Sometimes, learning something new just strikes you. It isn’t something you intend on happening or even plan on it happening. But it does anyways. It’s these experiences that best shape our personalities. What happens when we don’t anticipate something life-changing? There are so many things you learn from this admittedly unorthodox method. We plant the garden and we burn it, when we do not plan ahead to change our person due to an incident, we learn the most valuable lessons life has to offer. How to think on the fly, and why this work runs the way it runs.
Grief
The first time I experienced an indictment of this event transcribing itself into my life was very early on. I was born into a family with an extremely large extended family. I remember when I was about 4, and my father came home crying because an aunt of his had passed. After this, I’ve felt this feeling multiple times. From dealing with the loss of my own aunt to losing a classmate to undue circumstances, and suddenly having to deal with the reality that a person I’d seen for 7 years straight, almost every day, now ceased to exist. I struggled to cope with this reality.
It didn’t make sense to me how one day, one could be there, and the next day they are gone. But from these circumstances, I’ve learnt to feel a great amount of empathy to other humans struggling with the same as me. The loss of something that may seem as trivial as a pet, to someone that was a huge part of your life, you learnt to feel this empathy, and you learn to get through these kinds of things yourself.
News
The amount of big news I’ve gotten has decreased over the ages, whether that be because I know everything, or life just isn’t as exciting, every piece of it has changed my life. Recently, I started craving the adrenaline only found when you win something that you used to be bad at. For me, that was debate. I learnt to find love in the spaces between, and I found my passion for the time being. Every time I break at a major tournament, the siren in my head goes off. Every time I get this news, it changes my life. Whether that be on a major scale, it just keeps my drive for these things up and continues to make me work for the best thing possible and then work a little more.
Even bigger news could be things like the announcement of a sibling. Now a human is here to disrupt your entire life but eventually change it for the good. Someone new you learn to love (and hate) is making an appearance in your life. As much as you love them, they will always be there for affecting your life. Often they change your entire family dynamic and sometimes even your own demeanour. I always find that people find their soft side around kids, helping their own emotional maturity above all else.
Burning our Gardens
Even the small stuff makes you learn new things every day, whether on purpose or not. Our gardens are the knowledge we have. Our personas and lives. Those are our gardens, they set a solid base for us as humans to sit on. When we talk about planting a garden and then burning it, we talk about the seeds of knowledge. We talk about wanting to set a base in things we know and then dropping a match over them. Because in the end, we never know what affects us and how it’ll change us. No matter how beautiful the garden, it cannot withstand a match.
Great article about hedonism! I thought it was really informative and just a good article overall. Waiting for the next one!