Single line drawn from one ocular corner to the other.
White clouds firmly tethered to shadows.
What is close at hand must first appear on the horizon.
What is cast upon us always has a source.Life need not be the travesty of confusion and disorganization that it seems to be for so many people. When one feels this way, it is nearly always due to two things : Either one isn’t even looking, or one’s vantage point is too low.
Those who follow Tao position themselves on high vantage points. Life never surprises them. Whatever is in their lives today, they foresaw many days before. Whatever is on the horizon, they take the time to prepare for. Such people are called wise, not because they have special abilities but because they take the care to view things from a high place.
Those who follow Tao also realize that all phenomena have a source. Just as shadows on the ground are cast because clouds float between the earth and the sun, so too are the events outside of ourselves cast into our minds. A reaction in our minds is like a shadow cast by an external event.
We can understand such phenomena clearly if we stand at a place where we can see them coming. We need to remember to deal with them not simply by how we feel, but also by looking at their external form, and even checking to see their source. If we take care to do this, then we shall never be deterred.
“No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.” — Zora Neale Hurston
“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” — Dale Carnegie
“We should, all of us, be filled with gratitude and humility for our present progress and prosperity. We should be filled with awe and joy at what lies over the horizon. And we should be filled with absolute determination to make the most of it.” — Bill Clinton
“October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen. It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once again.” — Hal Borland
There are far too many of us who don’t even bother to look for what’s ahead of us. So many people seem to just live their lives as if it is a series of events that simply happen to them unexpectedly. But if you look for the patterns in their lives, you can see them repeated over and over.
Other people do plan ahead, but still fail to prepare for things that seem obvious in retrospect. I remeber walking through Washington D.C. a few weeks before the 9/11 attacks, and seeing the large concrete barriers around many of the buildings. My husband and I talked about them, and my comment was, “Well, if someone wanted to attack them, why wouldn’t they just simply fly a plane into the building? It’s not like anyone else couldn’t have noted the same thing, and in fact, many people in the government had planned and prepared to handle just such an attack, but they were ignored by those in charge.
It isn’t as if we can’t see things coming, if we are looking for them. Sailing ships always had their crow’s nest, where someone was posted to keep a watchful eye on the horizon. We don’t have crow’s nests, and may not live in a high vantage point, but mentally, we can try to have our inner eye looking for what is ahead of us, and preparing us to deal with it.
Some things in life are simply inevitable – our eventual death, for instance. After my mother’s death, and the resulting frustration for me of dealing with so many things like clearing out her house, finding all the assets, planning for the care of my sister and nephew, and a still unssettled estate, my husband and I had our own wills and trust set up, to make sure whoever has to handle things when we are gone has an easier time. We talked about getting rid of all the household goods and just moving into a furnished apartment when we get older. I don’t know that we will go that extreme, but it sure seemed like a good idea when clearing out so many decades of mom’s stuff.
Hopefullly dealing with those issues will be a long way out past the horizon for the moment. Other things can be planned for now, though. Cutting back on spending, keeping some extra cash on hand, planning for emergencies, knowing what to do if one happens, being trained in CPR and first aid are all examples of things people can do to plan ahead. It’s easy to just say, “Oh, no one could have expected this”. Easy, but foolish. And in many cases, unture. People do expect and prepare for many unfortunate events.
But what about fortunate events? How many people plan for love to come into their lives, especially inconvenient love? How many plan for their jobs and careers, instead of simply reacting to whatever comes along? I always knew I would be married with two children one day. I don’t know how I knew that, but I always did. I have usually been able to predict the course of any relationship I was in. I enjoyed them anyway, even the ones I knew would fail. The one lost friendship I didn’t predict was the one that devastated me completely. yet even then, I knew it was coming, but simply supressed my own realization of it. And in every case of lost friendships, and even of death, I knew well in advance that they would occur, even if I wouldn’t acknowledge it.
We supress so much of what we can really know, if we are really careful to listen to the clues life provides us. But so many times, we don’t really want to know.
We talk about those who have good luck in their lives, but what we don’t recognize is, maybe they just planned well.
And some things should be surprises. Even if you have to plan them.
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