Remembering to ride the wave, or size really does matter

This is what they mean when they talk about the Eureka moment (by they I mean the legion of invisible interpreters of the human experience). It’s that moment when the mess that has been piling up for months, years really, suddenly and comprehensively is made clear. Order has come. Understanding. Eureka. Not that my actual path through life is any clearer but the motivations, the salient features that are driving the problem (the current problem, anyway), have suddenly made themselves known in such a concrete way that I can finally feel resolute. I can now craft a plan. All the really important data for the current problem is in, and they have shed a great deal of light on the much larger issues.

What are the important points?

1. Size matters. What’s important to me is the size of the ocean I’m swimming in. I need the horizons to be wide and the limits hard to see.

2. Choice matters (something I’ve known for a long time, actually). What’s important is who chooses what direction I’m swimming in. The optimal situation is that I choose.

3. I matter. What’s important is that I’m really good at choosing which direction I swim in, in response to a changing environment, and it’s important that I recognize and accept this, and that other people recognize and acknowledge this, and that I believe them.

4. Others matter. What’s important is that there are other good honu out there I can trust to help me figure out where I want to go, and there are honu who I’d like to have swim along with me. We can work out our path together and it will be good and beautiful.

5. There are sharks out there. Sometimes other honu are actually sharks. They don’t mean to be, and they are not sharks to everyone, but they are to me and the best thing for me is to run away. This is not the same as defeat, or not trying. This is accepting reality and using the materials at hand in the most appropriate and suitable ways.

6. There is no one, all encompassing solution to my pain. There is no one simple thing to do that will make me happy. Sadness and pain haunt all my paths. They always have and they always will. What’s important is to remember to ride the wave.

7. Actually, the important thing to remember is that pain is not a problem. It’s a part of me. I understand that this type of pain is not a part of everyone, so that a lot of honu view it as a problem to be solved. For me, it’s just me. Something to accept. Something to embrace. Ride the wave.

I was originally going to chronicle the details of this epiphany in plain English, but the specifics don’t really matter, this distillation is enough. Right now the metaphor is what I want to share. Later I might fill in the details.