Beyond ourselves, lies mystery.

And in this maze, others selves dwell.   Each of them, hands and arms extended, feeling their way towards answers.  As we meet others we develop connections that help each other move through the labyrinthine challenges of what we consider life.  Some connections we make to ease the strife of being stuck facing insurmountable unsureness.  Other connections, we make to provide the fortitude for persistence.  Still others we make because feel we need help, and are searching for direction towards the next path, though the person giving direction may genuinely have no clue of the appropriate aim.

Some we find when disillusioned, some we find when strong.  Some bring us astronomical pain, and others, inexpressible pleasure.  Some we pass by casually, not knowing the impact they may have had. In some we invest tremendous energies.  Some we ignore completely.

Undeterred, and when acknowledged, we connect with others knowing the effort is formidable.  Essentially, when you engage another person, you make an attempt to help unravel the mystery.

Occasionally, we encounter emotional test dummies.  As our hands are outstretched, we grasp the simulacrum of a person.  Some senses feel that true engagement is possible, yet attempts to engage rationally and emotionally reveal an empty shell.  Efforts are made to enfold this mockup in your attempts to pacify the troubling challenges that affront you.  But this vestigial facsimile of a seeker has no value to you.

Alas, those spouting moral platitudes are also found to contribute least to  your search.

Everyone is looking for something, even those that claim to have found it.  The person with the answers still revisits the answer, reassuring their devotion in perpetuity.  The person without the answer keeps seeking, and may truly never find the penultimate solution.

The impetus being, no matter how dismissive one may be of a fellow wanderer, allowing that person to touch you in any way shows you are in fact, human.  The most unfortunate element in ones journey is yearning to assist as a more integral part of another persons meanderings, only to find that selfishness was the true aim for them.

I still think about every person I let into me.  I still wonder how that person is.  My emotional survival instinct, and compulsion to maintain normalcy, stifles urges to reach out to these people. Our paths through the miasma have simply taken different directions.

I’m still wandering, searching, and hoping to find that which constitutes an exit.  I know that this exit may mean entrance to another labyrinth.

Yet I will still acknowledge.  I will still grasp the hand that extends from the fog.  I will still try to be decent to those I encounter along the way.

J