Below is an experience that a friend of mine had that I found to be touching:
Last night as I neared my apartment I spotted a pure patch of snow and suddenly knew exactly what I needed to do. Being one who does not like to tempt that which is, I completely let go of myself and fell backwards. I lay there completely free…weightless. As I lay there in a deep peace feeling individual snowflakes …fall on to my face and a frost forming over my body I reveled in the paradox of the moment.
I was close enough to downtown State College to hear drunken debauchery, but far enough that I could also sense a deep and utter tranquility. I thought about how when storms like this approach we are bombarded with warnings and dangers. Underneath the verbiage, however, was nothing but peace and beauty. It then struck me in the face that this moment and storm was a metaphor for life.
We are constantly bombarded with messages from the powers that be designed to make us live in fear. Fear of not living up to this or that social norm, fear of what others think of us, fear of finding some ideal job to do for the rest of our lives, fear of fitting in with the rest of society, fear of whether or not we are considered good at this or that, and on and on.
This blanket of fear paralyzes us and severely hampers us. We are capable of so much more than we actually show. This leads us to make life so much harder than it needs to be.
We as humans spend so much time doing the craziest things to ourselves and each other: killing, cheating, abusing, mocking, judging, categorizing, taking advantage of, stealing from, belittling, raping. We have created a world that people have no problem calling mad and crazy, as if it that’s just the way it is. It’s as if we want to make life as hard as we possibly can for ourselves.
Life doesn’t have to be this way. The power to change all of this is within each and every one of us. Just let go and the answers to all our questions and problems will seem so much clearer, and the power and awesomeness of what we are capable of will reveal itself. As Bill Hicks once said, “Its simply a choice. No work, no job, no savings of money. Its simply a choice between fear….and love.”