Checkpoint.
Once in every while, we might have a look back at ourselves. We’ll reflect, for a moment, maybe longer, and maybe have a laugh at ourselves over things we did that would seem stupid now. It’s a good thing to understand how you’re progressing and so if you don’t do that or find that you aren’t really reflecting well then I suppose you must have quite a way to go.
At this point, I feel like I’ve hit a checkpoint of some sort. I mean that it’s like I’m in a whole new area now, a different phase in life and mind I guess you would describe it as. It’s like you’ve climbed a pretty high up hill and now that you’re at the top you can relax, the hard part of the climb is over now and the way back down on this other side is a gentle rolling slope. That’s to say, life is a lot more pleasurable now.
That hill that you fight to climb is what they call independence, or rather, the attainment of it at the top. You are basically fighting for your own mind in your climb, that’s the only way to actually obtain independence since that is what it is. You can go and fly up there if you want, but being at the top isn’t actually what matters of course - there’s no satisfaction or much feeling without the actual journey as that is what brings it in the end, as well as the ever important experience and learning.
You could think of the climbing like it is rock/wall climbing. There are a whole lot of paths, or at least they look like they could be, and so you have to work out your own path as you go up. Not all paths are equal of course, some are harder while others are easier, and there’s bound to be dead ends. If you consider your life and the things you do in this way, the harder paths are the same as your poor decisions; by being foolish you make things harder for yourself. The easier paths are of course the same sort of thing; good choices reflect as a better life and mind and consequently an easier time. Dead ends however, aren’t such a straight forward matter. It might not actually be a dead end for one – maybe there is a path but because you’re being so foolish (e.g. dwelling on things, being so cynical, etc) you will not see it and will hang there, or maybe even drop down (when you keep being foolish for a period of time). If you were smart and didn’t get caught up in these things, you could easily move back to the last step you were at and try a different path, a choice reminiscent of accepting and understanding your foolishness or fault in something. There’s a variety of possible choices here, and they seem pretty obvious and logical, but then why do we have so many people stuck at dead ends?
As you go along you’ll of course learn more and become smarter through trials and experience. Your climb ends up being easier through this – you’ll be able to gauge which paths will be easier, the equivalent of understanding the choices you can make, and you’ll choose the better path more often, the same as making better choices in reality - but remember that it’s always possible to forfeit your progression if you are not paying attention.
