Life Comes to Us

As an encounter

The Oxbow, Thomas Cole (1836)

For roughly three years now, my Instagram bio has read: “Watching life unfold.” I put it up at a time when I truly felt like I wasn't calling the shots of experience, merely witnessing the fascinating unveiling of the progress of my own life, and I've felt this way ever since. I don't remember what prompted it but it was likely a feeling of gratefulness for an experience I did not feel I earned through the power of my own will in any real sense, as this is the kind of thing that often reawakens the feeling.

I do believe strongly in free will (if I didn't, then you shouldn't heed a word I've ever said), and I believe I make choices that impact my life. But I suppose that seems insignificant in the face of the forces at work that are vastly greater than myself. For starters, it's not by my power that anything exists at all in the first place.