The Path...

Do you know the difference between "walking the path" and "knowing the path"? (from Matrix fame.)

Well, hell, what is "the path" anyway? I tend to think of the path as the journey to the end. How bout you?
So I am walking the path to the end. What is at the end? Salvation? Wealth? Comfort? Love? Maybe it is all of these things.

So how do you know you are on the right path to get where you want to be? Maybe you don't. Maybe you can only follow the path in front of you. Wow, does this sound a little fatalistic (as in fate rules your life)? It does and that's what I thought at first. But the Matrix is all about controlling your own destiny, right? Ah, then it dawns on me that our paths in life have many junctions in which one chooses a variation on the path that we walk. You may not know which set of junctions or choices that a path may lead you to but you chose it. We walk on and on never stopping on these paths and before we know it sometimes subconsciously we choose a direction at a juncture and then wow we think it was fate that led us here because we weren't paying attention.

Regardless of whether you are on cruise control or paying attention to the choices you have I think you are constantly deciding where you are going. It is conceivable that you could be on the "right" path and not know it. Just as one unfamiliar with walking on real paths tends to focus on their own feet - placing one foot in front of the other and not taking notice of the bigger picture around them. On the path of life this behavior could lead to the disconnection of not knowing the path you walk on and beside, you can't always know where the path will take you. The many twists and turns keep you from seeing ahead.

Finally one day you reach the end of the path. Maybe suddenly - like coming out of the edge of a wood into an open field. Does anyone really know what is there? Could it simply be the end of the path? I personally think that once you reach the end of the path there are no more choices apparent to us and we must go on alone into a place without paths. It is enough for me to start relishing what I find along the way to the end. Knowing the path a little better instead of scurrying onward down unfamiliar tracks toward an inevitable and unknown end.
My new year's resolution.


-RC