Roads Inward

Roads Inward

There are many ways to start your journey inward.

Truth be known, I think that sooner or later

pretty much every road leads inward

at some point along the line.

Some open the doors inward through

spirituality, mysticism, or philosophy

and a soul searching longing

to know how life is put together.

Some people begin out of necessity

when they suffer from life changing

events that give them shell shock

and they find the only way to see it through

is to travel the roads deep, deep inside.

Others begin after a very close brush with death

that opens their mind and spreads bare their soul.

Some begin their journey inward through science

when they become interested in anthropology,

sociology, psychology, biology, or even physics.

Most every path in science leads to introspection

if you are honest enough in your objectivity

and you travel far enough down the line.

My journeys begin as a teenager

when a couple of very gifted teachers

introduced me to the world of philosophy,

and to the notion that the knowledge and wisdom

of Man is not confined to one single worldview,

but the roads of truth are broad and many.

Not long after, when I was nineteen

I decided two very important things---

First, I decided that what I most wanted to do in life

was learn as many things as I could no matter where

it might lead me and so I let my natural curiosity

begin to point the way in my life.

Second, I began to call into question

virtually everything I had ever been taught.

As time passed, I realized I'd become a collector

of ideas and differing points of view.

As the years quickly rolled on,

although I didn't realize it at the time,

through happenstance and circumstance,

life was very kind to offer up

just the sort to lessons I needed to learn.
Soon, I discovered that the farther

out into the world that you explore,

the more deeply you also look within

because all human perceptions about

the world around us are viewed through the filters

of the ideas floating around in our heads.

Along the way, after I had a couple very close

brushes with death by wrecking on motorcycles,

my eyes were opened to the notion

that every day is to be cherished, because no one knows

how long they've got on this Earth,

and I learned that it wasn't enough

to merely know lots of things, that knowledge

is never complete until it's been shared with others,

so, I began to write about some of the things I'd learned.

Many years have now gone by and much water

has passed beneath all the bridges I've crossed.

Each day, I still learn a new thing or two,

and I spend much of my time writing about

what I've learned over the long years behind.

I think perhaps among the most important things

I've learned is that you gotta believe in love

before you can believe in most anything else at all.

Dewey Dirks