You gotta do something

All your attempts are essays

“There is a point where in the mystery of existence contradictions meet;
where movement is not all movement and stillness is not all stillness.”
–Rabindranath Tagore

In moments of stillness, you may glimpse a sacred feeling: enough. A whispered invitation to remain still, to embrace the dissolution of your body and consciousness, to surrender all earthly pursuits and join the cosmos. These moments are potent reminders of being and nothingness. But you are not dead yet.

Life is motion. The universe swims toward disorder yet, somehow you find (a mote of) order against the current. So, though it pains me to say this, you gotta do something.

Yes, all making and doing is fundamentally pointless in cosmic terms. But your days are numbered, so might as well get cracking. You can't do everything; so orient toward heartbreak and choose. You have infinite freedom, and yet, you do (in fact) have to know what you want.

It’s all a real kick in the pants.

And it’s not exactly easy. Doing, making, writing, water-skiing, whatever: it all involves risk—physical pain, rejection, failure. But these aren’t obstacles to a meaningful life; this is the substance of it.

All your attempts are essays—the word itself means "to try"—that add up to the monograph that is you. And the ripples of your actions extend beyond your pages, inspiring others to do, and to make, to strap on their own skis, and so on, and so on.

Between periods of chaotic creation, you return to stillness. Inspiration requires expiration, breathing out to make room for new breath. And this produces another revelation. That sometimes you gotta do nothing, because you are enough.