Older, but no wiser

I keep having thoughts about things I might post here, but I never have time or energy to convert a vague feeling into some sort of coherent set of words, and then the moment passes and I’ve lost whatever it was.

So here are just two of the things – ideas from outside which entered my consciousness - which have cropped up in the last couple days and struck a chord, seeming to warrant exploration.

Yesterday, whiskey river posted this quote:

"You are called and you answer automatically. Something in you responds, but at the same time you hate it. You refuse your orders. You say, "no, I can't do it. I'm not worthy. I'm too busy. I don't have the capacity. I'm too old, too lazy, too fat, too thin, too timid, and, besides, I think you have the wrong person." But there's no choice and no excuse. So, you go forth with great reluctance, and things turn out badly. Yes, there are moments of great insight, and narrow escapes, and heroic turns, but, basically, you wander around in circles back in the desert for forty years, fighting with your family and friends, until you finally come close to the goal, but you die before you get there. This sounds like my life. Maybe yours too. Maybe this is everyone's life".

There was more to that extract; I’ve only quoted the first half – there was a more positive second part but it was the “…wander around in circles back in the desert for forty years, fighting with your family and friends, until you finally come close to the goal, but you die before you get there” bit which caught my attention as I’d used very similar words only the previous day in one of the increasingly rare moments of scribbling in my journal.

Then the other day, curious about an entry in my visitor log, I followed a link back to an old post of mine and found this comment, full of wisdom, from an old friend who sadly now no longer blogs.

"The one thing I will say is your suspicion that there might be a greater, more demanding destiny lurking somewhere beneath your life may indeed be true - I'm certainly not to know - but one thing I have found is that feeling (which I share by the way)is not necessarily indicitive of what we are called to DO with our lives but of who we ARE. I think that uneasiness arises when you catch of a glimpse of your real self. Remember when you were a little kid and you just KNEW you were special? Our mad, mad world demands we lose touch with that knowing in order to fit in with the demands of society. When this feeling emerges it reminds us again and brings us face to face with our 'gloriousness' - the divine part of ourselves, and a uniqueness that cannot be expressed in any other living being. It reminds us of our purpose in coming here. And we are left with the unease of knowing we have tried to repress and ignore it, simply because it terrifies us.

”I can only talk for myself but I can see how I have tended to jump the gun in interpreting that feeling and the purpose, assuming it must mean big things out in the world. (Which of course terrifies me all the more and makes me bury it all the deeper.) But what if it is simply asking that I embrace my uniqueness? What if it is simply reminding me to see beyond the illusions of our world and into the splendor of real life? What if it is simply prompting me to learn? What if that purpose is something very simple like helping others, who cross my path to remember their knowing? What if I don't have to go out there and search for it? What if it is already here in my life? What if it is simply ME? This seems to be the place I've arrived with this - that all we need to do is embrace that uniqueness. That might be all there is. But if there is more that acceptance will lead us to it.”

The two are so clearly related; when such things crop up seemingly from nowhere I can’t help but imagine someone’s trying to tell me something.