A trickle

One's life is a little stream. Families can combine into creeks. Whole communities can become rivers. Most people have some innate sense of this, and those who are socially inclined can learn to navigate these waters. But it takes a certain social deftness to sense the vast tides of human nature. Most people get so caught up in the eddies and rapids of their own lives that they cannot be open to these great, glacial movements. It is a rare opportunity. How rare, I'm not sure, because I currently feel barely able to see over the next rock. My waters have been turned inward, caught in a whirlpool that has eroded away at the depths but has not gone anywhere. I hope and plan to pull away from this, to join and invigorate my communities, big and small, with my own uniquely enriched current. I believe I am already possessed of a significant social acuity. I perceive the glints and swells of the streams around me with a modestly happy clarity. I hope one day to adapt that perspective; to sharpen, and broaden, and sharpen and broaden and so on, so as to sophisticate myself to sense those vast tides. Occasionally I feel the gravitas of the distant ocean's slow breathing, but I hope one day to rest my head over its heart.