There have been issues.
There have been pointless issues.
There have been recurring issues.
There have been limitless issues.
And for a long time, it seemed as if every issue arrived from a different direction. One appeared through ambition, another through disappointment, another through expectations and another through circumstances that could never have been anticipated. They all looked different enough to deserve different explanations.
Because of these particular issues and the inability to cater for them, many people come down to writing, making videos, creating art or expressing themselves in one form or another. The purpose appears simple enough. One wants to understand what is happening. One wants to place a shape around thoughts that otherwise remain difficult to hold. One wants to communicate something without explicitly revealing everything.
With those words or those videos comes a feeling of control. A feeling that thoughts can be presented in a tangible format. A feeling that confusion can be translated into something that can be read, viewed and understood.
With those words or those videos repeatedly created, another feeling slowly develops. The feeling that one understands oneself.
The strange thing is that understanding and escaping are not necessarily the same thing.
Many creations emerge from the same source while appearing entirely different from each other. Different subjects are discussed. Different stories are told. Different conclusions are reached. Yet the same concerns keep finding their way back into the work. The same questions keep reappearing. The same patterns keep introducing themselves through different circumstances.
At some point, one begins to notice that the issue was never entirely contained within the situation itself. The situation merely gave the issue a face. A setback arrives and suddenly an entire history begins speaking through it. A disappointment appears and somehow manages to connect itself with every previous disappointment. An expectation remains unfulfilled and immediately dozens of older expectations begin demanding attention as well.
The event itself becomes secondary. The pattern becomes primary. That is perhaps the most interesting discovery.
The loop ends, the light appears. Yet after some time, another version of the same loop emerges from somewhere else. The circumstances change, the people change, the ambitions change and the environment changes, but the structure remains remarkably similar.
That is when one begins to suspect that the issue was never entirely external.
Now, obviously, the next logical thought is to break the pattern. The difficulty, however, lies elsewhere. Every attempt at solving the pattern originates from the same mind that participated in creating it. Every conclusion emerges from the same framework. Every answer arrives through the same process.
So what new can actually be done? That is a question worth pondering.
Perhaps the greatest value of any setback is not the setback itself but the pattern it reveals. Once the pattern becomes visible, the issue changes its nature entirely. It is no longer about a particular event, a particular outcome or a particular circumstance.
It becomes about understanding the loop, and perhaps understanding the loop is the first genuine step towards stepping outside of it!
