Thoughts at rest

Twenty-five years. On average, that’s how much time we’ve bought for ourselves over the last century. Twenty-five more years between us and the next inevitable transformation.

Sometimes I question why we’ve chosen to spend those extra years delaying freedom, cluttering our lives and constricting ourselves before we feel we finally deserve to rest. We add tension to the thread and for what—to make the final release more chaotic? More extreme? What a curious addiction to an energy tuned for centuries by men on uppers (power, money, violence, etc.).

In this hunt for more, for longevity, we’ve forgotten that it’s vitality we should be searching for. For the frequency at which our body’s awake, our mind at ease, and our soul at play.

Vitality reminds us that we carry the same energy of life that flows through the universe causing infinite waves of brilliant and destructive change. A force that turns electrons into mountains into electrons again. Vitality reminds us that we’re a brief yet beautiful part of a never-ending dance between precise design and random chance.

We need tension. Balance can only exist in the presence of counterbalance. But our experience of reality is relational. Our gift is that we can choose our contrast, the friend who sits on the other end of the see-saw.

And if our most precious commodities—time, energy, vitality—hang in the balance, then we should learn to keep better company.