Seeking the Profound

"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting." -Buddha

Sometimes life feels big, like a clear spring sky. Other times it seems to shrink into the space of a dim bedroom. Often before a momentous change in life, there comes a stillness. The edges of fear rim my mind in the quiet. There is a nagging sense that I am missing something important that is occurring just at this moment. I feel the desire to read and speak of things which have meaning and importance. Yet tonight as I read to fill time before bed, my mind only tumbles past words and moves on.

As often happens when I return home after a trip, with my second Seattle visit ended, I now find myself wondering how home can remain so entirely unchanged. The quiet of my room and the spring night suddenly seem deafening in their stillness.

During the past year, I realize I have developed a nostalgia for times in college when every dorm-room conversation, every new class held existential truths. Sometimes in my post-college world, I remember college as a time when I daily wrestled with questions about morality, global problems, social values, and personal integrity. Late-night conversations seemed to gain gravity and hold such emotional sincerity. Sometimes I wonder how it was that in college life felt deeper. Was everything I was encountering truly profound or did it only seem that way? I am searching for a greater sense of continuity with my four years of higher education. I ask myself, how does one hold on to the lessons and experiences of college and yet develop and move beyond them to a fuller, wiser perspective? How does one keep the momentum of questioning and reasoning and dreaming that is started in college? How does one continue to interact with the world of the profound while living in the mundane?

How do I learn to find new questions and new truths for the next season of my life? How do I continue to seek the deeper truths behind the reality I encounter?