Who are we, really? It's the kind of question that gnaws at you while you're trudging through Red Rock Canyon, possibly lost in the rough, indifferent terrain, definitely wrestling with the broader existential landscape just as much as the merciless one sprawling before you. We're essentially a collection of stories, aren't we? The kind you might confess over stiff whiskey in a dim, smoky bar or spill out in the raw, vulnerable hours of a long, solitary drive back to the chaos of the city.
These stories, whether they're our own personal hells or the collective madness we seem to endure day after day, stitch us together, like a frayed sweater that's weathered too many winters, holding more secrets than a confessional booth. Sometimes, our stories intersect, and it’s a revelation: like discovering someone else carries the same ghost of that obscure '60s soundtrack you thought only haunted you.
These shared moments, fears, and dreams, they bind us. But then there are times our stories splinter off, each of us spiraling down our own descent. It’s in these jagged, solitary moments that life bares its teeth – it’s where we find the new dirges for our playlist, the unforeseen twists in our personal hells.
Navigating this constantly shifting, often bewildering world is part of the torment and beauty of being human. It's about keeping an open mind, cradling a bit of empathy, and plunging headfirst into the abyss. It’s about seeing past the surface wounds to what binds us in our bones.
In a world that often feels as fragmented as a broken mirror, finding our tribe, coming together with a shared purpose, feels like salvation. It’s how we claw our way through the chaos, how we drag ourselves forward in our collective and individual journeys.
So maybe, just maybe, the trick is to approach each other with the same raw curiosity we'd reserve for a new vice or an uncharted trail in a hellish canyon. To truly listen, and to keep weaving our collective narrative, letting it twist and haunt us in ways we can't even begin to imagine. At the end of it all, we’re all just fellow travelers, navigating the brutal and beautiful journey of life together, making it up as we go along, finding grim joy in the shared experience and the demons lurking around every corner.
What a wonderful reflection, Gloria. A curiosity for today; you're at least the third author I've read today that is contemplating the paradoxes and juxtapositions of our lives. Each of you beautifully stated the complexity of it all, but each of you have emphasized the wonder and awe of just approaching life without reservation and holding it all loosely without pretense. Thank you for this, Gloria.
As elegant a synopsis of life I’ve ever read in my 70 years. If you don’t mind I’d like to put it on my home office wall.
You should find a piece of art that encapsulates these thoughts.