In The Scheme Of Things

Some philosophical writing that I tried my hand at. Please comment!

It is said that we need to appreciate the smaller things in life and focus on connections closer to our hearts and desires: family, friends, leisure, and the latter. Swinging nonchalantly underneath the maple tree, nestled between the folds of white hammock netting, I tried to follow this proverb. I swayed to and fro, back and forth, rhythmically conducting the Earth’s heartbeat. The world blurred around me, meshing into frothy smudges of incomprehensible color.  Sound faded, receding into the recesses of its origin, returning home to sleep for eternity. My world was severed now. No thought fluttered and no influence penetrated; I was alone with my book. Words, a logophile’s only friend, were abandoned to the abstract imagination of the mind.

I struggled to perceive. Words. That’s all they were; neither understanding nor comprehension, just ink splattered upon the worn page. I was attempting to read City of Heavenly Fire, my favorite book, with complete absorption, but the gentle breeze tipped my head upward with delicate fingers, whispering swooning speech to my ears. I reluctantly allowed and followed its lead skyward, only to be halted by the bark of the maple tree. It spoke, bellowing tales of adventure and courage. Bravery, valor, and audacity ran like rivers between the mountains of splintered wood. An ant traversed the rugged paths, winding and weaving amongst the boulders of wooden knots and I couldn’t help but admire his valiant effort to scale his world. I began to return to my reading, inspired to solve the incoherent puzzle once more. The wind, though, brushed my shoulder, pointing above, urging me to continue my ascent.

My gaze proceeded to rise, only to collide with a wall of emerald green leaves traced in golden sunbeams. They shuddered, shifting and fluctuating in the tree, painting my face with splashes of sunlight. The leaves caressed me with lyrics of dreams, ensuring me that one day they would become livid with passion and explode with vivid hues of fire and fool’s gold. The wind gusted, crackling leaves sporadically. Suddenly, one broke. Then another fell, then three more, fluttering as fallen angels. Together the leaves dove, cascading in random whirls to the ground. “Evidence,” the wind whispered, “of the consequential mistakes of dreaming too big and thinking too loud.”

My conscience snapped back to me, ignorant of the leaves’ message, resistant to the wind’s tug, endeavoring once more to read the ebony words. The gentle breeze howled now, wresting my sight skyward past scores of mountainous bark and clusters of dreaming leaves. This was what the wind truly wanted my heart to see: the sky. A perfect sapphire rivaled to the world’s 8^th wonder, the ocean, grasped my gaze and wrung it out to dry. My breath shorted, my lungs aching, devoid of air, at the inspiring and breathtaking view before me. Solid blue and puffed with cotton clouds, it cried tears of carelessness, freedom, and most of all, exuberance. At first, I questioned the breeze’s intention to the introduction of this grandeur of airy sea. It purely contradicted what I had thought to be the wind’s philosophy. Where the breeze spoke of detail, of intrapersonal gain, and of selfish righteousness, the sky spoke of limitlessness, of exploitation of talent, of taking risk, of damnation of consequences, and of disenthralling freedom. Frazzled, the wind retaliated, blubbering speeches of quietude and solitude, of an empty abyss looming amongst, waiting to swallow your first slip-up. “Mundane,” it seethed. “Another face in the crowd,” it whispered; bewitchingly, I felt its breath tickle my spine. “Good,” it cooed. Slowly, it drew me down, further and further, until I began to suffocate.

In the dusk it was frigid. Everything was swirling pitch and, carried on its wings, a vague image of dreams. Just as I clambered to grasp the conception, to hold on to the only light in this forsaken place, it froze. Then, as like glass, it shattered. Splintered pieces wavered around me, dully glimmering. I was broken, swallowed in the presumed safety of my self-sufficient world. “Wait,” I thought. “What of those mountains, the ones that bellowed bravery, valor, and audacity? If the ant could scale mountains, then so could I.” The shards twitched, sluggishly drifting together. “What of the leaves, the ones whose dreams filled the world with joyful noise? Devoid of dreams, the world would be hushed silent. It is our place to dream big and speak loud, gather others within our swirling vortex, and raise each other to pedestals in the clouds.” The pieces began to congregate. “Someone has to dream big,” I thought. “Might as well be me.” The last fragment scampered to its splintered fitting.

The pieces fused, completing the image like a puzzle. It expanded, not in size, but in luminescence. This luminosity was not ordinary luster but a rather burning radiance. My senses tingled in overdrive. I glanced down, and wrapped like a shawl, the wind coiled around me. Spontaneously, the blaze bloomed to effulgence and instantaneously the wind was smote. I blinked. Suddenly, I was returned, awoken from my apparent slumber. My vision, blurry, began to clear; ominously, I watched as the wind, defeated of its purpose, dissipated to dust, and with it, the scorn look plastered to its features. Feeling anew, I glanced towards my book. What was once unperceivable was now crystal clear, crisp and ordered. I sighed the deepest breath I could muster; letting words drift off my tongue, “Appreciate the small things in life…” I scoffed. “Yeah right.”

I peered up at the sky and began to dream: as loud as I could, as hard as I could, and as big as I could.