Ebb & Flow

Ever moving, the ebb and flow of the sea serves to calm. The predictable entropy, every wave different, yet the same. I search for reason or purpose but come up short, and yet am not disheartened. Perhaps the point is not to achieve any one specific thing, but just to face each new challenge calmly, confident that it will work out, because, one way or another, it always has.
Half a life ago I was so sure I had everything figured out and knew where I was heading, and to what end. But there is no end, save the inevitable ultimate end, when I become one with the universe again. Failure has been the greatest teacher I have had. Not so much the personal failure, which more and more I realise is actually success at continuing, but the failure of plans to come to fruition; the failure of society to realise that if everyone is cared for, everyone is better off for it.

So what now? Never has the future seemed more uncertain, or more daunting. I have a feeling, as though it is my destiny to be presented with answers that seem too easy, and almost always are. Yet for every opportunity that has crumbled to dust, I have forged the foundation of a different possibility. Success is not unobtainable, simply finite. You don’t achieve your goal, and then simply rest for the remainder of your days, each mile marker of success contributes a chapter to your story. Success is not one thing, but a series of small victories, and the failures don’t negate them. Even when balance seems to be in favour of the disappointments, it is invariably just a matter of perspective. Wins and losses are temporary - they are the end of a story, but not the end of the story.
There is a temptation to view things in an absolute, binary manner - particularly in the settling dust of a skirmish that has left you momentarily defeated. And yet, even in the face of this seemingly insurmountable obstacle, as one person falls short of your expectations or hopes, another rises above them. Victory from defeat.