The benefits of being a sieve
For some, a pause in their journey can offer a rare moment of quiet contemplation, a chance to plan an alternative route toward their destination or an opportunity to get off the ride altogether.
Other things can provide benefit by not being stopped.
Like a sieve which is having water poured into it from above, I let things pass through me. Whatever it is. I don’t hold onto anything because I can’t. I’m a sieve. It’s not something I’m capable of. It’s not my purpose.
That’s not to say that everything is in one ear and out the other. There’ll always be some sort of residue or trace left behind, however temporary, along the surface of the sieve where the water hit it, and that is where I came into contact with an experience head on, looking straight at it as it touched me before carrying on its way through.
I try not to hold onto any powerful experience or emotion running through me, whether it be beautiful, terrifying, hopeful, sad etc. Of course I try to feel it fully in the moment, and savour it in real-time, not file it away to be unpacked and perused over another day. I try to be 100% present. Right here. Right now.
Looking long-term, I’d rather focus on what kind of residual mozaic will be left upon my soul after being touched by so many different hues of experience, and having some sort of overall shape or form in mind today as I go forward. A life-time piece of internal art which many people hope to only complete when they know they are experiencing their final hours, comfortable and wanting for nothing, surrounded by all the people that love them.
Seeing myself as a sieve I think was a strategy I had to adopt because I feel things too much. I needed a way to carry on feeling the essence of things but not have to block out those things that were too painful or too beautiful for me to contain.
Holding onto things, even amazing things, trying to preserve them inside me forever always becomes too much, and something eventually gives way because I’m not allowing whatever it is, to carry on its way. And so the concentration inside increases as I harbour the experience/emotion against its will, and at some point it will become toxic to me.
