The Braid of Life

Life doesn't fly by. It doesn't have wings. It doesn't have anything. It simply passes through us as time goes on.

As time goes on, you begin to realize that whatever passes through you becomes woven tightly into braids that stick out of your back like a tail you can never get rid of.

Some people, with experience and time, gradually gain the ability to see the strings in front of them. Only a few of them figure out how to reach out and grab it.

Now, once you take hold of them, there's no going back. Of course, it all still passes through you. The only difference is that you become responsible for weaving your own braids. As you make things happen rather than let things happen to you, the liberating freedom makes you feel a sort of carefree bliss. That is, until you realize how heavy the strings. Not to mention that if you fail to harness your strings, everything will go haywire and become a tangled mess. It happens when you decide to stop... or turn around. And that's when you have to decide whether you want to work your way out of the knots or just cut the string right then and there. Sometimes, I think the strings in my hands look an awful lot like chains.

Now, of course everybody gets stuck every once in a while. But at one point, the mess becomes so unbearable that it's nearly impossible to untangle.

In all my life, I have only witnessed a single person weave all the way to the end. As the last bit of string passed through them, their braids fluttered and lifted them up into the sky.

Life doesn't fly by. It flies away.