Oh no, not another one of THOSE blogs...

I'm following footprints through the woods
Made by someone of my size,
With just my gate, my weight, my mood,
Who travels in a circling path.
I follow a fool who walks in circles.
I wonder if he knows his way,
If he's aware he's got a tail,
Or if I follow one who's lost
And thinks that he's alone.

I searched to find
Only to find
That when I search
I find the things
I've changed and made
Along the way.

My friend was right.
The narrow and untraveled path is better.

purpose

That's arguably the most important question with regards to human existence. You can't deduce it through method or logic because its premisies are beyond the system, and you can't create it with imaginiation, because if its real then its bigger than you. But we all want to know what it is. That leaves two other methods of learning of which I know...discovery or revelation.

Purpose isn't really a thing, so to speak. Its not like a rock that you can stub your toe on... or maybe it is. When you hit a rock you are filled with a sudden, and very noticeable, knowledge. Pain fills your consciousness and your brain does its work of survival very well, so it latches onto this new awareness to preserve you as best it can. But then, there are other ways of discovering. When you have been working in a carpentry shop for hours on a Saturday afternoon you generate about a metric ton of sawdust-- if you like using the lathe as much as I do. When you make the first shave into the leg of pine, your while face is filled with the smell and the taste of connifer sap. Its pungent and sweet and touched with bitter, but it washes over you and is gone. You have absorbed the smell and grown accustomed to it. So you work for several more hours making a table or a baseball bat or a walking stick or a wedding cross. When you step out of the shop, you are hit with a new smell for the first time in hours. Maybe its the garbage pile next to the woodshop, or a field of wildflowers, or fresh asphalt being laid by city workers. Either way, your smell is reset, and the next time you lean your head down or brush your face with your sleeve, you realize that your shirt is SOAKED with the pungent scent of sawdust. But it happened gradually, so you didn't even notice it.

I think that's how I've discovered purpose, for the most part. All of a sudden, even though its already been there for years... just soaking into my tastebuds and clothes so slowly I didn't even notice, but so deeply I'll never be able to get it out. All it took was a wash of some OTHER scent to reset me and let me taste the old anew.

So, sometimes revelation is like a new smell that puts years of previous revelation into perspective.

But, as my mom says, insight doesn't lead to change. My dad sent me a magnet that says something like, "Life isn't about discovering yourself, its about creating yourself." Which is very nearly true. My only alteration would be that Christ is recreating me day by day.