The Line

“It is far more destructive to let go than it is to hold on, so you hold the line.

It doesn't matter what happens.” - Vidar

Today is the first snow of the season, and the sky is steel gray. I used to think that a steel sky meant a color, and now I believe that the steeliness of a snow-encumbered sky is the impenetrableness of it. And I find it so beautiful, I say that because there's something beautiful about the infinite, for the description of a steel sky is now and will always be, because that is what happens when it snows.

Much like the beauty of a sunrise, I used to love taking the train at a specific time in the morning. I would time it so that I would watch the sun rise over the water...It was one of my favorite activities.

So much like a steel sky, a sunrise, the ebb and flow of the ocean, all of these eternal things.. they are...because they will be.

I find it so interesting that when we broach the conversation of “tech bros”, or billionaires, the elite, the desire to live forever... There is this desire that they cling to. It's not just in the surgical where we see the need to look youthful, but it's in the mindset, “I want to be eternal, I want to live forever.” It's not just the value of youth; it is the desire to be infinite.

I've always meditated on the concept that if they grasp the capacity to live forever, they wouldn't want it anymore... because the things that are infinite are the things that they do not value.

The mindset that desires to be infinite, that wants to be a living God, a mortal, the things that are eternal, they do not value. So in essence, the thing that they want most, they would not want it in the end, the value of a sunrise, the beauty of rain, the mundane, cyclical nature of the cycles of seasons, the things that are actually eternal on this earth, they do not value it. And so they would not value the eternal, even if they got it.

And so I always find that little paradox so interesting.

I have a friend, Silji, and her husband is one of my good buddies, and he is a fisherman.

One of the things I asked him is... he has these scarred up hands. I love scarred hands... Means you've worked a day in your life, you know.

So Vidar has these hard hands, and so I asked him. “How do you do it? How do you not drop the line or stop?” And he said that “It is far more destructive to let go than it is to hold on, so you hold the line. It doesn't matter what happens.”

And that holding of the line, that thought of other people on the boat...

Nature is that which is infinite, but it is also each other. We people exist with other people, and so it is about holding the line. It is about thinking of...there are other people on the boat.

And so full circle with the concept of those who wish to live forever...

Who else are they going to live with? They want so badly to be young forever, live forever, never age, never die, never lose power, never lose money, all of these “never-evers”. But that means you live with people forever, too...They wouldn't want to be here alone. They truly wouldn't. They wouldn't want to be here alone. Because who they are is in reflection to what others say. So in essence, they need others to reflect back to them...who they are.

It is not about just wearing the “fancy clothes”...It is that it is reflect it back to them that they are wearing the fancy clothes.

It is not just a position of power or money. It is that you feel their power. You see their money. They exist because people reflect it back.

And so they wouldn't want to live without people that is the concept that I've been meditating on is that the thing they wish for the most is not even the thing they truly want because they don't value it. They don't actually value the mundane, the nuance and they don't value the people that they share the boat with...that reflect back to them who they are

It is said, “You need rainy days so you value the sun”, finding value in everything, and in everyone, it gives meaning. But you then have to recognize that, that that thing is meaningful, that the seasons are meaningful, that the mundane is meaningful, and that people, no matter who they are, are meaningful.

And that's what I've been meditating on as I've watched the first snow of the season.