Bifocals

There are moments when I feel like a spectator in my own life. I am very much a participant, but I can look at my pilgrimage as if from a distance. This dichotomy of perspectives is simultaneously unnerving and enlightening. I would say that such experiences help to me to see more clearly, but that would often be a lie. Sometimes, seeing the big picture only makes things more confusing.



But sometimes, sometimes things actually make sense.

The sun returned today, and the fog finally recognized it had long overstayed its welcome and left maturely, quietly. I spent the day working on a photo essay chronicling a coworker’s long tenure at Philmont and thought of what it must be like to leave behind a legacy more than thirty years in the making. I heard startling news and wondered over the impact one decision can make in a life, in an organization, in a community. I watched—or listened, rather—to a featurette on the philosophy behind a film score in which the relationship between structure and chaos in the music reflects the tones of the movie and create a beautiful, unified work of collective genius. I finished reading a book that stunned me with its power to both depress and delight me.

And these things I see from my dual perspectives, these stolen glances at my own existence and that of others, show me just how beautiful opposition can make life.

“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so…righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness, nor misery, neither good nor bad.” – Lehi (2 Ne 2:11)

Without the fog, I might have forgotten how much I love the sun. Without a retirement, we might have forgotten the many contributions of an integral part of our group. A sudden decision forces us all to look at our own lives, realize how fragile the balance is, and remember to be grateful. Discordance makes harmony more pleasant, chaos makes order more desirable, discontinuity makes us seek after successful alliances.

Tears, like tiny prisms, have a strange talent for making the whole world more exquisite—even if they’re over something as “silly” as a book.