Poise ~ and a Wee Bit of Wisdom

This week I’ve gone down the rabbit hole with Alice. No, not the mushroom-eating drug-induced rabbit hole with creepy tree-slinging invisible cats, but rather one that holds the memories of all those moments and events of one’s life; the choices we made that ultimately dictated the path we are now on until another moment and choice arises, flinging us, arms and legs flailing, in another direction entirely. All I can say is, don’t go down the rabbit hole until you’re prepared for the cobwebs and skeletons that might jump out at you from caverns along the way. That’s not to say I have skeletons, per se, but it is to say that I believe our lives are made up of a series of profound moments and choices that we may not always realize are the dictating ones in our lives, moments we are proud of and moments we aren’t.

You could point me to books and poems and movies and art centered around this topic, I’m sure. It’s a subject, among many others, humanity has been trying to understand going back to Greek philosophers who sat around in long flowing robes and talked, posing hypothetical questions, eating grapes, and being fanned by a boy called Alessandro. Great men (and some women) talked about it and wrote about it, plays were acted with this as its theme, and so it went. Poetry, more writing, more talking, more creations of art. On and on. Yet, today, here I am attempting to make sense of it all for myself. I can read the philosophy, watch the films, contemplate the poetry, and see the plays. I can even sit in a group — virtual of course; thank you for that, dear Covid— and ask the big questions, talk about all the possible answers, and not come up with any viable solution.

So here’s the question, or rather here are the questions: what effect do our choices make on the direction of our lives? Do we have any control over any of it? Would our lives have turned out generally the same in the end, with only having landed here by different means?

Answers. Great effect and no effect. Yes and no. Perhaps.

I know, I know, we can’t “repeat the past”, dear Gatsby. We can’t even make a plea to a guardian angel named Clarence who would help us to see how horrific the world would be like without our presence, helping us to see just What a Wonderful Life we really have in spite of the choices that were made that took us away from the life we thought we wanted. All we’ve got are the choices we’ve made for better or worse, and the moments we find ourselves in now.

Releasing ourselves from the dream-like expectations we have over our lives, where we criticize what we’ve done, where we’ve gone, and how much we’ve accomplished, is the only way to step over the rabbit hole and keep walking forward on the path we’ve created. Hopefully, the farther down the road we get, the more wisdom and poise we get to bring with us, making better choices that will bring us closer to the world we want for ourselves when the darkness comes crashing in at the end. Yet, if we don’t have that wisdom just yet, or maybe it comes in waves with highs and lows and isn’t always there when we need it, perhaps we can remember to live in the moment; to make each day count and get on with it.