Wild and Precious

"I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?"

This is an excerpt from a poem titled The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver

"Wild and precious life" seems like a far-fetched way to describe your life, doesn't it? You might have the "precious" part down - I doubt it, but you might - but wild? Then why are you so fucking bored?

Our lives may not seem wild, but they are unique - every human being is unique, every life lived is unique. That is an incredible thing to say in a world of almost 8 billions lives. You may not be jumping off of mountains, but uniqueness is what makes your life wild. Ain't nobody else on planet earth like you, baby. So shine the fucking light.

Eighty or ninety years feels like a slow moving thing until you get to the finish line. Then it is a heartbeat. That slow moving thing becomes predictable, repetition kills gratitude and blindfolds perception.

Doesn't mean that wild and precious isn't there. It is. We just become numb to it. Big mistake.

Most of us don't "plan to do" anything with our lives. We just live them. We settle into some kind of groove, usually not the one you might have imagined for yourself, and you ride that groove numbly to the point of no return. Big mistake.

"The unexamined life........"

It is all about your soul; it is not about everyday life. Enlightenment is unattainable without critical self-examination, which we usually "don't have time for."

None of this suggests weakness or stupidity on the part of tiny humans; it just is what it is. We live our lives as if we are immortal. "Oh, I have time." Meanwhile, everything is a struggle, and most of us are not strong enough to overcome the burden that everyday life becomes. To transcend it.

Plus, we don't have fucking time. Anyone can die at any moment.

None of us have answers to this situation, it has been an issue since time immemorial. Each of us has to figure out how to make "wild and precious" the first thought in our head every day and live accordingly.