The Five Secrets-- or are there more?

Periodically, I think about what life is all about. I have been through many phases of believing I had it pinned down to thinking no matter how hard I try to figure it out, I cannot. It is a circle where I can go round and round, but usually come back to one thought-- so far.

The very fact that I exist at all is beyond logic or my reasoning's ability to figure out. Mystery. Life is mystery but it is also a gift. Where I am right now, today, is trying to live with awareness, observation, contribution, but letting be the part where I figure it out.

With regularity, I enjoy some blogs where the people go on and on about what existence means. Often, what it appears to mean to them is a lot of words. Some make a lot of money from writing those very words and putting them into books. The newest, bestest-ever secret of life books.

One opinion I have come to believe, after having read many of these books and enjoying the type of blogs that have a lot of words, is we do not learn about the spiritual dimension of life in any of them. We can read them; some are very inspiring, including the Bible; but life is meant to be experienced, lived and if we live it, without an agenda, for what it has to mean, but an openness to what it might mean, to what we see around us, the coincidences, the events, that's where we learn about and even better, become part of life's spiritual dimension. The beauty of living that way is automatically the physical and emotional aspects of life will also be fully lived.

Having gotten to the ripe old age of 65, I do not think that what is true for anyone at one point in their life may always be true. Hence books and wordy blogs might be good for some at some points in their life. That we can change our minds, see things a different way as we go through different experiences, that doesn't mean we were initially wrong. It means we have changed. Nor is what is good for us equally good for everyone else. It might be. We can share our experiences for what worked for us, but people are all different.

Also, I believe some go through all of life without any spiritual thoughts of their own. They can do this even in a church. Sit in that pew. Listen but not integrate whether it makes sense or whether it can be applied. Words can sound so inspiring that we cease to listen to whether they make sense. Acceptance is the key word. Faith another, but in what?! Does it matter that some people might do that? If reincarnation is true, it might. Most who live that way do not believe in reincarnation.

Dragonflies, which always fascinate me, who I always try to photograph and often cannot, are excellent examples of life stages. They live most of their lives in the water as a 'water bug' and then a metamorphosis happens and they come out of the water, shed that shell which has protected them, dry their wings, and fly off to end their life in the air.

Some would say an example like that has no meaning beyond biology. So what if the dragonfly sheds a shell? We are flesh and blood. We don't shed shells (at least not physical ones). They would say enjoy what you are living and quit worrying about any meaning to it. From what I have said above, you can tell, I wouldn't argue with someone who thought that way. I might believe that at some point they will change their thinking...

I thought the following little video, which I got in an email, had some good thoughts about life, whichever of the above viewpoints you might have. Naturally I would think that since I have thought many of the same things. The video is intended to get the viewer to buy a book. Sorry author, but I think the five key points mentioned would say you don't need any book. While I would not see them as all the secrets there are, nor that they are even necessarily secret, I do think they provide a good starting point for evaluating if we are living life as fully as possible.

It's interesting because as I would read one of them, I'd think, yeah that has meant thus and thus to my life; then would come the next and it had a reversed potential meaning for me. I don't see that as bad. I think it's part of the beauty and the mystery of life. At this point, in my life, I am not trying to put anything into boxes. One of the best things about life, I think, is we that we will not get it all in one lifetime nor should we expect to do so. We just can live our truth as best we know it.

Definitely click on this video. It takes less than five minutes to watch:

The Five Secrets

(Photos both from October. Sunset on the farm. Dragonfly at Finley Wildlife Refuge.)