I've had moments like what you've described. I think sometimes it has to do with looking at the big picture, the forest, and forgetting that it's okay to just look at the trees. It does seem to happen a lot when you're standing on a beach, because of the vastness. It's too easy to get lost in it, too feel useless compared to it.
That's when it's time to maybe just look for a pretty shell, even a broken one, because just the one little bit of it that you find is part still really pretty, and still part of a bigger thing. Now it's important just as it is, the rest of what it was part of no longer matters. It's just fine as it is. Or, when you're back home and there's no beach, just letting yourself fall back into the little meaningless-seeming details of our lives, those details are what make our lives important.
You don't have to do one big thing to make an impact. You can do a lot of little things, those small private things that you mentioned, that together all add up to what I think you're saying you've missed out on or feel you haven't done enough of. Maybe you just haven't let yourself recognize them. Or maybe don't think you've done enough of them to let any one of them be enough. Or something. Not sure how to describe what I mean without doing grains of sand, or each bee in the hive, or every blade of grass in the lawn, etc. I don't think that big things are really what make up a life, I think it's the little things. The big things are just distractions, sometimes good ones, sometimes bad one, but they aren't the important moments at the end. I don't think this is a brilliant new realization of mine, I just think sometimes we need to be reminded of it.
Don't know if any of this makes any sense. I'm just rambling alongside is all. What you said made me sad for you, so I just wanted to walk with you for a little while.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-08-05 04:13 pm (UTC)That's when it's time to maybe just look for a pretty shell, even a broken one, because just the one little bit of it that you find is part still really pretty, and still part of a bigger thing. Now it's important just as it is, the rest of what it was part of no longer matters. It's just fine as it is. Or, when you're back home and there's no beach, just letting yourself fall back into the little meaningless-seeming details of our lives, those details are what make our lives important.
You don't have to do one big thing to make an impact. You can do a lot of little things, those small private things that you mentioned, that together all add up to what I think you're saying you've missed out on or feel you haven't done enough of. Maybe you just haven't let yourself recognize them. Or maybe don't think you've done enough of them to let any one of them be enough. Or something. Not sure how to describe what I mean without doing grains of sand, or each bee in the hive, or every blade of grass in the lawn, etc. I don't think that big things are really what make up a life, I think it's the little things. The big things are just distractions, sometimes good ones, sometimes bad one, but they aren't the important moments at the end. I don't think this is a brilliant new realization of mine, I just think sometimes we need to be reminded of it.
Don't know if any of this makes any sense. I'm just rambling alongside is all. What you said made me sad for you, so I just wanted to walk with you for a little while.