Be
Dec 6. Be. It's the baseline. Existence. Be or be not. There is no middle ground. It's hard to even turn this verb into an order. It's inherently passive, not active. I am. She is. They are. We are what we are.I have a hard time justifying how I spend my time unless I am doing something. I don't have any sense that being has much value to anyone. No one asks what you are, or if they do, they're asking you to define yourself by what you do. "I'm a writer. A teacher. A manager. An analyst." No one says, "I'm a...me." Or do they?Maybe we should. But what would it mean? Oh, boy. Now we're getting into questions so tough there's a whole school of philosophy devoted to it. Pretty sure I'm not getting to the bottom of existentialism in five minutes of random typing.Doing a thing comes with instructions. Doing holds the attention. Doing has results. Doing produces. "I made that," is an easy idea to communicate. I am this...that's trickier.It's difficult to pause the action aspect of existence and focus on nothing but being. Even when I try, I find myself "doing" being. Maybe people have an easier time valuing doing because it's tangible. Being is a slippery an idea, too uncomplicated to believe that's it's all there is. Where's the catch?There isn't one, of course. Being just means stopping. It means being receptive and reflective and absorbing and accepting. It means being still and letting life come to you and through you. Simple, yes, but simple is rarely easy.GAH. TIME UP. I guess the best I can do is say that learning to fully be may take me a lifetime.
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