Levels And Layers

I’ve been realising more and more how we experience and live life through ‘levels and layers’.

The friends you had in high school are now weird looking adults with marital appendages and oggly googly offspring to boot. Your junk-food eating and animal-like partying tendencies eventually catch up and suddenly a new decade sneaks up on you, resulting in an awkward kinship with ‘deep’ people like CS Lewis who said things like: “Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.”

The things we thought we knew about life, love and everything else seems to go for an upgrade every now and again and we are forced to re-evaluate the things we thought we knew for sure. Things that we thought we had dealt with, faced, overcome and conquered keep coming up again like an annoying jack-in-the-box. The way we deal with recurring cycles and patterns forms the essence of growth and maturity. Some people suck it up and face their shit, resulting in eventual positive change and transformation. Others never do and blame the world and everyone in it for any sadness and misery they feel forced to endure.

What is remarkable about this otherwise maddening mystery is that, when you finally allow yourself to look back over the hills and valleys, mountains and oceans you have traversed, you are finally able to appreciate just how much you have grown and just how far you have come.

All that means is that once you have ‘reached’ a certain level in your life (in terms of relationships, friendships, career, personal development etc) and explored the rich layers of truth and meaning that pertains to your individual experience, there is always another level to get to and further layers to uncover.

Therein lies the beauty, exuberance and fullness that life has to offer.