" that we each are tethered to, an "it must be" that gives weight and meaning to all we do. does everything we do have a meaning. and as it can it only be done once, that much weightier because if we mess it up the first time, it's screwed up forever.

lightness or weight? and which is the good and which is the bad? are they even any different. the birds turn to chain and i am locked in place, oh to fly.

the most important is what do i believe -- what are those birds of fortuity when, oh the stars aligned, and those 6 coincidences coincided just so and my life was changed forever. and it seems as though coincidence could never have been so good to me, there must be the work, the humor, the smile of a Creator, just for me.

really?

oh to fly.

but lightness can be hard to face. it s so fragile. so insubstantial. is it real? what if one of those 6 events had gone jut even a little differently. what if ... and life is made up of these. the most important, weightiest things rest on a spider's web, fragile thin delicate.

so i take it to heart, those coincidences and make them heavy, lend them weight. and sometimes in so doing it seems as though i'm giving away my weight, my substance so that everything in the world is weightier than me, a moth's cassock burning in the flame. (at this point you need to add 2 things to your reading list: 1 (as already mentioned) The Unbearable Lightness of Being. and 2) Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. Actually antying by Annie Diallard you can get your hands on.)

so the me that i am is defined by my fortuitious birds, out of reach in the air above me, the coincidences lent wieght from myself, surrounding me, entangling me. and me, well i am weightless, floating among my heavy, coincidence strewn, defining moment.

if i am not what i do, who am i? (and now...we'll just do my philosophy class in a blog! ... go grab Garbiel Marcel's Ontological Mystery).

then answer: I AM. oh mystery, when data encroaches upon itself --like when the word you're supposed to be defining shows up in the definition and your thrown nto an eternal loop. I am I am I am I am I AM I. helpful right?

and that's the important thing, to be ok with a little mystery, a little ambiguity -- is it light? is it weight? is it? and what is? and if i am not my birds nor my coincidences nor those weight imbued events and "es muss seins" around me ... when what? not a function. not a routine. not even whatever 3 adjectives you or i might choose to describe ourselves or each other. mystery.

and we are surrounded by it. start with the mystery of yourself, explore it and revel in it. love it.
move on to the mystery of your neighbor.
to the mystery of suffering. of hope in sufferng. of hope.

the mystery of love.

and less abstract and kind of completely different. i am always so fascinated by conversation. one person says something and another listens, says something back, but not the same thing, related but not and somehow with our different minds, our different thought processes and values, ways of expressing ideas emotions thoughts and we can follow each other. we can make some sort of sense of each other. communicate.

crazy.

mystery: "es muss sein"