Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Life Can Be Messy

I remember a time when life was relatively simple.  There were definitives in my mind about almost everything. 

As we grew up, most of us knew right from wrong.

We knew when to be happy and when to be sad.

We knew what cartoons rocked our socks (Ninja Turtles) and we knew which ones were awful (Captain Planet can suck it).

Awesome. I always thought I was Donatello
 
Pure suck.  Who wanted to be Heart?
 
But as we get older life seems to get a bit less simple.  I am not sure if it is because we get more complex, or that we are so far along in the race we can't see the starting point from which the finish line seemed so linear. 

Lots of curves in the road and hills and fog creep into the playing field.

Things happen that we can't always understand but come to terms with in an effort to at least create a sense of normalcy in an increasingly muddled world.

People cry when they are happy.

They will laugh out of derision and not simple joy.

The 14 year old version of myself would completely disagree with the 21 year old version of myself about what is "right" versus what is "wrong" and the 30 year old me disagrees (in part) with both of those less worldly versions.

It used to be that when you did something to make someone happy, you were pretty sure the outcome would be, well, happy - hopefully for the both of you. 

But life isn't so simple.

You can tickle someone and get tears back.

A joke can be met with silence.

Love isn't always met with love.

The only certainty is that when we wake up in the morning we wake up and have no idea what will happen with anything we do despite what we think should happen.

So we put on a blind fold, spin the wheel, throw a dart, and hope that we hit the general vicinity of whatever we aimed at. 

We hope to hit the board not the bull's eye.

And if we do, we count it as a win, because through all of the above we come to terms with the fact that winning doesn't mean winning.  It sometimes means just not losing.

And we hope it is enough.

It has to be enough because; hey, if your head is above water at least you're not drowning...right? Right?

5 comments:

  1. Loved your write-up Nick! I agree with you that we become less innocent and less creative as we grow old; wonder what is it that drives away those harmless naughtiness in us! As an adult we must hold on to our responsibilities but that doesn't mean that we stop being a child. There is a little child hidden in all of us, waiting to come out through our antics, words, thoughts, etc.; but we don't allow it to come. May be that's why we keep contradicting ourselves.

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  2. It's too true, and that's why I loved this post. Life isn't simple, yet it seems we're born with this innate sense that it should be. It should be fair, simple, logical... but as it turns out, it's seldom any of those things. Somehow, though, we manage to come through, and that, my friend, is the up-side. We're stronger than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. :)

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  3. I love the idea that the curvy road behind us, as well as the shortened span in front makes things a bit more complex. Perhaps we find more and more sides to that polygon, so eventually it becomes a tesseract and we see new dimensions - if we allow ourselves to do that, at least.

    This is my new favorite blog!

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  4. Appreciate all the interaction here. Suhasini, life sure does take a few twists and turns doesn't it??

    Alison, what a compliment. It makes me feel like writing another blog right now!

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