Drain, Take One

One of the magazines I read to has a monthly feature called What I've Learned. I am always surprised that any one person has so much wisdom to dispense. Really, if a national magazine called me tomorrow and said, "Phil, now that you're famous, we'd like a page of your wisdom nuggets" I'd have to scramble.

Phrases like "Know when to hold'em," "Wisdom to know the difference," pop to mind. If Kant or Descartes were still on the pop charts, they might make it in. But on the whole, there's little in the way of pithy wisdom forthcoming. It might be a page of near-hit metaphors, since that's what I've been cultivating to understand the change in my world.

My bag of metaphors adds one or two each month it seems. My latest quest is to describe a something that seems to be a subset of the "chop wood, carry water" enlightenment story. (Caveat: no, I am not enlightened yet, goddamnit!) Here's what my metaphor factory is churning out right now.

Something in my life is falling into place. It's like a foundation brick, but it moves. I'd like to say that it's finely machined, like a piston in a chamber. Something so well tooled that, when it slides into place, you have to be patient while the air moves out of the way. Sometimes like a stopper in a drain. A dam? A conduit?

The comparisons that I've been using to understand what I've been up to have all sharpened up within a few weeks of recognizing them. This batch remains without form so far. It's been a couple of weeks and I'm in a muddle between solid and liquid, form and non-form, being and nothingness. (I just threw that in for drama!) My compass tells me that I'm in the right neck of the woods, if you were wondering....

My conceptual scaffolding isn't yet collapsing as a prelude to enlightment, or any such silly thing. Maybe I'm becoming a blade, or the wind or water. Compassion, Love, GiantNobleGoodness are still like cards in the deck, not the deck itself. I'm more like the vase or the flowers than the still life.

It's so quiet right now. Do you know what I mean? Yup, I don't either.