Circles

We all run around circles. Why doesn't anyone run around in a square? Do we think that by being rigid we will get anywhere different? A square still just starts back from where it started, same as a circle. You might think it has a defined start point, or one of four, but who ever said a square had to start at a vertex? A square has just as many infinitely possible starting points as a circle does.

Circles or squares, they're all ultimately the same: unified shapes, ink marks that don't really go anywhere. How do we get somewhere? Should we be rays, starting at one point and going straight on forever? Maybe we should, but we aren't. No one is really a circle or square either. There is no definite word to describe what we are, other than irregular. We are irregular and ill-defined shapes. We know where we start, or at least where our parents tell us we start, but none of us really knows where we end. Do we end at all?

And yet, in spite of this, we keep circling back around, returning to a point we previously saw. We aren't perfect circles, but the pen sure crosses back on itself a lot. If you drew your life, what would it look like? If you drew your emotions, your level of success, your satisfaction or joy, your wealth? How many times have you crossed back on yourself? Are you always getting stronger and better or do you relapse from time to time? I know you aren't always happy, but you aren't always sad either. What kind of shape are you?

Each one of us is our own unique shape, but yet we are all somehow the same. I don't think there is anyone who has never crossed back, but I also don't think there is anyone who has followed a perfect and predictable path. Learn from the shapes around you, take the parts of their journey that are good and noble and true and avoid the ones that aren't. Follow their examples or run from them, the choice is yours. There will be curves and bends, perhaps some rigid spots and others that are loopy, but there's no need to worry, you aren't really a circle. No one is.