Digging.

What is necessary in order to find purpose? Only this: the acknowledgement that nothing good can come from one's own self, as it stands. This goes against what we are typically taught, that if we dig deep enough inside, our picks and shovels will strike something hard and, through careful extraction, the artifact will be revealed. Not so; this presupposes that there is anything to be found there in the first place. But when the dig is abandoned, that is a step in the right direction.

Each person must arrive separately at the point of total surrender. It is not a journey that can be taken together. Most often, what can be viewed as personal security is but a different form of solitary confinement. While these walls are, in essence, a part of our existence since birth, the choice is ours as to what to do with them. Each of us is faced with this same choice. To find oneself is to dismantle the walls between us and the rest of the world, allowing light to flood in to every single part of our small cell. This is not a once-and-done task; no, this is what is required for us every time we wish to have a real, human interaction or speak honestly and truly.

There are a thousand things that will present themselves to you as immediate and necessary the moment you set out to accomplish anything worthwhile such as this. Your mind begins its endless parade of distractions: what is in the news, friends who need to be called, idle chores that really should be attended to... all very captivating. Before you know it, the hour is late and the day is coming to a close, unfulfilled.

So it goes with a life. Deep down, that is one's worst fear, that at the close of the final day we will be found still voiceless, with life grasped for but still not yet found.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it.

-Seamus Heaney