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A few minutes ago I had a moment of understanding so deep, so amazing, that I had to stop right now and record it so I don’t forget.
I’m in a Starbucks in Hood River, Oregon. I was waiting for my order: a pumpkin scone and a Grande Vanilla Latte. I was watching people in line, baristas, everything. Just looking around while I waited.
And then, it was like I saw the whole universe, and all of time and history, in a flash.
All of these people, going to work, or already working. And I realized that every movement, every moment, every action, every inaction, is equally important. Equally important!
Look at that guy, there, wearing the orange construction worker’s vest. Putting the vest on is as important as operating the heavy equipment. The act of getting it out of the closet. Turning the key in the ignition to drive to Starbucks. You can’t work if you don’t eat, so the breakfast at Starbucks is as important as putting the vest on.
All of the people, doing a thousand different little things, but all of it is essential to those things we mistakenly single out as essential. Every person has to fill all twenty-four hours of every day. Nothing you or I do exists outside the context of all the other things we do. And I can’t get my latte if that barista -all of those baristas, really — don’t do their jobs, which depend on everything they do in their twenty-four hours every day.
Everything on the planet, and indeed in the universe, is connected, interrelated, interdependent. All of it is essential to the existence and place and circumstance of everything else.
What you do creates the future. Everything you choose to do, or not do, creates the future.
[Excerpt from my journal, 19 October, 2019]