Regardless of who you are, how close or how far away you feel from your God, the number of people who consider you important, or how much you’ve acquired before you go, even whether history remembers you . . . Once you’ve died, it all fades into insignificance.
So why let all your stuff upset you? It has no true meaning. And why not just try to have some fun along the way? It won’t have hurt you once you’re gone. You are but a sliver of a fraction of a moment in a much greater age that won’t notice you once you’re gone.
So why obsess over the dramas in the plays you’ve written? Do what moves you, but don’t cry over the sorrow of this place and of this time. There are no stakes here, or anywhere. So laugh, even in the teeth of your tragedy. Enjoy what seems good. But don’t sob. It’s not a prerequisite to salvation or nirvana. You’re already saved, and hold enlightenment in your hands. There’s nothing you can do to change that.
Don’t struggle to find meaning in your life or in the history of the world. What’s profound has no need to invent meaning about itself. Forget each moment after it’s passed. There’s no moment endowed with any greater meaning than this moment.
Don’t be afraid to run as fast as you can, to fall down, to push what seem to be limits. For this is the character you admire in your children. Seek your wildest heart’s desire, but don’t weep if you skin your knee trying to get it, or never get it at all. It’s all the same—whether you’ve made a billion or died broke; whether you win an Academy Award or end up doing work as an extra. There’s no glory in one, no shame in the other. In the end, neither achievement nor ruin, neither fame nor anonymity are any more real than the shadows of clouds. Some things seem to last in time, but time itself is not everlasting.
Take no thing personally, and be liberated from the world. Liberate yourself from interpretations, from who is right and who is wrong, from who is aggrieved and who is subject to condemnation. And never forget that there is no finish line, no grades to be earned. No trophies will be handed out at the end your life. And all the ones you already have will be melted for scrap. For you are the trophy. You are the prize. You are the destination toward which you’ve moved your whole life.
© 2022 by Michael C. Just
Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.
You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23
Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002
Four of his short stories have recently been published online:
Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)
The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW
I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October
Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within