Kiana

My friend Kim and I are hanging out at Starbucks, talking about various things but always coming back to the essential: The dreams we hold, what we look forward to, and what we could do with all the time that’s left for us, with all the air that’s left for us to breathe. We are, at present, ecstatic knowing that there is a physical space—and perhaps even a world where our metaphors exist on a physical plane—reserved for us in the future.

Kim laments not being able to do what she really wants to do, wasting her time on trivial matters. “I just need more time to do what I want,” she says. I nod and think, Everyone always wants more, that’s what stifles us. For all we know, time is an illusion, or an allusion to something far greater than everything we consider valuable, important, true, or great, combined. I do not say this aloud. Time as an illusion, and the disillusionment that idea brings, is but an abstract idea, much like the idea of freedom.

People hurt so much from this “lack of” and “excess of.” We want, yearn, desire, we also reject, shun, fear. Where do we draw the line? Did we happen to forget, by some unknown incident in the cognitive process, that we were rooted in love, gentleness, goodness, compassion─whatever you’d like to call it? Are we falling out of grace, or suffering due to our lack thereof?

I do not know the answers to these questions. I’m pulsing with the knowledge that there’s so much to seek, find, and see: I dare not fail. ♦