History

Sometimes I pause, and I look back at my life, at where I began and where I am. It might be a stack of old papers that trigger the nostalgia. It might be a stack of old photos.

My life is a long trail of breadcrumbs leading from the far past to an unknowable future. The breadcrumbs, in this case, are writings and drawings and photos and homemade electronic gadgets I built long ago and computer programs I wrote long ago. 

I used to write short stories of the science fiction variety, and poems, now and then. I used to create  drawings; pencil sketches mostly, but oil paintings too. I used to build electronic gadgets and write computer programs. I've peered down the barrels of microscopes (I've owned three) to examine a part of our world right under our noses that we never see. As a child, I've mixed chemicals that today's society would consider dangerous, and more than once I've nearly electrocuted myself after I grew big enough for my hand to reach an electrical outlet.

I've had pain, physical and psychological, but I don't like to talk about pain because it's an important and private part of a person. It's part of who we are and it shapes us. But sometimes talking about pain is the only way to share who we really are when we're with someone who cares.

But while the breadcrumbs are interesting to look back at, their totality points nowhere. Not to greatness, not to success, not to anything our society considers worthy. And that is okay. We each have a path, and we each learn something while we're on our path. Our path will end when it is supposed to end, and hopefully we're wiser because we traveled the path. The important thing is to know that you're okay; we're all okay, even if it seems like we're not. Maybe you're a mogul and maybe you're a peasant, but that isn't important. Our financial status, our social status, the things our culture considers important: those things are just stage props on our spirit's journey. It can be helpful to keep that in mind.