I was having a conversation with some friends the other day and they were talking about the neediness of a person they knew.  I found myself trying to make excuses for a woman whom I’ve never met.  I found this curious even as my mouth was going.  I recognized myself in the things they were saying about her and felt compelled to explain myself, really, not her.  I was trying to point out that there may be reasons and they said that the woman was always telling them the hard life she lived.  Her need to be acknowledged spilled over their words.  They said that “hard” life was long past for her and that “then was then and now is now.”  It makes sense but when you’re hit with a blast from the past, old buttons can be pushed and you fall right back into that old mold.  Old hurts are resurrected and sometimes with a vengeance.  I understood this woman but I knew they were right.  I felt myself drowning in her pool of obscurity.

Does anyone know or care what goes on behind a person’s private pain?  No.  Should they care?  Well, I guess a person can but when you think of it, no one can do anything about it, or fix it.  They are helpless to do anything other than nod and listen. But who wants to go through that when all it does, if you really care, is make you feel helpless and your friend doesn’t feel better.  It is what it is.  I have no answer for this though I’ve been trying.  I guess when it comes time for my reincarnation (if you believe in that), I’ll either relive the same life or get demoted and live a worse one.  I have a feeling that I’ve been living the same life over and over for centuries.  There’s a locked door somewhere and either I’ve not found it or I don’t have the key.  I don’t know.  I guess I don’t “get” anything.

On Self-Knowledge
 Kahlil Gibran

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals.

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