We are filled with unlimited yet untapped potential.
And all this potential is scattered across time, most certainly somewhere along the timeline of our future.
But how does this have any significant impact on our messy present? Because ultimately that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
They say that when our current life situation is challenging or dreadful, we have to “suck it up and live up to our potential!” That’s what they keep telling us, although I am sure nobody even knows what that’s really supposed to mean.
In reality, we all share this common desire to rid ourselves of the unnecessary suffering in our life. Right now. In the Now.
Only when the present is saved do we even dare to think of the future.
Little Portals Into The Future
But what if our greatest potential manifests itself through a feeling of meaningfulness and a sense of purpose we experience in the present?
What if we can feel it within our body when we are heading into a direction in which our future potential also has a chance of being manifested too?
And what if it’s even more absurd and it’s our potential itself that speaks to us through the dimensions of matter and time by instilling this feeling of purpose, flow, and meaning into us once we engage in an activity that also increases the chance of it coming to life somewhere in the future as well?
Now you could argue that that’s absurd, and it most certainly is!
But what if it’s true though?
What if the old world religions were right and they have figured it out all along? What if there ARE higher powers guiding us but we are to dumb to listen to them?
However, the tricky part is to not confuse our sense of “purpose” with something it is not. Because we are also fully capable of filling our minds with all types of useless crap, and then convince ourselves that even this crap is something worth aiming for.
But true purpose is coming from something greater and divine and everything else is merely instilled by superficial reasoning or our egocentric desires and fears.
But… Wouldn’t aiming for the divine also put us closer to the divine too?
And why wouldn’t any sane human, who also has his own best interest at heart, not try to move closer to it then?
What Should We Thrive Toward?
Sometimes I look at the people in the office and wonder, what are all these people aiming at?
What do they have in their sight? Do they even HAVE sight which extends at least a tiny bit further beyond their immediate horizon?
Like animals, they seem to have become unaware of their future and now mindlessly busy themselves with meaningless tasks so they could at least for a short while bathing themselves in a false sense of pride for having done “something” over “nothing.”
Anything.
As long as they appear busy enough so no one asks any stupid questions it seems as if they’ve got all they ever wanted.
But what is their “service” even worth if what they did never served themselves, or their family, or their closer community, but instead merely fed this soulless machine that is their company, which is doomed to die sooner than later anyway?
They occupy themselves with repetitive and mundane tasks, so they never have to feel the urge to explore their true motives that arise from within, and they refuse to look at the obvious question:
“WHAT AM I DOING THIS ALL FOR?”
That’s the nagging question they all seem to avoid.
And quite successfully so.
We all know that there has to be more to life than to merely make ends meet and simply get by?
And yet, finding an answer to the question of “what we are actually doing here” is an overwhelming challenge most of us happily shy away from.
We oftentimes willfully blind ourselves, so we never have to look at this issue again, even if it already requires our immediate attention. We take our own sight, and with it rob ourselves of any form of vision and with it also of our ability to aim.
To aim at what, you might ask?
To aim at the proper things, obviously!
Because without good sight, vision and aim we wouldn’t even recognize the “paradise on earth” if we happen to randomly stumble into it. And then we’d be doomed to crawl through the darkness instead.
With this self-inflicted mutilation, we comfort ourselves with the idea that there’s nothing we could do about our dire circumstances right now and fall back to a misleadingly peaceful slumber once more.
Well, at least until it calls for us again. But this time we are much older as the clock kept ticking away.
Are we ready to take a look this time?
Or do we seek to waste away yet another year, stick our head into the sand and hope for the storm to pass?
It’s Never Going to Get Easier
The storm is never passing though.
It was never meant to pass.
And we were never meant to shy away from confronting it neither.
We, as humans, thrive in the midst of challenge and hardship. We are built for suffering and pain. We are driven by both the fear of the unknown, as well as our desire to prepare for even the darkest time which may lie ahead of us.
We are meant to overcome whatever terrible fate might randomly befall us, rise to the occasion, overcome it and learn from it, and then share this wisdom and knowledge with the community to be collectively better prepare for the next time the evil of the world chooses us as its target.
When the malevolence of the world touches us for the first time, we easily tip over into nihilism.
However, nihilism is always way better than naiveté. It’s like the malevolence woke us out of our mindless slumber.
Because now we at least no longer willfully blind ourselves with these morally absurd delusions but instead face the reality of the real world that is out there.
Are we ready to take it all in though?
It’s a harsh pill to swallow.
Because it might require to burn a lot of our false self off. And with all this deadwood burning away, the innocent (and most certainly naïve) individual underneath also terraforms into something else in the very same process.
Afterward, it won’t be the same anymore.
It cannot be.
Taking on the Ultimate Challenge?
It’s like when Jacob wrestles God and his hip got fractured in the fight, causing him to limp from this day forward.
He took on God himself and fought him all night, even though the task was a hopeless one to begin with.
Who dares to challenge the almighty being that is God himself? Yet, to our astonishment, and maybe even surprise, he did, and he prevailed nonetheless.
He won.
And then God said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” The old Jacob died and a new man arose to take his place. Jacob became Israel, which means something like “the one who contends with God.”
Maybe there is wisdom to be found in this old story. Maybe all these old stories were never meant to be taken literally but metaphorically instead.
Because what does it mean to “wrestle with God?”
It means to take on the ultimate challenge. And since God is the “creator” and represents life, what if the ultimate challenge is to take on life itself and to give it a good fight?
What if it means to not shy away from the hardship that it inevitably brings with it, but to instead face it with courage and strength?
Additionally, even the idea of “taking on God” in this story might be a metaphor for something else. Maybe God stands for what we value. No, it symbolizes the one thing of the HIGHEST VALUE.
And if we look inward and search ourselves, and be truly honest with ourselves for a second, we all know what it is that we value the most.
But are we also in service of this highest good?
Are we pursuing the advancement of it, or are we shying away from it because we feel inferior, insufficiently, or not up and ready for the task?
And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And so, he gave in and he proclaimed that “your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Maybe we are all meant to prevail as well.
It could be that we are meant to take on the ultimate challenge, confront it bravely, and not let go of it again until it blesses us with its abundant gifts.
The Hidden Power of True Sight
There are so many things we cling to and which then stop us from even receiving these gifts:
- The unanswered questions of “what this may be about,”
- The unease feeling of restlessness,
- The call to adventure which we so desperately tried to suppress,
- And the ever-increasing falseness that we love to surround ourselves with for even a fleeting burst of comfort.
And all of these things have to die off and be let go of for us to be reborn as “Israel” too. We have to shed our past limitations and move beyond them.
But are we ready for that yet?
Are we ready for what we might discover if we dare to take a closer look?
Are we ready to wrestle with God?
And are we willing to keep fighting until the sun rises on the horizon, to not let go, to take the hits as they come raining upon us, and to endure the suffering that comes with putting up a good fight, so that we might eventually prevail against all odds, and we earn our well-deserved blessing?
I guess, we have to look inward and answer this question for ourselves.
Because as soon as we do, the self-imposed blindness is driven away by the LIGHT. We become ENLIGHTENED, and with this new-found SIGHT, we are more than ready to take proper AIM toward our individual VISION of a good life too.
But then I look at all these people around me once more.
And I am not sure they share this ideal.
