This for That: A Paraphrase

Giving old words new articulation, maybe make them spark again.

Photo Ry Van Veluwen

courtesy of Unsplash.com

This life, this energy and time left in our bodies, must have some origin, seated somewhere separate from us in eternity.

We have this urge in ourselves to be good to other people instead of angry or unhappy with them, and to make them our friends.  We should use patience and reverence to consider the world around us this way, because the less we treat our instinct to be good to people as a silly or unintelligent or unsophisticated way of acting, the happier we'll be in the long run.

Look at the world from the outside, where there is no matter or time, where things are unchangeable: the pieces of space around us and the shapes they make inside us and out are always moving and changing, but the laws that effect how they move never change. The outcome of events today will tend not towards what our own personal preference might be, but always, eventually, towards balance.

If we can see the world this way, and accept the things in life that we cannot change, the pain of the inequities we experience will be eased with less time, and in comparison with a world of people who can love if they are loved back: unbounded, worthwhile, and always fertile for optimistic improvement.

We hope for the shelter and sustenance we need to survive today, but no more, so that we do not grow complacent in our security, and can keep up an understanding where to put our trust: our capabilities, which we did not earn but must cultivate, mixed with fortunate circumstance, which will never last unchanged. 

We must remember that we will keep and feel all the bad feeling we direct towards others in ourselves.  Only insofar as we are able to let go of the harm that other people do to us, and agree to live with beside them despite their shortcomings, will we be able to feel that we ourselves are forgiven for the things we do wrong, whether we mean to do harm or not.

Don't be distracted by easy satisfaction: quick bites of bad feeling or little sprees of self-indulgence, because these leave us only wanting more of the same short-term gratification again and again and again: it's a road to emotional short-sightedness, where all good intentions decay into selfishness and continual wanting. Ultimately this is deathly unsatisfying to our hearts, which in the end will always crave things only time, generosity, and effort will bring about.

Whenever possible, when we fall into the pain of malice, or bitterness, or unjust retribution, or simply unfortunate trouble, let us feel our pain, but without malice, or bitterness, and see how to get out of it without losing what's important to us: our capacity for loving others as we love ourselves.

We hope for these things not because we deserve them, but because if don't hope for them, we will condemn ourselves to forgetting that we are capable of letting them be, and having to discover all over again a useful way to live.

Let us each seek reasons, whether this is so.