What sustains
Work is what sustains us – work that we have chosen – sustains us by bringing bread for the service we have provided, gives us purpose and, hopefully, a sense of satisfaction as the world turns on its axis, and whirls us into shadow of the Earth once again.
| Todo amor é sagrado e o fruto do trabalho também é sagrado, meu amor | every love is sacred and the fruit of your labor is sacred as well, my friend |
|---|
The fruit of your work you bring into your home, you offer to your partner and your children, to your friends. So choose well, that the fruit and its offering be sweet. As important as our daily labor becomes in our lives, however, it offers precious little cord for our fingers to grip, when what we think is immutable inevitably dissolves, and what we have built crumbles under heavy weather… to make way for something new. It happens – or if it doesn’t happen, you’re even in worse shape, having run as far from change as possible, into a far corner of your life; and while you may have decorated your cell beautifully, you cannot alter the fact that it is a cell after all.
Own as much as you are willing to lose.
And then, when you have limited your involvement with those objects you thought were foundation-stones – but were ephemeral as flowers – you will have found that beautiful and anguished emptiness, your life becomes a vessel to be filled, with whatever fruit you bring to it. There are practices and there are beliefs which are unsoured by time or wind, and when you first take a step toward any of them, you have broken pace with a battalion of laborers, with the cavalry of managers, who have identified themselves with the battle to survive, and with its aims.
You stand to lose a significant amount of wealth, and to gain an immeasurable amount of riches. That your life lose its drive, the charge slows, and the beauty of what is around you fill you with the moment.