NOT ALL THOSE WHO WANDER ARE LOST

What can we ever truly understand without experience? Life has taught me many things...good, bad, beautiful, and ugly and I'm rather ambivalent about trying to answer what any of it actually means. I would be much more interested in discovering the method behind the madness. Not why things happen, but how. As much as i want to believe in pure chaos, coincidence, and free will...my actual experiences would have me believe in something else. Not a god, not a conscious puppeteer, definitely not predetermined fate, but that space and time is being woven in a certain direction based on every single thing you do or don't do. That each choice you make alters your destiny and your life is an infinite spider diagram of destinies to choose from. I've always felt a certain magical quality about when things happen, or when opportunities arise, like you are sending out a beacon of energy into the universe and it is responded to at just at the right time for you to accept it. Maybe part of the magic is being aware enough to recognize such things. But moments like that leave me in absolute awe of how beautiful and enchanting life is.

So i was at some really lame bar the other night and in mid conversation that I had no investment in, I see this guy out of the corner of my eye wearing a tshirt with a terrible clipart graphic of a shoe on it and it said "Not all those who wander are lost".  I was a little mesmorized, completely lost where i was or who i was talking to, and smiled. I couldn't place the quote but i knew that i had heard it before. It was just weird, like in that moment I felt that i was meant to read that and that something so slight, so seemingly insignificant, and so easily overlooked had affected my mood for the rest of the night...and still thinking about it. I could rant about all that this quote made me think about then, but it all kind of ties into the same philosophies behind following your heart and believing that it will lead you someplace worth being.

Having finally looked it up, very pleasantly reminded that it's from Lord of the Rings :-)

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

 

So inspired, it will now live forever on my arm: