Love is What Binds Us
Without time and love, there can be no meaning
Ever since I lived in New Mexico I had this burning desire to share. I lived in Albuquerque for 5 years, from 1994 to 1999. It was one of the most momentous times of my life, both good and bad.
While I look back at the times with more fondness than sadness, I always seem to be called back to it in my thoughts.
There is something magical about The Land of Enchantment. It’s a place where my spirit can roam unfettered and where a part of my heart still lives.
New Mexico was a spiritually transformative place for me. It was where I grew into the man I am today. It was a place where a select few women had a massive effect on how I formed connections with the opposite sex. More were good effects than bad, and I thank them all.
I met fierce women, rugged men, and learned that family and tradition ran strong in people irrespective of their race or lineage.
There was so much that connected us together then would rend us apart.
So many similarities that it can’t be a coincidence, can it?
New Mexico was where I kindled my desire to write, to photograph, and to roam. It was a place where I could for a brief moment of my life experience what it means to “go with the flow.”
I had no idea how my life would go but I had a blueprint that my parents set forth for me. I had another blueprint that society told me to follow.
A blueprint that starts with going to school, graduating, finding a job, get married, have kids, retire, and die.
For the most part, this is the typical blueprint for all our lives. After all, education is important, having the means to earn money to live is important, and maybe finding a loving partner or partners is important too.
One might argue that getting married, having kids, and retiring are optional, but dying is not.
There is a finality to life that we all must face, some of us sooner than later. This finality seems so far away when we are young but it constantly creeps closer.
If you subscribe to religion then you can take faith in resurrection, heaven, or reincarnation. If you say you’re just spiritual, you can take solace in some higher state of vibration or power that will take you into its bosom. Or if you’re a non-believer, then you feel the urgency of knowing that this is your only time in this reality.
I have no answers here but what I will say is that without the time and looming death you face, your life will have no meaning. Your meaning is something you need to discover for yourself. It is something you need to evaluate every day, even if it’s for 30 seconds.
Right before I left New Mexico I became a Minister of the Universal Life Church of Modesto California. I sent them $10 and was ordained. I thought that was hilarious back then because who can become a Minister via email?
Well, I did.
Interestingly enough I kept that ordination active all these years. There’s no way I’m a Christian and I’m mostly an Atheist, but I can’t help deny the need for us humans to seek spirituality.
For me, these days, that spirituality takes the form of philosophy. I’ve untangled myself from the shackles of modern religions after seeing the destruction it can do.
I think that need is partly tied to a need of realizing pure love. The majority of people that I’ve met have, at some point in their life, wondered “what’s the point to all this?”
The friends and loved ones that have asked that question always tend to come back to love. Love (and acceptance) of themselves, love of their partner, love of their family, and the realization of how powerful it is. Love is what binds us in the light and the dark.
Without urgency of time, there can be no meaning.
Without out love, there can be no meaning.
Love and time.
Live it, cherish it.
