What Ideals are you living for?

[DowntownAmber]

I would have been happy to read your thoughts, even if they hade been written down in a 30 page long script.
I am looking forward to reading your post Amber

Do not tempt the 30 page script...lol Ask anyone, I've been making short stories long for years...

As it were, I think I found a bit of writing from the not so distant past that fits what I want to say here. This is as brief as I get, brevity has never been a strong point. Enjoy.

"All the world's roads lead to the heart of the warrior; he plunges unhesitatingly into the river of passions always flowing through his life.
The warrior knows that he is free to choose his desires, and he makes these decisions with courage, detachment and - sometimes - with just a touch of madness.
He embraces his passions and enjoys them intensely. He knows that there is no need to renounce the pleasures of conquest; they are part of life and bring joy to all those who participate in them.
But he never loses sight of those things that last or of the strong bonds that are forged over time."

Paulo Coelho

As all roads lead to the heart, so too do all the world's roads come from the heart. What I live for is the time spent on these roads, the stories of the places I pass, the artifacts that I gather as I go, and the times I walk together with someone at my side. I live for the act of moving, the process of growing. I live for this journey, the journey of shaping myself.

The universe, I suspect, is its own living and breathing entity of sorts; but it is not its job to provide us with meaning and a map to navigate through itself. It exists, and we step up to it and through it; sometimes bending it to our purpose, and often adjusting ourselves to fit its shape. We are liquid, I feel, our passions running like the river that Paulo describes. A river has to find the places in a landscape where it can flow, but it also has the power to carve its own way, to flow alone or to merge into another. Our lives are the constant practice of directing this motion. To do so, we need to intimately know ourselves and respect ourselves first and foremost. The parts of our lives that are shrouded in fear or pain or ignorance, we must seek to reveal. I live for these revelations.

As we reveal many of our fears, they melt before us like sandcastles in the tides. But there are boulders to be moved too, and sometimes beaches to be stormed held by the fiercest warriors of our own pain and fear. There is the choice to fall back into the waters, to let the river pool and deepen and consume us, or the choice to fight up onto the land we wish to claim and to move through the territories we wish to navigate. Let the river be deepened and become full by the blood of slain doubt and fear. I live for this fight.

There are many who will seek to drink from the river, and as they do will perhaps see a reflection of themselves in the waters. This works both ways, as they take from us we also see ourselves reflected back. We know ourselves in their eyes, we learn to recognize the faces of our friends, and we learn to recognize those that do not see us. We share and are shared with. As our own path becomes more clear, we will find others that travel in our same direction; sometimes for a little ways, and sometimes they will run parallel for a long ways. I live for these connections.

Life is motion. To move all the time, to shape and reveal and fight and to connect is a dangerous business. A lonely business at times, but it is not the lone path through the times of trial that is truly painful - it is the moments of happiness and joy, the celebrations of being that are pointed reminders of our choice to be solo or to be a partner. We are the warriors of which the above quotation speaks, and there will be a time when each warrior will make the choice to continue on alone, to conquer that which he chooses to have as a partner, or to submit to and allow another's possession of you. There is no right way for this, for there is equal strength in submission as there is in the taking, equal power in allowing one to break into your spirit as there is power in the breaking. We choose based on the journey we have taken prior, and what we have found within ourselves. What I have found is the desire to be with the one I can lay against, naked in body and spirit, and gift with my devotion and gift with the strength I have gathered up along my path thus far. Who are we not to be fabulous and powerful beings? I have simply found that I am more powerful kneeling beside Him with my heart open, the man worthy of my life, than I am standing against what I feel wearing all the armor I have at my disposal. I will live for this submission.