Beyond Choice

Upon thinking about my state in life, I've come to conclude that the best thing to do is to settle the stirring, to find a steady current and construct a routine, build from there, rebelling when I must against said structure in order to stay sane.  If this is how I best operate, then why not be subject to it?

Here's the kicker - I don't want that life; at least not yet.  I don't want to feel like I'm feigning control of my day, because that's all people seem to clothe themselves in, this idea that they have a handle on anything.  I pride myself on my  willingness to think the opposite, on my leanings toward experiential living, on riding and being the wind, on walking to the maniacal drumbeat of my spirit in spite of mandate or convention.  I've found that while yes structure often makes me more productive, mad growth only happens on the move.

Soo...if I've come to understand anything it's this: I have to bridge the two ways.  Build a frame when I must, but keep the catapult ever-taut and loaded.  The paradox of security does not need to keep me captive, and while it is folly to reject steady growth, it's also blindness to think that's all there is.  A boat needs both sail and rudder, and while you cannot always trust your hand, you also cannot wait forever for the winds to change.  Faith and action my friends - just don't sacrifice the life you wish to live while you're too busy either frantically building or patientily waiting. Know the relation between the two, and weed through the in-between.  Treacherous balance, I know.

The only way to gather focus, discipline, or cohesion, to grow in relation to the spirit, is to own the choices you make, to lean in, to want the change that is happening, and when the door opens: to fight for a life that feeds itself, crowbar in tow.  Whatever works best for you, ride it, but always beyond itself, for the method of the moment is never the point, only a tool is.  Is your toolbox stocked?

In living a transient lifestyle that basically forces me to be reactive to my situation (adaptability is something I'm rather exceptional at, but also a source of compounding friction in my life) I must learn to harness my direction, must either seize or yield to the movement, and learn through momentary awareness.  If it's truly about the order of exploration, then I must listen to the track in play, and sing loud as I seek the soul of the moment, whether aloft or stuck.  I won't tread confidently elsewhere until I do.

And here's what this leaves me with:
I NEED TO BE MORE AWARE OF WHAT MY CHOICES MEAN.
The choice to not drink tonight or to run 3 miles tomorrow at 5am is not the end of the matter; it isn't the point.  What lies behind the act?  Steps reverberate beyond themselves, and we must move with purpose, even as we wander or drift, for the meaning is everywhere.  I must live beyond the choice, beyond the action, into what it means to the full scope in my consciousness, while not un-tethering from the very real now.  Again, treacherous balance. Awareness, in many forms, must be befriended.  I will not live my life any one way, but rather bend and flow in the current, always poised to allow people and places to affect my path.

What is the sea telling me?

What about my vessel has led me exactly here?

............

“Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul, if either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.” - Gibran