Rules…rules…
Some of the first things we think of when we remember our childhood are the rules our parents, teachers and guardians set for us. And sometimes it seemed as if there were a lot of rules and very little fun. So we broke some of them. Maybe we got caught, or maybe we got away with it. Perhaps it was something small like reading with the lights under the blanket after we were told to go to sleep. Or maybe it was something bigger like skipping class to hang out at the park with the rest of the miscreants. Later perhaps we sneak a cigarette from the older kid at the bus station. It sucks and we don’t know why anyone would do it, but it gives us this feeling… breaking the rules makes us feel alive, as if we were bigger, somehow outside of it all, looking down on the small petty book of rules and laughing while we enjoy our freedom.
Only later, once we ourselves perhaps become a parent, or maybe we have pets, or just see things from a more mature standpoint, we suddenly realize that the rules were there for a reason, they had a specific purpose which we couldn’t see or comprehend at the time. Staying up late makes us tired in class, we can’t focus, we fall behind, feel anxious, apprehensive. We might get in a fight with a classmate because of our vile mood, we fail our test, miss the bus, spiraling into a terrible day, and sometimes, if the day was a pivotal day, a bad year. Snowballing into something gradually worse over time. One small decision, only one rule broken. Perhaps we are okay with staying up late, we don’t need as much sleep, perhaps we just like to skip prayer, avoid reading books that make us think deeper thoughts because we like to have fun, and deep thoughts are anathema to fun. Or so we think. Joy and fun aren’t the same at all. Fun is a superficial feeling, joy is a deep appreciation of the moment. Joy requires a consciousness which is aware of itself, fun only requires a willing participant in whatever fancy strikes the mood.
Every small decision, every broken rule has consequences and sometimes they reach far into our future, can change the entire course of our destiny. God calls those who break his holy rules sinners, and he calls the act itself a sin. Immediately when people hear the word sin the same reaction occurs as we had back when we were children and heard a lecture about those dreaded rules. We are nothing but spiritual children, refusing to grow up, refusing to see the bigger picture, to understand the wisdom behind why certain things and actions are sinful. Our actions have far-reaching consequences, even small things like whether I decide to sleep an hour later on that Monday because I didn’t feel like getting up. Our life is nothing but the compounded decisions we make on a daily basis. We can make them subconsciously or consciously, but we do have to make them. There is no such thing as non-decisions. Even if we decide not to decide, that’s still a decision.
Some believe that this is all that free will boils down to: a decision. Not once, not twice, but daily, a million decisions separate us from heaven or hell. Because heaven or hell are now, and they will be later, and forever and ever… consciousness never dies, it simply transforms, like everything in existence. So what better way to spend your time that evaluation what direction your decisions should be aligned with? The path of least effort is always downhill, and that’s where we’ll end up. The path with most effort is, obviously, uphill, a climb, lonely, treacherous, long, uncertain, but the view, oh the view from the mountain is magnificent. There is nothing like it. If only we could stay strong enough to make a decision without falling prey to complacency. An eagle flies alone above the crowd, he knows the rules, he knows them well, and uses them to his advantage, teaches his young not to fall, but to fly and use the rules of thermodynamics to surf the thermal winds.
Who wouldn’t want to be an eagle?
