Transformation

You are like a castle of sand.  It  was difficult to build you up to the current state. It took special care to get your walls straight, your edges smooth. It took love to create these little round towers around your walls. It wasn’t easy to get your gate open enough for joy and empathy and close enough for sadness and spite. And your fundaments are getting stronger over the years. And you now pursuit to reach the sky.

But be careful. You are also so fragile, so vulnerable. When a strong wind blows in your direction – you can fall apart. Your walls can break and dissolve into grains of sand. These grains will be taken away from your castle and unite with the sand of the dangerous desert. Then you are not longer you. But you will be the desert itself. Lonely. Thirsty. Lost. Be prepared. You have to realize. Maybe you can never build yourself up again. Maybe you will stay lost in the desert forever. But maybe you will have enough energy and perseverance to transform. Sand can transform to glass. You can be a shiny sculpture. Not unbreakable but more resilient than a castle of sand. And you can define yourself within the desert. And let the light through – in all its colours.

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I wrote this piece after reading the book ’12 Rules for Life’ from Jordan B. Peterson. There was the specific term in ‘Rule 8 – Tell the truth – or, at least don’t lie’ (here a link on amazon.com ) that caught my attention:

‘Things fall apart‘

This is something that could happen anywhere at anytime. We should be conscious about this. When things fall apart, we are in the center of chaos and don’t know what to do. But we can learn to get stronger and try to minimize the extent of the catastrophy if we are prepared. Because things will fall apart sooner or later. It is in our power to withstand the desert of chaos and to transform.