Cherish the innocent, be mindful of despair, and forever maintain hope

I was trying to understand why cycles are a part of the Four Quartets with the feeling that cycles are only illusions, and there can only be a path forward continuing on into infinity. I was wrong. The notion of a cycle in life is helpful to understand concepts of Dejavu or recurring emotions. We assume too often that people are here on earth to achieve the "meaning of life" and understanding what we experience. However, group 4 demonstrated today that understanding is not what we are here to do, instead we should be concerned less with capturing the meaning of something and more focused on achieving an AWARENESS of life and death. In other words, one might suggest that people are being conscious of what feels similar and different until both the notions of "same" and "different" can be handled with one focused and conscious action/reaction. Interestingly, in Aikido the students are repeating the same motions over and over again until there is no more thought needed than a direct action towards the "right choice". This is similar to how we respond to daily life, where we are constantly being tested and re-tested with multitudes of interactions and experiences and are honing our ability to choose the proper action and fare forward. The actions then, contain a kind of habitual manner of handling situations without having to do much thinking. The forming of such habits though, must not be the real objective, but instead one should be trying to be aware of their habits and always re-inventing those repetitive actions to fit into new or even similar situations. For instance if you come across a large hole in the ground there are many ways in which you can get across: run and jump over it, build something over it, walk around it and so on and so forth. Each time you try something to solve the puzzle you can gain an awareness that you were not previously aware of. This simple metaphor for life is meant to merely open your eyes for future trials in which one can continue to create new means of working with and not against obstructions. If we are lucky though, we will meet older generations who will enlighten us about the many paths of adaptation and awareness without us having to personally fall down or step into the fog that is soon to become the present.

Nabokov was terrified by sleep because it meant giving up one's consciousness and existing in a subconscious dream-like "reality". If we were to interpret death like sleep and life as being awake then there would be no "life" after death, but because both life and death are part of the layered spiral we will in fact experience them multiple times; always moving forward with new awareness. Maintaining consciousness is in fact more of a way to fight against the unknown, and therefore should be re-evaluated. What is more important is how we as living human beings can patiently await what is to come (which is death)in a way that is both thoughtful and positive. Despair is everywhere, and hope is our salvation. We will approach life again not in the same exact way, but with a new awareness and a heavy heart. Cherish the innocent, be mindful of the despair, and forever maintain hope.