Snowy Day Thoughts

I was on my way out the door to work when my wife, who had just driven to her workplace, called and told me not to chance it. "Everything's closed," she said, "no point in risking your life." "Fine," I said, and promptly called into work to inform them that I would not be making the trek in.

There is something about a snow day where one cannot help but feel like a child again. Perhaps it's that cozy feeling one gets while watching the snow pile up outside while one is in the warmth of their home. I can't but help feel sorry for our cousins to the south. They will never know that sense of gentle peace that accompanies a snowfall, that warmth that comes with the cold that warm places never suspect. So many holiday songs must be incomprehensible to them--those that dwell in the sweltering swamps of the south.

There is also something contemplative about the winter. It's not just a matter of being hold up with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company (though I suppose that helps). There is more to it than that. It's as if the entire world has turned inward. The trees shed their leaves and become almost dead to the world, all the while filled with the life force waiting patiently to spring forth once more in a few months time. The squirrel, having made his store during the warmer months, now retires to the hollow of a tree, made warm and hospitable by whatever was scrounged from the forest floor. The fox dreams in this den; the bear slumbers in his cave. And we humans turn to our own abodes, as if following an ancient ancestral instinct of our forebears gathered around a fire while the world around them fell off to sleep.

For all our efforts at "modernizing" ourselves, we can never, despite our best attempts, cut ourselves off from nature. Even as we race to some unseen future at breakneck speed, our feet are anchored to the earth beneath us, no less so than the maple or oak. Even if we ourselves have forgotten that gentle language of a newborn sun's light played over the skin, our bodies have not. Though we may deny our place in the world around us, our physical beings stand to give testimony to the contrary. We are not merely a part of the world around us, but in a very real sense, we are that world itself, both inside and out. Any talk of separation is only a delusion that we indulge ourselves in, to our own detriment. To speak of ourselves and the world in which we reside as being separate is like saying electrons are separate from molecules, or that oxygen is separate from the air or water. No one would think to make such a nonsensical statement, so then, why is it that we continually insist that we are somehow separate from the life that constantly burgeons forth all around us--the air we breath, the water we drink, the food we eat. Aren't we made up of the nutrients we absorb from our food and drink? And when we examine the world on the molecular level, isn't it that much more difficult to definitively say where one thing ends and another begins? When such things are taken into account, is it really that far of a stretch to say that the perception that everything is a separate entity is really illusory?

As science continues to peer closer and closer at both the infinitesimal and that astronomical, it is becoming increasingly apparent how closely related everything is, from the cosmos down to the molecular--everything is intertwined. When one considers the vast forces of cause and effect at play in the universe, talk of an individual self, separate from everything, suddenly seems almost laughable.

We live at a time when we are seeing the fruition of the effects caused by humanity's delusion that it is somehow separate from the world around us. We have thus far collectively failed to truly comprehend our place within the world, to devastating effect. That so many peoples of various religions have interpreted their respective holy texts as placing them separate in the creation, and that the world is more or less at their complete disposal, cannot help. That we are beings of a certain intelligence cannot be denied. But with that innate intelligence comes a massive responsibility, one which, so far, we have failed utterly.

Until we learn to live at one with the world, and not try to bend it to our own narrow ends, we will have failed at the great lessons of life. That there have been sages such as Lao Tzu and the Buddha throughout our history that have taught a different way of not only living, but of looking at the world around us in new and revolutionary ways, is a sign of hope. That we are victims of technology, prisoners and wardens both, cannot be denied. Our advancements have far outdistanced our understanding of ourselves and the world of which we are a part. Until we glimpse our true natures, and the true nature of reality itself, we will continue to be captives of this cast iron reality we have forged with our own hands.