When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

This is my favorite quote, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It’s short and to the point, and quite beautiful even when taken literally, but if one puts thought into it, it can go pretty deep. When I found this quote earlier this year, I already felt connected to it. But as the year progressed, parts of quote began to take on a, shall we say, different role in my understanding of it.

Dark enough—what’s dark enough? There are times in our lives when we think that things cannot possibly get any worse, but lo and behold, they always seem to. And at each threshold of pain and suffering, I always think that one, things can’t get any worse, and two, that I’ve learned a lot from the experience, even matured, if I may say so myself. But every consequent threshold I reach, I look back at the past and realize how ridiculous my thinking was, how irrational or childish they were, how un-encompassing my once extremely contemplative beliefs are now in the light of new events. 

So how far down the road do I have to go? I’ve seen some stars already, figuratively speaking, but when will I reach those stars that Emerson so gracefully and simply refers to? 

Perhaps those stars are a culmination of all that I have learned and will learn in life, and that I won’t find it until the day I die, or perhaps once I really reach the lowest point in my life, I will understand and realize that at that moment, I can really see the stars.

It’s no secret that there are obstacles in life, and it’s also no secret that there are going to be a ton of them ahead. 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood / And sorry I could not travel both

But this road in front of me just keeps diverging, and I don’t know which path to take.

It is said that we learn from our mistakes, but what if that’s just the result from taking the road less traveled? The two roads, what if one is one path is right and the other is wrong—it does make all the difference, doesn’t it? What if I have to travel down that path, the road less traveled, for it to be dark enough? Because if I take the more worn path, would I not be able to ever see the stars? 

I’d rather live a life of understanding. Pain and difficulty—I’ve had a share, but I’d be willing to accept more if it can help me understand. Among the things I feel compelled to understand are people (what they think and believe), death, consciousness, and interactions (people and people). 

So, what exactly are the stars? If the stars are are four points I mentioned above, I’d gladly let my world grow “darker.” But those stars are pretty high up, aren’t they? Like real stars, they are far away, typically (aside from our sun) unreachable in one life time. Light-years, it takes. So perhaps, I’m destined from the birth to never understand. Those stars might always be out of reach, but if the Buddhists are right, I’ll have many more lives to reach it.

Everything does connect to each other, doesn’t it? The “stars,” understanding, enlightenment, it’s basically the same thing. Suffering, the “dark,” pain, misfortune, how are they different? Different ways to look at the same things, I say. Such is life, such is humanity. So many different possibilities for the exact same concept.

Emerson’s quote then applies in a much broader sense now, I think. In a sense, it’s that we learn (stars) from every mistake (dark). It’s the suffering and the enlightenment (read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse). It’s the problems in life and its solutions, it’s the light at the end of a dark tunnel.

I’ve accepted everything in my life, even all the problems that have come along with it. The feelings will never go away, the pain and the confusion will always be there with me. But at least, I hope, I learned something from it. I hope all the things I’ve ever cried over or stumbled over in my life has given me something beneficial. A friend recently reminded me that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” which I have, over the years, come to slowly lose faith in as sometimes the “what” might as well “kill” just so I don’t have to deal with it anymore. But now, near the end of this post, I realize the immense truth in that.

So the things in this past year that have not gone the way that I had hoped is, in fact, already in the past. I’m going to try to stop dwelling on the past and learn to simply move forward. I’ve learned from 2011, more than any other year. I’ve learned that there is a time to be strong, and a time to breakdown. There’s a time to stand your ground, and there’s a time to forgive and forget. But above all, there are certain events in our lives that are exactly as we imagined them to be, but there are also things that just don’t run parallel (or even intersect nicely) with our own lives. And to those things (and people) I bid adieu. 

Perhaps its the right time to begin letting go, including the people around me and the friends I love. Just to think that in a year, I won’t see some of these faces anymore or only sporadically scares me a bit, maybe I should begin to prepare for that now so I can handle it better later.

It’s time for me to close and put away the bad that has taken place in 2011, take the good, and move on into the new year. 

As of now, 2012 looks promising. It looks to be a year for fresh starts and new beginnings, which I welcome with open arms. 

Forward march.

I had originally written a completely different post for the turn of the new year titled < /twentyeleven > < twentytwelve > (which can still be found here), but it felt inadequate, too focused on what I did and not enough on how I’ve grown and changed. Hence for this post. Happy New Year to all.