Whether by hook or by crook nature has a way of getting what it wants. It’s the inevitable. The great gathering of dark clouds on the horizon. The unstoppable erosion of the continents by the sea. Or the reclamation of cities built in desserts where they shouldn’t be to begin with. One grain of sand at time…. nature gets what it wants whether by hook or by crook.
It’s on these unseen currents of momentum that we often find ourselves riding or more appropriately being pushed. Often times ending up in a place that seems so foreign and unfamiliar at rides end that we can’t quite trace the beginning of the journey, or recognize our reflections when seen. This can be either terrify or humbling depending upon the starting point and the journey itself.
Will the person you see be beaten and battered from a life time of empty promises and broken dreams. Will the eyes tell the story of a thousand unfulfilled dreams and unrequited loves. Will you be able to sense the desperation and smell the anxiety in the air like an onion that’s been peeled and left lying in the kitchen on a warm day in May? Whether by hook or by crook nature gets his way.
Or perhaps it’s joy and fulfillment that stare back at you at your journeys end. A sense of accomplishment at a life’s long work. Your eyes tell the tale of knowledge. Not institutional knowledge but instead the kind of knowing ones place in the universe that can’t be valued monetarily. A comfort in knowing ones self even when the reflection seems like an aged and foreign relative of some sort. Along the way nay sayers and interlopers may have tried to dissuade. But whether by hook or by crook nature gets her way….
Or even more unsettling what if the reflection you see at the paths end isn’t unrecognizably wise or ignorant and damaged? What if the person staring back is the same person you saw at the journeys beginning? Through pure self righteous indignation you’ve remained stagnant while the world moved around you. Everyone and everything else seeming to grow and prosper and inevitably die all the while you watched at a distance only sticking your toe in to see how cold the water really was before scurrying back to the comfortable confines of the familiar. Would the journey have been for not as the outside passed you by? Or is the final destination not something to be evaluated and scrutinized but simply the penultimate moment in every living creatures journey? I really don’t know I’m saddened to say. But whether by hook or by crook nature gets its way……
This post was written by a friend of mine… Sean Nichols.. Please leave a comment . I’m encouraging him to write and your comments should help..