the symbiotic living

Over the weekend, Amy and I argued about two kinds of people. The first are those who try to live a balanced life, to remain present, and to take life as it comes. The second are those who neglect the present almost entirely and live instead for a better future. I left that conversation thinking that neither group is mistaken. They are simply responding to life through different obligations.

I picture two teenagers walking the same path, one about a mile ahead of the other. The one in front absorbs the hardship first. She feels the sharp stones, the confusion, the wrong turns, and the exhaustion of the road. Having suffered it, she begins to fix the path and leave signs behind for the second person. In doing so, she risks forgetting the journey itself. She becomes occupied with repair, with preparation, with the hope that the one behind will suffer less, or that the destination will justify the sacrifice.

Both are necessary. The one ahead makes the road more bearable. The one behind gives meaning to the labor of the one ahead. They are not in competition with each other. They are participating in the same human arrangement: one lives more fully in the present, the other spends the present in service of the future. Both are a blessing to each other.

Know the one you are.