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I recently returned home (?) from a visit to Montreal- AKA, to my past life.

Before I delve into the existential whirlwind so obviously churned up by said visit, I'd like to note that again I am reminded of the striking contrast between Bodhi ("our" new puppy) and myself. She is barking at her bone right now. She has the time of her life digging holes. She would be happy licking her own poo. She could easily travel to an awesome city, hang out with loved ones, and not feel compelled to deconstruct the vast majority of her visit. Or maybe I'm forcing her to be my imaginary foil or even, GASP, to be my opposite. See!? She would never force me to be her imaginary foil! (and there it is again)

Anyways, I guess I found it a somewhat _____ experience to come face to face with the reality that things just carry on about their merry way, sans you (or me, in this case). I used a French word there, as indicated by the switch to italics, because I was speaking about Montreal and people sometimes get mad there if you don't know French. I mean, on the one hand obviously the entire city can't screech to a halt simply because I completed my undergraduate degree, sans any actual marketable skills. But on the other.... you know? Like...I dunno it's weird.

Of course, I shouldn't complain. I find the ever looming possibility that this entire existence might be nothing more than a fabrication of my own mind-in which case Mtl would, for all intents and purposes, vanish upon my departure- to be quite alarming. I suppose that renders me difficult to please. Which I'm sure is exhausting for everyone involved. Thank you, if you are still reading.

I was fortunate to have a great discussion last night, with someone far smarter and more experienced than myself, about. . . DECISIONS. To sum up several hours, sans the tangents (too much?), it would just be the coolest if we could learn to be comfortable with uncertainty and embrace absurdity, instead of incessantly fooling ourselves into believing that we must surely have insight into absolutes and formulas to isolate the variables of life.  

There is such a strong tendency, it seems, to desperately rationalize and justify our past decisions; to force them into frames of illusory certainty and hang them in perfect rows along the corridors of our past. By the way, that's slightly different than what I do to Bodhi because the impositions on her involve tin foil not picture frames. ellipses. 

We make choices and then convince ourselves, whether consciously or not, that they were Right or Wrong, ad infinitum. I just typed "ad infinitum" into  Google to be certain I had spelled it correctly (loosely relevant). 

The point is- (ish)- that collapsing the wave function in that singular moment of time at which we make a decision does not negate the probability cloud. In other words (I took one physics class in University and fell in love with probability clouds) there does not seem to be anyway to be absolutely, 100% certain, whether a decision is the Right one or the Wrong one. That fact does not change, even if ultimately a choice is made. Even more so, once something is decided Right and Wrong in a sense must fall away- in that everything that unfolds following that choice becomes simply "what 'is.'" There is great value, I think, in remaining conscious of the uncertainty of all decisions, decision makers, and the process decision making itself. Rather than obliterating all awareness of that uncertainty through rationalization and justification after-the-fact, an acknowledgment that all things still exist as a probability cloud no matter which way they happen to be channeled, facilitates the cultivation of both honesty and humility. Honesty, and humility.

That's not to say that we should therefore just leave our life up to chance, because nothing makes sense anyways. Only that we can't Know (like knowknow, not just superficially know) that we did the right thing. And from my young, likely naive perspective in which I'm responsible for no one but myself, I can say with resounding enthusiasm that all we can do is our best and THAT'S FINE LET'S JUST GO WITH IT WOO HOO.  Of course it's more comfortable to pretend that things are clearer than that, more predictable, easier to reduce and make sense of it. But whatevz!

We are always making decisions, and we should continue to try our best in doing so because otherwise we stagnate. And there is nothing worse that a stagnated human. The final lines of the book, Why I Became a Buddhist Monk, What I Learned, and Why I Quit, reads: "If I have a mission, it is to help [my students] to question the things they believe most earnestly. After all, if I've learned one things it's that the pursuit of truth has more to do with letting go of certainty than finding it." I freaking love that last line. What I'm saying is, at this point in my life, however fleeting these sentiments may be, I am striving to become more comfortable with the uncertainty of all things. I am striving to make space for that uncertainty instead of stabbing at it with the pointed corners of those stupid frames hanging in the corridors of my past or whatever it was I said. In that way, I can make space for the vastness of life/truth/god/reality/squirrel/spaghetti itself.

I loved my time at McGill. I think it was a wonderful fit for me. I think I learned tremendously, and I think I made a difference in the lives of others. But I cannot impose the knowledge of hindsight on my grade 12 self, the young gal in sweatpants who made that decision and cried to friends at lunch time about which school she should attend. She had no clue. And even now, I cannot claim to know that choosing McGill was absolutely the best decision I could have made, in large part because I don't think such an option even exists. The reality (?) simply is that it was. And that it was wonderful often, sucky sometimes. And that even though my time there is over, I will always live with and within the decisions that led me in and out of that space because all that has unfolded since is the natural progressions of those very decisions, beautiful and terrifying (unfortunately) in their uncertainty. 

On that note, I'm going to seguay (sp?) into a love letter I wrote to my internal source of certainty thus far. Just to mix things up. (OK the truth is I wanted to post this because I like it, but didn't want to put it up on it's own, so I'm basically just tacking it on to the end here and trying to make it all fit together. Which everything does on its own anyways.)

Dear Heartbeat,

Thank you for your quiet patience, your subtle way of reminding me that I am alive and that it is wonderful- that I am full with wonder. That if I still my racing mind and give myself a hug, I can feel you in my arms.

Thank you for your unwavering devotion, for your commitment to breathing life into the blood coursing through my veins. For working forever behind the scenes to fuel my exploration.

Thank you for giving me space to find my own way back to you, pulsating with the quiet conviction that I am grateful and in tune, even if I do not yet realize it. That our relationship internally grounds me. That my life, though always changing, eternally orbits about your faithful beat.

Thank you for the way you connect me to humanity, and to many animals as well. Our lives are governed by the eternal thumping of your place in our chests, and in this way we are all together dancing to your music.

Whatever.