Vertices
Dotted at (0,0), we begin floating through life. As collective points on a graph, our trajectory is somewhat known and unknown. Why we had it made one way and not the other, and for the 100th time today, “where am I going?” We know of a beginning and an end, but much more uncertainty lies in between the two. From far away, it is hard to see all of the individual pixels that make up our points— our bodies, minds and souls.
Why do some things align perfectly while other things do not? What makes our meetings coincidence or fate? I believe it to be both.
Our meetings with people vary in their effect on our lives. Some people are like the dog ears in the story we’re currently writing, stopping us in our tracks and making us feel as vulnerable as a deer struck by bright headlights. To be put down, or to not? We’ve heard the timeless tale of infatuation so strong, even our more unconscious physiological functions begin to take hold of our psychological constructs. Suddenly our heart rate has shot up, our tongue and throat begin to swell, areas once dry suddenly become secreted and our mind is somehow aware of it all. Did it feel as real for you as it did for me, and in what other metaphor did it happen to you?
We all know what happens to the deer (it is… impacted), but how do you know what light at the end of a tunnel someone or something is? Will we being rescued from wading out too far, pulled back to the security of dry land, or will we suddenly thrash, suffer and sink for only a few moments that are meant to feel like forever? To try and understand our current trajectory should be considered mixed martial arts of the mind, a philosophical ranking of belt achievements—time, effort and discipline take hold.
We can test out the ‘seeing is believing’ theory, receiving reality for what it looked like before and after a change—But even the truth is rooted in rules, and different versions of them depending on the area of study. A unit of microscopic measurement is the sounding gunshot to enacting new medical trials, but understanding the formation and application of a metaphor must span thousands of examples. What is constant between the two is change, and how studying their evolution will only lead to more discovery. This change creates more vertices on the graph we’re on. The future is guaranteed to have more vertices to uncover, but circling for a time to try and understand the next step is part of maintaining our methodology to live on. May doodling live long and prosper.
Versions of ourselves will die, our skin will molt off for a few heinous hours or we will slowly pick ourselves to be bloody, then scabbed and eventually scarred. Bolded, italicized or underlined, we’re all just jagged lines meant to intersect, hold shape and eventually leave behind a flesh etch-e-sketch’d.
