My little notebook just ran out of pages.
I have this booklet, one that I purchased in my sophomore
year in college, that I have kept nearby to jot in various thoughts and ideas
that I get from practically everything and everyone. The range of sources is
almost comically varied: dialogues from Star Wars, lines from a really unworthy
romance novel, a thought from Voltaire, text messages from friends, a line from
City of Angels, passages from Walt Whitman, a line from a song… and one time
or another in the past six years, these lines have helped me through really
tough decisions.
It’s tiny, just three couple inches tall, and two wide. It
has around 20 pages, and it has taken me 6 years to fill it. Since my writing
on the last page of the book coincides with the end of so many things (and the
beginning of more) happening in my life, I’ve made a mental dog-ear, and marked
it as another circle. Incidentally, circles have always been my main
representation of life. I guess it is mainly due to a novel that I read many
years ago, which described the life of the protagonist as having come full
circle. Starting then, I kept setting goals by way of circles. For instance,
having once attended a seminar, I should, one day be giving one. Having
received a lot of guidance from people I respect, I am now looking forward to
paying it forward and earning the same respect. I guess it is another way of
looking at karma. A few years later, I came across the poem I Live My
Life, and I realized that living full circles isn’t enough; the ring should
not only fulfill my need to accomplish, it must also help me grow. And so my
life, should, at the end, be a set of concentric circles.
I Live My Life
I live my life in widening rings
Which spread over earth and
sky.
I may not ever complete the
last one
But that is what I will try.
I circle around God’s
primordial tower
And I circle a thousand years
long.
And I still don’t know if I’m a
falcon,
A storm, or an unfinished song.
- Rainier Maria Rilke
