Things I find when I get lost

Dream a dream within a dream, for smudges of uncertainty serve no purpose here.

The lines of the ceiling are etched into my eyes. I see the swallowtail caught in its grainy image, stuck forever or free to stay. I can’t decide which. Perhaps there is no difference.

Dust drips from my hands. It is purple.

A stain in my way. A splotch in theirs.

Maybe we should fly.

I delve into my thoughts so much sometimes that I get lost in them. I can take one small thought and turn it over and over until I don’t remember what it looked like when I first picked it up. I follow it down one worn path, then another, until I eventually end up in a new thought field (or cavern). Sometimes it is overwhelming. Sometimes it is peaceful. Sometimes exciting. Sometimes I don’t want to deal with any of it.

But occasionally, I find something worthwhile. There are no maps, but there are patterns. Things repeat. Old thoughts return wearing new clothes. Questions I thought I had outgrown wait patiently (or impatiently) in corners I haven’t looked at, or deliberately ignored, for years. I usually find a new way of understanding myself. I understand someone else a little better (or think I do). I stumble across ideas that change the ways I see some things I thought I already understood.  I realize that a feeling I couldn’t explain has been muffled for a long time, trying to tell me something all along.

Sometimes I wonder if thinking this much is useful. It’s frustrating. There are thoughts that clarify and thoughts that only create more thoughts. There are questions that lead somewhere and questions that simply carve a crevice inside of me and make themselves comfortable.

I wander on. I don’t think getting lost is always a bad thing. We tend to think of being lost as something that needs to be fixed. You are supposed to know where you are going. You are supposed to have a destination, a plan, an answer. There is something almost embarrassing about saying, “I don’t know.”

I do think there is value in not knowing.

We are taught to treat uncertainty like an error. A filthy smudge that needs to be wiped away. A wrong answer. Something unfinished. But perhaps uncertainty is just another part of the landscape. Maybe the blurry edges are what allow us to keep moving, keep floating by, dreaming, running, achieving.

The swallowtail doesn’t need to know whether it is trapped in the wood or choosing to remain there. It is there, and I wish to do the same.

I can think. I can question. I can get lost. I can find something and carry it with me. I can leave other things behind. I can figure my way out. 

The point isn’t to finally reach the end of my thoughts. Maybe the point is to see what I find along the way and make the most out of it.

On that note, I’m really attempting to come up with some interesting, concrete concepts instead of just writing vague stuff ninety percent of the time, but that’s yet another thing I’m trying to work out with my brain. Wish me luck and I hope you have a stupendous rest of your week!