Belief

Belief. To even tackle the concept intimidates my fingertips, yet the pursuit of which births my every breath. The human existence craves to believe: they are loved; they are worthwhile; they are purposeful; they are supported; they have a reason to exist.

Isn’t that why we need to hear our partner (girlfriend, husband, lover…) say: I love you. If we hear it, we believe we will believe it. Isn’t that why we say show me: If we see it, we believe we will believe it. Have you ever looked at your watch to see the time, then had to look at it a second later? Why does that happen? Did we not believe it the first time? Was our mind so busy that the information, just sort of slipped? What does that say about us?

I read The Alchemist last year, by Paul Coehlo, and I highly recommend it. The writing is admirable, but more importantly the metaphorical comparisons are easy launching points into the specifics of your own psyche. I read it a few months before I was deciding to travel with my beloved on his journey to Egypt. I didn’t go. I could say that I didn’t go because I felt that it was the right thing. It was neither right nor wrong; however the reason I didn’t go was because I didn’t believe I could. I couldn’t afford it. I couldn’t quit my job. I wasn’t worthy to “have it all.” As I was traversing this cranial terrain – I was simultaneously reading the book. I detest a spoiled ending, so I won’t do that to you, but the ending was, for me, cosmic comedy. None of it mattered; the journey mattered; there was no golden answer; there is only my journey and it is all necessary.
For you.
For me.

How does the journey become an expression of belief?

Journey Home

The time that my journey takes
is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light,
and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds
leaving my track on many a star and planet.

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,
and that training is the most intricate
which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.
The traveler has to knock
at every alien door to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the outer worlds
to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

My eyes strayed far and wide
before I shut them and said `Here art thou!'
The question and the cry `Oh, where?'
melt into tears of a thousand
streams and deluge the world
with the flood of the assurance `I am!'

RABINDRANATH TAGORE