Questions posed by The Voice during my run this morning.
Who is this Stoic Man and what is his purpose?
My thoughts invariably shift to the child I once was, alone in a dark room sobbing in the life offered him. Nursing his bruises, both of the flesh and beyond it, wishing things were different. Oh, sweet boy, do not lose hope, salvation is coming for you!
I’ve visited that boy many times in my reflections. I remind him that he is loved, that he is strong. I try to comfort him in the moments when all seemed lost, and death portrayed itself as the only answer. The boy envied his brother who had died near birth. The man was grateful to know of his existence. The boy longed for the encouraging words of his late grandfather. The man needed none of it. The boy sought redemption in the absence of such pain. The man found salvation in that very darkness.
I often wonder if, at some level, that boy felt me in the space next to him. I wonder if he endured simply to meet the man who held his hand through the ether. Such wonderment has to be, for me, a mystery of belief.
My mind then drifts to the younger me, trying hard to find his way. Anger was his friend, for no one could hurt him in the red waters of rage. “I need nothing from you,” he’d say to those who offered their hearts, “I want none of you” would be his mantra to souls who would invite him in. Tears would flow from his eyes in the loneliness he sought, and pain would be his companion as he often hurt the very ones who loved him. He could not believe in them, for he was taught that trust was what others could enjoy. His was to be a solitary path.
The stoic man honors the younger self and cherishes the lessons he would learn. “You’ve walked your way, and look at the steel such fire has created,” says The Voice. My soul kisses the memory of youth on the cheek and, as always, forgives him for his blindness.
The weight of past pain has long since departed, and my footsteps are lighter now than ever before. I think of them, and wonder what gifts I had given them in my sightlessness. I can only hope some beauty remained after all the dust had settled, and fondness of the speck of light that always existed within me somehow is remembered more than that darkness that gave it breadth. I hope the softness was remembered despite the hardness, and that some saw the promise of what could be more than the perception of what was.
The losses, the pain, the misdeeds, each showed a way to my own strength. Weakness somehow will always provide a path to power, and pain will always offer a way to fulfillment. It’s why I no longer vilify myself for any of it. It’s all taking me to somewhere I need to go.
The Stoic Man honors the weakness that once defined him and the light that drove him forward. He is, after all, the sum of all he’s ever known. His purpose remains to add to the experience and do so with an intention born not of hype or pretense, but of truth and circumstance. He walks the path laid before him and, where none exists, makes one. It is life he loves, and it is living where he finds his purpose.
He could have quit long ago. His last breath could have been a lifetime ago. He decided to live. His way, no longer a slave to the methods of others.
The run over, I sit on a bench by the lake I’ve grown to love. I wipe the mud from my legs and stretch out my aging hips that protest the activity. “You didn’t say a word during the run,” I say with a laugh to my now screaming muscles. “Now I can’t shut you up.” I’ve learned to laugh as soon as I can about fear, pain, suffering, whatever. The laughs come in their own time, but come they do. My body craves the joy almost as much as it craves breath, and my mind seems well-adjusted to the idea that I simply want to live. Not be alive, but LIVE.
One day, this dream will all be over and I’ll return to the vast Sea I’ve come to know. I’ll be bringing with me a life lived, fulfilling the purpose my spirit has to experience. Perhaps I will have met some who find my purpose has brightened up their lives a little, or a lot. Perhaps I’ll discover those who wish to live as well. Perhaps our minds will stop long enough for us to really get to know one another.
Or not. Whichever. We’ll be fine either way.
The Sun has never said to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look at what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky. ~Hafiz.