We are all riding around on a giant rock careening through a far from empty void full of things that could knock us off at any moment and one day we will, all of us, keel over, die, dissolve to dirt.
Some might see this as a morbid outlook, but it really gives perspective when we look at the things we are doing each day, the things that seem so important to us are suddenly revealed for what they are and the things that seemed silly are also seen in a completely new light.
In striking arts like Boxing, Kickboxing, or Karate the most successful people are those who know they are going to get hit, accept it, brush it off as though it were nothing.
It is not a pleasant experience, but it is going to happen anyways, so we might as well accept the fact; in order to take the opening, to tackle the opportunity, whatever that may be, this is something that definitely needs to be a reality, but not really a grim one, with a willingness to allow life to be what it is so that we might just start living it.
We are told, constantly, that we have to do certain things in order to be what many consider successful or productive members of society - cogs in the machine as it were.
We are to get up at whatever required time, brush our teeth, take a shower, eat some breakfast, put on whatever sort of work attire is required by our specific places of employment or fields of profession, drive, walk, or ride whatever distance necessary to arrive early, clock in, work the tasks for however long we are supposed to work them, go home, and do it all again the very next day.
Often a person gets a day or two off, but this seldom feels like more than a few minutes when one steps back through the door to start the whole process over again, and vacation? Most do not even really get this anymore.
We are constantly told that all of this is somehow extremely important, necessary even, for life itself, yet we seldom stop to wonder why we are the only creatures on this rock that have to pay rent to live here?
That, my friends, is the grand punchline of the whole process and once we start to see it as just that, a punchline, we can actually start to shake off that drudgery and look more deeply within ourselves for that ever fleeting meaning so many seek.
We can start to slow down, stop being in such a hurry to get anywhere in the grand Hamster Wheel of 'life,' to stop constantly looking at things that don't exist as though they really do, as though they really matter, and start being in the moment, taking charge, taking back some of that steam we give off in the pursuit of 'happiness' and 'livelihood.'
We can start to wonder, what have we been missing out on? What is it that really matters to each of us? Those who live in the now, move from the now, those are the people that control their own destinies.
Those who get the joke are those whom have freed themselves from the shackles that kept them running around like some sort of Crazed Zombie Hamster with Rabies and a constant intake of coffee to stave off fatigue.
Some people like this sort of thing, some people thrive in it, but even these people have perspective and move from the now, abiding in nothing but the process as a whole, the rhythm, not really focusing on the destination because that will come, or maybe it won't, or maybe it won't really be what they thought it was, but that really does not matter.... What really matters is...