Windlass

What we do not change is what we unknowingly choose in life. Intention dictates how we do anything—significant or small—and how we do everything. Before action births reality, the choice is the zygote, fertilizing our momentum to propel us into doing. It differs from our decisions, which result from analyzing risks, opportunities, and the realities we face through the periscope of the brain. But faithful choices live in the age-old language of the heart. We wear our choices like perfume. It’s not tangible. It does not weigh us down, only quietly nudges, and we can’t remove it with ease once it blossoms in the heart. Only time erodes it out of us. Is it a surprise that the verses of choice often clash with the prose of our rational minds?

The rulings, the pathogens of the mind, are like the roots of a banyan tree. Their extensive capillaries ooze into many unknown fissures of the brain. It is possible to uproot many of these bugs with considerable effort, but the residue remains long after, a significant period after we put away purification rituals. Adjusting our cognition to match reality is important because every moment shapes who we become. Instead, we concentrate on regulating narratives to conceal our struggles. The irritation of disappointment becomes our constant companion. The truth ultimately reveals itself to others. Just as bare winter branches expose what summer leaves once concealed, our true intentions eventually stand bare against the sky. It is only a matter of time—a matter of seasons.

Do our footprints in the dust of time reveal a soul who dared to reshape the universe’s pottery, a drifter who used life’s wilderness to sculpt their own spirit anew, or merely the hollow traces of one who strolled without purpose, without fire? Any attempt to avoid the perplexities in our quests becomes unbearably painful and nerve-racking. If eternity holds us all under the same stars and no celestial compass points us to heaven’s gate, what sacred meaning emerges from choosing a solemn path? We become disoriented nomads! To a respite, an acute urgency flares up in the heart for two unattainable tasks! Clutch onto indefinite forms of our future, which are beyond our reach and perception. And a desperation to change the intangible past; somehow. But what we engrave in a moment, into terms, not once but with each step we take, is our account.