Within the Complex

 Let me tell you about the world complex. The word rolls off trained tongues — people use it to sound aware. Often it’s the only word that seems to fit whatever they’re attempting to describe, yet how rare it is for anyone to truly grapple with its weight. To live a complex life is to live in-between: to have dabbled in both left and right, to exist in the margins.

I call it heavy because we rarely assign real weight to certain words or experiences. Some experiences carry an innate gravity that we inherit simply by choosing them.

I feel deeply.

Some experiences scar; others carry a different kind of weight — a deep sigh lodged inside you. No matter how many times you try to exhale it, something remains that needs releasing. Life is complex: light is born from darkness, and they require one another. Each has its own pros and cons; comparing them is futile because they’re braided together. Everything is. Every choice contains freedom and imprisonment.

So I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing: am I trying to let go, or am I accepting complexity as it is? Maybe I’m accepting the heaviness that comes from how I choose to experience life. I say “choose” because this is how I think — how I digest and make sense of my part in it. This is my way of puzzling together a life that puzzles me. To some extent, my grappling mind may be a choice. Maybe I do find satisfaction in awareness; maybe I enjoy letting nothing pass unnoticed. It is satisfying, in its own way, to try to decipher the matrix of life. Maybe my spirit is a kind of puzzle.

Now: how to respond?