I’m here to feel

When I glance at the thought, I can’t believe how old I am. Forty six now. I feel just like I did when I was twenty. What do I mean by that. I mean my sense of self feels no different. Being me feels the same. Sure, my body aches more than it did when I was young. I am wiser in some ways, more jaded in others. But being Mike, that sense of being me, feels no different than eight, twenty, thirty, or forty-six.

Such a strange experience, time. The way it leads us through life. The way it ages us independently in the mirror. It’s as if I’m watching from the outside, perplexed as this body ages. Wearing it like an old suit. Holes in the elbows. Frayed at the corners. It’s been comfortable at times. Restrictive at others. We’ve had a journey together. But eventually it will be time for it to go. Such is time. Such is being.

These moments of reflection remind me of the point of all this. The point of experience, at its essence, is simple. To be, to love, to experience. To step outside the automation. To get back in the driver’s seat and feel. Feel the aches and pains. Feel the warmth and the tingling. To feel with a new touch. To see with fresh eyes. To hear with newborn ears. Nothing else is real. Everything else is imagination.

To experience life requires death. They cannot be independent. The nectar wouldn’t be so sweet if it lasted. So we love the sweetness. We love its coming. We love it passing. This whole journey is a chance to experience something other than ourselves. Good and bad, extracted from a core oneness. And with separation comes the chance to feel. If only for a brief time.

Why does feeling matter so much that existence would take this shape at all? What is the purpose of this separation of oneness? Of this brief moment in this skin? Frankly, I like to think of the universe, the infinite, existence, God, whatever you want to call it, as playful, and well, a little bored. Why not wouldn’t we?

Beauty is in the imperfection. Wonder rests in the friction of the impossible. And boredom gives life to creativity. These movements power the movement beyond the inertia of a singularity.