Life: the larger context

Welcome to my take on life. I guess I’ve just been itching to record and express what I observe around me, to interpret it, make meaning of it, and fit it into the larger context of life.

Life is, after all, the summation of all we see, hear, feel, do, believe, hope, become, and experience. It is the context within which we discover and fall and climb, and bruise and heal. It is the result of all our struggles and efforts, all our actions and expressed yearnings for something more and better and richer and deeper. It is what we continuously, relentlessly plan for and strive to achieve, but usually discover, and sometimes try to avoid, as we go kicking and screaming down some accidental path as our plans, so well thought out, we thought, disintegrate right before our eyes.

Life is the canopy under which we function, love and hate, try and do. It is the undergirding on which we build and destroy, rise and stumble. It is the cave we scramble to free ourselves from and the universe above that pulls from us our dreams and longings and inspiration. Life is hard and unforgiving and hateful and painful. It scrapes and scratches, yanks and pulls and pushes and twists and contorts. And life is wonderful and beautiful, is filled with joy and love and opportunity and friends and goodness. It provides and delivers and supports and opens. It points and directs and teaches and ennobles.

In other words, life is, in the final analysis, all the crap that is thrown at us notwithstanding, really, what we make of it. What I mean is that life is less what happens to us as it is how we deal with what happens to us. It is how we interpret all we are given – the good, bad and ugly – how we wrestle with it and, in the end, what we think about it for having been required to participate in the wrestling match to begin with. The thing about life is that it expands to fill our expectations, no matter what they may be. If we look for evidence of corruption, dishonesty, ugliness, horror and squalor, life will not disappoint. But if we expect to see nobility, virtue, decency, goodness and beauty, there is more than enough evidence for those who are looking.

This blog, then, is a reflection of my particular and idiosyncratic gaze at and into this experience, this adventure called life. It is my peculiar vision and interpretation of what I see, hear, read, view, think, feel and believe … just one bite at a time.