Pity the poor little rich boy,
raised with no constraints.
He could've been anything he wanted to be
except for what he ain't.

I am the product of my constraints, for I do what I can and never what I cannot. I curse these curious benefactors as if they were preventing me from becoming what I really, truly want to become, while they tirelessly hold the edge between here and oblivion. Every damned one of them serves as a limiting factor to frustrate my desires. Every blessed one of them seem damned determined to help me realize just who I might actually become. My clandestine constraints trip me when I rush to collect the product of my dreams, reminding me that I never was and was never bound to become the center of any universe, not even, especially even, my own.

My constraints help keep me humble. Gravity steps right in to remind me where I am, otherwise I might (and probably would) just float off into ether or something worse. My walls contain me while keeping out the weather. I can curse my jailer or praise my umbrella. Depending upon how I've screwed on my head on any particular morning, I feel incarcerated by my constraints or I feel blessed with them, only rarely both opposites simultaneously. Some days I slink to the corner of my projected cell and do solitary confinement. Other days, I warm to the solitude and allow my mind to wander further afield. Were it not for my constraints, I might never find the opportunity to wander so.

My budget seems severely limited, which might just mean I'm prevented from committing an act of self-induced indigestion. I will not be gorging at the All-you-can-eat Buffet because my constraints stand firmly in my way. I will need to find a different way to nourish myself, a little game of loaves and fishes somehow sufficing again. Until constrained, while the sky's still the apparent limit, forward momentum stalls, for what would the thrusters push against if no constraints were there? It's push and shove here, not vacuous free-floating. With left blocked, right might be the way. How could I possibly know if I didn't first find something standing in my way?

I call the beginning The Bright Idea. Bright Ideas are attractive and energizing because they seem constraint-less, which seems like freedom to us. Everyone signs on to the adventure they each imagine coming, with no notion then of what adventure might actually allow, given the constraints. The adventure itself seems comprised of disappointing discoveries, paths proving themselves unworkable dancing with acceptances disappointingly embraced. By the end, what constitutes the end will have changed from what anyone understood The Bright Idea to have promised them. Some will feel cheated. Others, that they've been lied to. A few might remain capable of praising the great mystery constraints helped them attain.

Home might be where we've come to terms with our constraints.

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FindingHome, #PureSchmaltz