Waking up on this frigid December Sunday, my morale was dropping drastically. I couldn’t pin point exactly what it was that was making my feelings revolve around sorrow, self-pity, and underlying pain. Was it the weather outside, the fact that finals are right around the corner, not being with my family this close to the holidays, or was it just me. I am guilty of letting my emotions get the best of me; I get caught up in life and personally attached to most situations and individuals that better myself.
To let you in on a little background, my future (as it does for many others) unconsciously drains me everyday. I volunteer under a Child Life Specialist (the career I hope to one day pursue) at A.I. DuPont/Nemours Children’s Hospital once a week for four hours, usually on Sundays. Due to Thanksgiving break being so extensive this year, I made up for Sunday hours lost this past Wednesday night. Wednesday night was the first time I became aware of how draining this future I long for will one day become. It was on that night that I was informed one of the patients I cared for was no longer suffering, fighting, and living here on Earth any longer. I put it that way instead of blatantly saying he passed away because that’s the reality of it; he was suffering. That news was life shattering to me. An 11-month-old baby, with minimal love and support, didn’t even have a family for all I know, lost his life. It was then in that moment that I finally understood why people respond to my intended future with statements such as, “that will be a tough one.”
With these emotions and vibes circulating my mind and body, I traveled back to White Clay Creek one last time before the semester came to an end. I thought I would do something so different from what my usual routine is; I would complete our required readings for the week while within nature. I thought of this as a meditation technique that would help stimulate different emotions and thoughts due to my individual alone time with the land. I sat on my usual rock, looked as far down the creek as my eyes would allow, sat up straight, breathed in then released the air built up inside my lungs into my surroundings. Metaphorically this was my way of putting my mind at ease, I emptied my internal morale into nature only for it to travel down the creek and finally escape my body. Once my body and mind were both as calm and still as the water, I dug into Tao Te Ching.
I personally love when I read something that I have felt and thought before, but could never condense my thoughts into words. Verse 2 made me feel this way for the first time since early on in Ancient Futures.
“Everyone recognizes beauty
only because of ugliness
Everyone recognizes virtue
only because of sin
Life and death are born together
Difficult and easy
Long and short
High and low-
All these exist together
Sound and silence blend as one
Before and after arrive as one.”
How interesting is it that within our world we only recognize some concepts because we compare. It is amazing how comparisons can be so gentle and simple while also being harsh and pessimistic. On one hand, some of these comparisons listed are blatant negative opposing answers. Everyone lives life guilty of jumping to extremes. Exaggerations are too common in today’s society; nothing is ever in between the two extremes. But because of my prior emotions I had when arriving at WCC, I read this piece and let the gentle, simple appreciation of comparisons flow through me. The fact that life and death are born together is in a way, comforting. No, it is not appealing to know that everyone has an expiration date, but it is welcoming in a sense that there is a plan for everyone. I really needed to get this death of Nassir off of my chest. I needed to let myself understand that this was the better life for him, a happy ending to say the least. So if death comes with life than I am okay with that because it just means that there is better to come that unfortunately is not offered here on Earth.