Matchstick Men.

I like matchsticks.They’re innocuous and even flimsy when static.
But they have this small chemical element on them, that when pushed against the right chemical counter, becomes alive and oh so powerful.
It makes FIRE.
(Not many things are more awe inspiring than fire, its intangible, being gases that are dancing. It is essentially silent, but so incredibly powerful, and it looks real nice too. It is destructive but useful as well.It is a beautiful, non-existent paradox)

But the matchstick. Man is a matchstick too.Innocuous and flimsy, except when he is combined with that right counter.That counter being :Purpose.

Of the billions of human matchsticks, it is the few that were lit with purpose that set their whole time, and subsequent times, alight with the vision of that purpose.

The rest of us, we’re just mostly innocuous, and without understanding, we’re flimsy too. But we’re still matchsticks, with that potential.

Threaded

In the midst of our mechanical routines and ambitions we need to stop and ponder over our own lives, as threads, to appreciate the nuance, the private beauty, the silent pain. To step back from the apparently mundane, to extract the sublime.

To appreciate the fear, the failure, the regret, as responses that are intimate, in being intimate they are inevitable. To welcome the good and the bad for their impact on the thread, in the future, for their origin in the past.

To see that which is loosely called “growth” as purpose in itself.To add up the bits and pieces of events that puncutate time, in the seconds, in the years, and to embrace their sum.

Most of all, to view this thread as having a definate end, and its end is it’s ultimate purpose. To know that in the intimacy of emotion we are all alone but for the One Companion.He who can pierce the limits of our ability to share, to express, and is able to envelop all that is within us,before it is within us. To hope that He is in His Mercy, Gentle to us in our vulnerability to ourselves.

Un-trust

I often scowl at ‘philosophical’ discussions that are overly abstract or arbitrary. But I also often formulate them, not as a deliberate act, but rather as part of the psychological process to “file” the world, thoughts.

One such thing I have been mulling about recently is Trust. Reliance.
I don’t think it can exist. Everyone has had some instance of having their trust betrayed, in some way. Personally, financially, secrecy…

As far as trust is reliance, I don’t believe many of us, (any?), are able to trust ourselves. How often have we sworn never to do something, or to always do something, only to find that after some time we have done exactly the contrary? We justify these contradictions against “evolved wisdom”, or “circumstances”.

So if its fair to say we can’t trust ourselves, ie rely on ourselves to maintain our own principles or intentions. If we can’t trust ourselves how can we expect any other person to trust us? And if we can’t trust ourselves, over whom we have control, how can we possibly trust someone else, over whom we have no control ?

I believe you can trust but within narrow confines,context. I believe there are people you can trust on certain things, at certain times. Not universally, not on certain things all of the time, nor on all things at any given time. This is enough, to expect universality can only lead to disappointment.

We choose people to whom we give our trust, “friends”, people who you can trust on more things more of the time than others. Although I wonder how much the relationship of friendship has to do with a relationship of trust, I think it is more the character of the recipient, ie that person would be trustworthy to many, not just you.
We need to give this trust, in order to get by, and these context specific episodes of trust keep us going, until the context changes, and the trust breaks. But we don’t break, we move on to the next episode of trust. Expecting a universal trust and having it broken, again and again, might break us eventually.
But in giving our trust, we really are seeking something more in return, because trust is reliance, and to trust in someone is to rely on them. So as much as the act is one of giving to another, the purpose is to receive.

This may be cynicism, but there is a message of positivity, to move on to the next episode of trust, and to always try to be more reliable, to yourself and thereby to others.