To Be Lost
Each letter, subsequent as they flow, is just as insignificant as the last. They are a collection of letters, nothing more, nothing less. I feel from time to time on this page or better yet in this life that each move, every thought, each decision becomes seemingly more menial than the last. But there is one thought that always lingers; one phrase that can create a serious discourse in us all. Undoubtedly there is profound meaning in its utterance.
I am lost.
Just this statement, three simple words yet an umpteen number of possible meanings. I could be lost on this page, lost in thought, at a loss for meaning, or physically lost. I can’t help but allow this word to cross my mind when I think of my place on earth. Lost in translation, an all encompassing lost. I can’t decide which direction is up, or if up is even the right direction. Fittingly, this would be considered lost. I only know which direction I’ve gone once I turn around. Cliché? maybe. The truth? Absolutely. A single transcendental thought, an encapsulated belief, last only as long as it feels necessary. Lingering in an out of my perpetual daily routines it feels as if it falls with implicit meaning. The murmur of the world is kept at bay; I am enthralled as if in a dream. These moments pass and the gears of time press the bearings of routine back to the front. For that moment I am lost.
You can’t help but feel direction is a fundamental piece of everything we do. Without it we are hollow. Time does not ask permission to pass, but with every direct motion we are moved one equally as indirect. Regardless of your planning ability life always reveals its variables with degree of inconclusiveness, and time always plays the antagonist in the novel that we call life. Thusly to chose your course of action means to reason through perceptual bounds. Naturally such progression through our lives seems significant. But to what do we owe the pleasure of having direction?
Our expectation is that for each good we receive, we believe we must cumulatively have generated some measurable sustenance in return, i.e. a viable direction for our servitude. This is not however always the case. If a good is received it is easy to believe that it is deserved. Though if we believe we deserve something of equal value to that of which we posses and don’t receive it we become lost. Without sufficient reason we struggle to rationalize the meaning or directionality. Therefore it is safe to say we will all feel lost at one point or another. Possessing the feeling of misguided trust or love resonates in all of us. Trust that doing the best we can, with all of the good intention we have to offer should only generate optimal choices for us to choose from in return.
The unfortunate truth is that this isn’t the case. More times than not we are left lost. Facing our mortality, morality and injustice with only a handful of tools that are only sometimes right for the job. Lost to face the world unequipped and alone.
Our only hope is to stop shadowing reality with the façade of equality, eternal peace, and everlasting life. We must learn to live through cohesion and not contempt. The direction we all feel so compelled to move in must be repaved and remapped. Let us empathize without forgetting, remember without perpetuating, and look to the tears of humanity to see where our passions should derive. Humanity has the ability now more than ever to release itself from the discretionary mindset of out of sight out of mind. The beaten path is riddled with the puzzle peaces we all seek, but the borders of the bigger picture are going to take some searching.
In all can we really afford not to try and get lost?
