When I don't know becomes I do know
So often I don't know, but for someone else perhaps they would know - it being the same knowledge set as me of course, but in a different body, within a different set of expectations of what it even means 'to know.'
I doubt that what I know could even be real - it can't be, as real is just a word that can't mean anything beyond a physical existence - and how many things do we know that have a real physical existence. And even that definition can't hold water. A stone is real, because it exists, but is a stone made of clay not real? Perhaps not a real stone. So in that case no. But it does have a real physical existence.
So if there is no real, then is there even knowing? I tend to think no, infusing everything I think to be true, that I 'know,' with a flimsy, transient quality. Yet I allow myself to buy into others' knowing, buying others facts and knowledge as the truth, as real. Perhaps they know what it is to really know. It's like I live in one reality that I drew out and boxed in for myself, and yet I envision others in another world, one with absolutes and space that expands to allow for growth.
I want a bigger pot for my base. I have outgrown the one I am in and my roots are tangling at the walls. But it is not mere reorganization or imaginative thinking that is needed. I need to allow myself the same space and wiggle room I allot to others. I need a fresh pot, larger, wider, full of rich soil that can support my growth. The limitation is my own - my own ambitious roots hitting my own stubborn walls. Frightened walls that know where they stand, afraid to lose the plant itself if they came down; if other walls were built to support a new, expansive reality.
Fuck the pot. I want wide, unimpeded soil, the earth, I want to be part of the whole. I will hit rocks and roots and dry, crumbled patches, but let the walls fall away. Shards of terra cotta, disintegrating into my soils, now part of all, reabsorbed, but not blocking the way to widening root tips seeking deeper waters. Stems and leaves and petals reaching up and out, embracing more, living fearlessly or at least pretending so.
Perhaps knowing is the same as not knowing, only it is seen through trustful eyes that believe that that is all we can do. The information accumulated in my life may not be absolute, but it is all I have to go on, and my reality is the only one I can live in. Not others' realities. Of course knowing that is exactly that, my reality, and not someone else's, will keep me sane, prevent me from slipping down the slickened slide of self-righteousness and delusion.
I know I need more soil, more earth, more space to grow and extend and fill, and I am the only one who can provide that for myself. No thinking around it, just break the pot, and replant, knowing that I will survive and flourish. It is not all survival; the flourish is just as important.
