There is only one path.

Wherever you are is perfect and necessary for your destiny. Opening to this now, this here unlocks the treasures you need to level-up.

Like most adults, I think about life in terms of the Super Nintendo classic—Zelda, A Link to the Past.

We dash about from one area of the spacetime map to another, picking up a potpourri of skills, tools, and potions to successfully find and enter the next castle, destroy its menacing boss, and reemerge into daylight against a backdrop of a beautiful melody and equipped with the capability to wash and repeat at a higher, never-before-accessible level of performance.

New castle, new boss, new treasure, here we come.

Realizing that to progress on your only path you must wring out the current situation of its lessons and life trinkets will open your eyes/heart/mind to the endless possibilities present.

You probably won’t know what <insert magic token here> is for when you find it, but you’ll knowknow that you need it and you can’t go further without it.
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Rather than question “Where is the correct path?,” ask “What do I need? Why am I here?”

Einstein was right.

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

If you push aside your ideas about who you are, how things should be, and why life is the way it is as if they were overgrown shrubs, there is space to step through and behold a whole lot of… well… nothing. Or everything. Depending on your current emotional/mental/physical frame of reference.

The noise of social conditioning not only drowns out our own true thoughts, but also the obvious unreality of “reality.”
The value in standing out there, naked and afraid, is the view it affords you of the jungle you left behind.
Knowing that it is:

1. separate from you
2. finite
3. only a push away from freedom

is a protective cloak against the needless drama of everyday events.

Knowing that it is:

1. separate from you
2. finite
3. only a push away from freedom

leaves you asking, “what the hell am I doing in there then?”

I’m still learning how to hold that much truth in my hands—let alone my heart. I guess that’s why artists, visionaries, and sages only point to it. It’s a slippery son of a gun.

After a decade of swimming in the literary, scientific, and religious works of pointers before me, here is what I came up with:
The point (pun intended ;) ) of alternately trudging and frolicking through the imaginary jungle is the same as it was when you played Explorers as a kid. It’s an opportunity to safely experiment with danger and different points of view, to create brand new worlds and fantastic ideas, and to add a spectrum of feelings to an otherwise typical afternoon.
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Then, before you know it, it’s time for dinner.

Answering this question has been the focus of wwayy too many of my waking hours. And probably all of the ones I’ve slept.
As a curious kitten, I’ve studied it wearing many different cat hats.

I have several pale gray, ethereal ones with ‘Philosophical’ delicately scrolled across the brims. These are niceties and practically useless.

There is a growing pile of bad azz ones with lights and transformer-style tricks emblazoned with ever-evolving fonts spelling out ‘Scientific.’ The quantum physics and cellular biology ones are my current fav’s — though I’m still learning how to use ‘em.
Stacks and stacks of woven golden ones cover my shelves without words. These are the spirituality caps. They are nearly indistinguishable in function, but they all fit a little differently. When sitting under their protective shade, there are no answers, only quiet. It’s kind of nice.

Hung lovingly and worn on doorknobs throughout the house in bunny-numbers are stretchy, silver-infused hats, some with feathers, others with sharp edges, all strikingly marked ‘Artistic.’ These seem to be the most useful, although environmentally and mood-dependent.

But if you put one of each kind on at the same time (I often do stuff like that), something magical happens. The most beautifully complex symphony disguised as a graceful, simple melody beats down on your soul like afternoon sunshine.
And for one moment, you get it.

The ‘big picture’ swells until it whites out reality around you.
You see.
Really see.
That the ups and downs aren’t happening TO you, they are happening FOR you.

You are safe.
Loved.
And there is nothing to fix.
And nowhere to go.
Then, with the untimely, abruptness only a sibling can yield, there is a pound on the door and paradise falls away into the rumblings of the metro ride home.

No matter.
You know now.
There is more.
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And this life?
Well,
It’s all gravy, baby.