As inconvenient as it can be, it makes a great difference to sometimes retreat from the ways of the world to find greater clarity. Only when you turn off the noise and tune in to the rhythms of nature around you can you realize who you are meant to be all along.
Prudence is a Virtue that has long served me well. Yet, I still often deny the little voices who serve as my warning muses of lurking demons who seek to thwart my pursuit of happiness. I have wearily sought hidden meanings to life’s trials, often while slipping into a state of melancholy in self-inflicted solitude. But they are finally revealed to me through the melodies of birdsong and the rough but harmonic flow of the rushing river behind my home.
I have long mistaken feelings of anxiety, anticipation, and nervousness for what they really are: my interpretation of sudden shifts in the fabric of the unseen aether that surrounds us all. We as human beings all have this sense, but very few of us ever tune into it as we should.
Every day is a new beginning, flush with the possibilities of seemingly trivial choices that can lead you down new trails yet to be conquered by warriors of reason. I watch as the late model children of today are presented with more opportunities than ever, yet still find themselves filtered out and discarded. Many others are funneled towards well worn roads replete with potholes and deep ruts. Only the brave few navigate the perilous seas of invention, knowing that failure is inevitable, yet these shortfalls also serve as fuel to seek even greater success.
Every living creature has a purpose, even if in our limited field of vision that’s not at all clear. Whatever divine purpose endows us with our widely varied and often unique cosmic assignments cannot be fully known by even the whole of our impressive, yet still quite unevolved, species of mammal. We can often only approximate the entire truth of any happening; its effects may be clear, but its causes can be often hidden and possibly nearly infinite in nature. Whatever ideas we form will always be incomplete, no matter how hopeful they might be, even if they are more than adequate for our own purposes.
With no roadblocks or obstacles put before me, I always choose the long road. We should never treat our journey through this existence as a race. The saying “haste makes waste” is well known, and it is true. “Slow and steady wins the race” may be grossly cliche, but it’s even more true when you stop looking at everything around you as a competition. Being first in something does not mean you are the best at something, and I must constantly remind myself of this sometimes hidden truth.
~ Artemis Desertsong
P.S. 6-7-2024. Too late now but I realized long after the fact that I misspoke in the last sentence of the second to last paragraph. Sadly, it’s already published this way in the book. Still, what I meant to say was this:
“Whatever ideas we form will always be incomplete, [no matter how hopeful they might be], even if they are more than adequate for our [own] purposes.”
Just wanted to have that on record in case I ever refine Cloud Pieces (which certainly could happen but not any time soon.
