Why Only Live?

by Paul Bertolino

When we come to a reckoning with reality, we realize that the human mind is limited in both perception and capacity. The human mind cannot ken the essence of good and evil; that is above its genetic endowment, as one might say, above our paygrade. What is left then; desperation; nihilism?

Humility is a sane evaluation of the self. To be humble is not to surrender, but to see things as they are. Humus, from the Latin, soil, means dirt, earth, ground.

How much more stable can one be than to be firmly grounded on the soil, to be rooted in the earth?

How can one achieve this stability, this grounding? Easily. One needs only live, only be.

Realizing the true nature of things, we see that everything, organic and inorganic is going through an irresistible process of transformation.

As you read these very lines your brain is growing dendrite branches to store memories along your neural passageways.

As we speak our Earth is spinning at approximately 460 meters per second, 1000 miles per hour. Four seconds into this read you had traveled over a mile. Life is change.

Yet we are not doomed, not hardly, so long as we only live. Life is a playful, paradox, a oneness of duality.

Nonsense!” you may say to me and I must agree with you. Every meaningless brings a meaning. Every nothing has a something. Every senselessness contains a sensibility. With every power there is powerlessness.

Embracing powerlessness, we obtain power. We can suspend our expectations, our biases, our notions for a moment and see things as they are. Then can we have a chance to grasp what is.

If we can free ourselves from constructs; infatuations; concepts; beliefs; traditions, and idiosyncrasies…if we can remove our conditioned lens and see life au jus, we might savor it as if for the first time.

To accept life as it is, with all its mystery, miracle and wonder; to be fully present, engulfed in the moment; exploiting every opportunity for joy; to invest in human being; not merely human doing; that, my friend, is to only live.

It is my hope for all sentient beings; that they would only be; only live.


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