Today’s tale is one of passion and anger. A fire that burns in the heart of every man, woman and child. The spark that lives within each and every one of us, simultaneously a constructive and destructive force, two sides of the same coin. The end result, dependent on our frame of mind, our perception of what is, and our intention of what is to be, along with numerous other uncontrollable circumstances. We can set the path, but we cannot control the winds.
For many years, I felt I was no more than a destructive force on the world around me. It took even longer for me to understand the fact that I was also creating things in this process. We reap what we sow. For everything destroyed, something else is created or left behind, although we may not like what we see. Love transformed into hate, peace into war, innocence into decadence, our whole world turned to ash.
Then I learned about the laws of karma, and at first thought that the misery I had found was payback for all I had done. It took time to realize that karma doesn’t work in this way. It now seems more of a scientific fact like the third law of motion, in which every action has an equal and opposite reaction. What we put into this world is what comes back. But even that isn’t quite accurate, as there is nothing like fairness in this world. More often than not, the best of us suffer the most, and the worst of us make a profit from it. So there are numerous factors I still have yet to understand.
An eye opening fact I’ve seen most recently, is that even our best of intentions and the desire to create something good, has a destructive counterpart. Again, nothing is created from nothing. For every creative act, something is destroyed. The ground up graphite and clay in the pencil rubbed upon paper that was once a tree, now ground to a pulp. The multitude of destructive forces required to generate the tiny signals of electricity, just to write these very words. Everything I gain, is taken from another, whether intentional or not. The relationship, the job, the house I live in, all means someone else is doing without those very things. So it would seem that the universal laws have little or nothing to do with fairness.
Coming back to the constructive/destructive force of fire. I can now see that no matter the intention or action taken, creation and destruction coexist. No matter how angry I may get, and how much I wish to destroy, something will be created in that process. No matter how much love and compassion I may put into anything, something will be destroyed. This might lead one to a point of inaction for fear of what may result, but a fire will seek out its fuel. Making no decision, a decision is made for you. If you do not provide an avenue for the flame, it will consume you from within.
Failure to follow your passion and provide it an outlet seems to generate an anger that consumes you, and in turn generates destructive forces on the world around you. Learning to work with these forces without being consumed by them seems part and parcel to a good life. I cannot control the end results in this life, as the forces at work are far greater and more numerous than I. But I can affect or influence what is in direct contact with me, and put myself in a better position to achieve what I desire.
Evolving Psychosis 