When you’re inside a tunnel, the light at the end can appear as a blinding glare, concealing what you are approaching rather than revealing it. But you don’t need to know what is on the other side to know that you have to keep moving forward. You can’t stay in the tunnel.
What in your life feels like you are headed into the unknown?
Living in the present moment leads me to the contentment of the “unknown known.” It is when I disengage from my past/future mind and follow my own breathing sensations that the essence of others can be felt and seen. Otherwise, my mind, driven by the known-past or the fantasy of an unknown future, dooms the encounter because my intellect is incomplete and will destroy any possibility of a “new moment” of vulnerability with others who are there to teach me new things about themselves within the essence of a “new” me.
In January, I will have surgery on my right hand for carpal tunnel syndrome. It was already surgically treated three years ago, but now it’s back with a vengeance. This times the surgery will be far more invasive, requiring me to hospitalized for a few days. I will probably share the room in the hospital with at least one other person, perhaps more. Sharing a room with another human is something I’m not used to and am anxious about. Spending the night away from my dog and her sleeping without me is something we haven’t done since I got her three and a half years ago. Both of us get anxious when routines change, so how we handle it is an unknown. Finally, the outcome of the operation is a big unknown. Usually people make a complete recovery. However, the problem never fully resolved last time, and my symptoms are much worse this time. I don’t know how that impacts the odds.
The increasing debilities of age.
The tunnel to death is one that puzzles me. In some ways, I find it almost a comfort to realize that I am just like every other human being on this journey. However, when I know of someone else’s death, it makes me try to peer down that tunnel into the unknowing and wonder what kind of experience it will be for me. Perhaps it will not be a journey, but just a final step.