Look and be truthful

If you can truthfully summarize your entire being in a single analogy, then you have studied yourself well. But if you can truthfully use the same analogy a month later, you have spent too little time studying the outside world. Anyone who watches the world knows this: the watching changes the watcher. You cannot be true to your experiences and simultaneously remain stagnant. You must either adapt yourself, intentionally and with purpose, or be changed by the tide of events that surround you. Only those who live inside themselves, oblivious to the stimuli of life, can avoid this existence.

But this does not address which state is better. Humanity surely believes that it is awake to the world around it. Some look at the trees and say, "see! I am awake because I see trees!" Others watch production lines, others watch ticket tapes, still others watch the rest of the watchers. And if you were to pick an individual out of that mass and ask them "Are you awake?" they would reply "Yes." But if you asked them "Can you see the world?" they would say "No.

I do not need to see the whole world. The world is someone else's problem. I don't need to watch the trees; let someone else do that. I don't need to watch the production line; let someone else do that. I only need to watch my little piece. As long as every piece is watched by someone, everything will be alright."

And then they stare at it, that one speck that is theirs. It changes little, and they change little. When someone asks them to change, they yell "why should I have to change? Life is still the same!" But life has changed without them all, if only they would look around and notice.

A speck does not constitute the world we live in unless we choose to let it. And we may, for who can tell us differently? We can claim they anything, however small, contains the whole truth. But in doing so, we limit ourselves to that piece.

I do not wish live only on a speck. I wish to live on this world, as much of it as I can get too. I wish to live beyond this world, if that can be accomplished. But to do that, I must pay attention to this world, this whole world. To live in a world as big as ours, we must be prepared to change ourselves more broadly than the road we travel. And to change ourselves, we need only look, and be truthful to the reality we find.