even if the only traveling you do is between your house door and your office door,
no two days are the same.
there is a cyclical nature to life that both man and nature abide by:
astronomical cycles,
climate and agricultural cycles,
economic, spiritual and hormonal cycles.
animals migrate, children don’t grow up in one day and winters don’t turn into summers overnight (well…)
these cycles were written on the Earth in her career as a man-bearing planet,
and she’s a great storyteller.
biologist and geologist Louis Agassiz has a beautiful quote on this: “The crust of our earth is a great cemetery where the rocks are the tombstones on which the buried dead have written their own epitaphs.”
it’s the natural law and order of the universe,
it has no beginning and end, just cycles.
ironically, when looking back, we tend to see history – ours and that of the world’s – through a very straight line,
ancient age, medieval age, modern age, and you.
why are we shook when our internal or external order is disrupted? why do we fail to accept it?
so much friction and mental drag,
so much energy is wasted in trying to fight a turning.
why you?
why not you?
why not now?
this isn’t an argument in favor of laying limp in life’s way as it goes through its flows, much to the contrary.
it’s an invitation to work with it, and make an effort to understand your own unique cycle.
go with the flow, as the instagram quote says.
animals understand this well,
from the bear that hibernates in winter,
and the young squirrel that’s never met the cold season but instinctively knows to store away food,
we too have our cycles.
and as hard as we try to hack our way through biology and supplement our way through achievements,
the mind cannot always win over matter, sometimes the mind is asked to do too much, and it quickly shows itself to be matter as well.
regardless of your current position in your circle of life, whether you’re winning or losing, shrinking or growing, moving or resting,
know that everything is transitory and not a statement about your worth as a human being.
every day is a new beginning for all,
who knows, this could be a turn in your cycle of opportunity,
but only if you let it.
don’t let yesterday be a repetition of today.
side note: here’s an in-house example on how I’ve come to approach cycles.
I used to run, and then I didn’t, and now I run again. I fell into running as naturally as I fell into not running.
maybe I needed a change, maybe my toes needed a rest, maybe it’s maybelline.
side note 2: these thoughts were not a result of my own synapses firing, I am not that smart. I was inspired by this essay The Doctrine of Cycles by Lydia Ross, immensely fascinating, heavily recommend.
if you’re hungry for more, here’s a handy list of cycles
I’ll see you tomorrow.
today is day 241 of the year, there are 124 days remaining of 2022.
