Circles and Lines

My name is Tyrone Wing. My birthday is October 25th 1985. You know I wonder about birthdays. What is a birthday? strictly broken down it is the day of our birth, right? And what is birth but a new beginning? The beginning of what?

Well, anyone who’s seen the Lion King can answer that right?
Our first birthday is our first introduction to the great circle of life. I think the Lion King got it mostly right, but it’s not THE Great Circle of Life because life has many circles...

Think about it. You wake up, you get up, you clean up, you tank up, you head out, you move your inbox to your outbox, things go in one ear and out the other, you head out the door, then into your house, get some food into your belly, get some TV time in and then get in bed. Day in day out, month in month out, year in year out.

Those are just the daily circles, maybe known as the daily grind. and those circles are ok right, not very exciting, but ok. Circles are very natural. Think about the way the Earth orbits around the Sun, or the way the Moon orbits around the Earth. Some circles in our lives can be healthy for us and can help us get to where we want to go, sort of like the wheels on a car. I think about good work ethic, or disciplines. But we also have circles in our lives that break us down. These circles are like the spirals in a whirl pool that want to drag us down to the bottom of the ocean. Where we slowly loose air until we give up the struggle.
Here are some examples of hurtful circles:

I have a friend named Lucy, who grew up in a home with a dad who was a mean drunk. Whenever he got angry he would take it out on Lucy who shrank inside of herself and became like a flower trapped under a glass. Lucy grew up and found a man who’s passionate about loving her, but is equally passionate about hurting her when he gets ticked off. She was born in this circle and she doesn’t break out because as messed up as it is, she’s comfortable.

Or Devon who has a monkey on his back that he calls METH. He started out with gateway substances like alcohol and marijuana in Middle School because he wanted to fit in. Devon was lonely and it was easy and fun. But it’s not fun anymore ten years down the road when there’s an ever increasing craving and an ever diminishing payoff, he feels like there’s a wild animal clawing at his insides. So he cleans up and relapses and cleans up and relapses day in and day out and he’s trapped in this circle and he can’t find his way out.

Or my Grandparents who sit in their living room eating mac and cheese while watching the evening news. Their house smells of dust and loneliness. They don’t talk much anymore, there’s nothing to talk about. They’ve grown up, they’ve grown a family, they’ve grown their nest egg and now they realize that they’ve grown apart from each other and they don’t know how to find their way back into the discolored photographs where they hugged and laughed. Did the smiles get lost in the wrinkles or the love get lost in the changing of seasons? Whatever the case, they’re too tired to break out of their circle and now Grandpa and Grandma have contented themselves to waste away the rest of their lives married, but not engaged.

So, circles in our life can be healthy and even natural, like day and night, or the changing of the seasons. But they can also hurt us. Isn’t there a third option? What happened to the old american dream of progression and innovation? what happened to creativity? can we make a circle something that doesn’t loop back on it’s self? can we make a circle into a line?
For example:

My friend Jason wakes up in the Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver, British Columbia and as his feet part the sheets he stops and sinks deep inside himself ignoring the two-week tremors his body shakes with. He feels his soul inside feeling like it’s gasping for air and he makes a conscious decision that today… today he’s not going to relapse. Today he’s getting his life in order.

Or a young black preacher with an eye on the times calls his country to racial equality. He is loved and he is hated. He is praised by some, but by many he is reviled in the worst ways imaginable. Despite the hate mail and the death threats Martin Luther King Jr. sees his path clearly.

On October 25th 1985, I was taken from my mothers womb and placed on orbit that would eventually lead to my death. But how am I going to live while on this orbit? will I live in depression or in hope? will it be in destructive circles? or in healthy circles? Will I live in repetitive apathy? or in progressive linear adventure?