Circle, Part 1

The theme for today is "The Circle"

"Think outside the box"
is now a familiar idiom.

What's outside the box?
More boxes, nested like a Chinese doll?

And what IS this box, ultimately?
Is it something to escape from or "transcend"?
Is it where we live?
Or is it I / me / we / us?

Gurdjieff had a story about people
who had been hypnotized to think that they could not pass beyond
a circle that had been drawn in the sand around them.

Joseph Pearce used the metaphor of a "Cosmic Egg"
that had a crack in it.
The Egg may have been culture,
and it may have been an individual's ideas and assumptions.

The metaphor of the egg
is metaphysical and hopeful
within it is the idea that we are like a baby bird
that is about to be born
and soon will learn to fly.

The philosopher Kierkegaard cautioned against the idea
of escaping from the circle of self
(at least by philosophical means):

Kierkegaard held that most philosophical speculation is based on the fantasy that philosophers are privileged to contemplate existence from some absolute, perspectiveless perspective. He believed not only that one could not step outside oneself but also that the attempt to adopt such a disinterested posture toward life was both a contortion and self-destructive.

In a science fiction movie
people wanted to drive out of a town
but when they got to the outskirts
the roads somehow always looped around
and they found themselves turned back towards the center again.

The lyrics to a song by Leonard Cohen
expresses this sense of things
without calling it a container or box:

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

The question has a lot of mythological power
hopes and fears,
wishes and dreams wrapped up in it.

So let's be kind to this question.
And be kind to ourselves.

Accepting, playing,
relaxing the hard edges
and the hard-to-see edges.

If we call it different names
and use different metaphors
we feel differently towards it.

Is it a container?
Is where I live?
Who I am?

How do you, personally, experience this circle / box / egg?
Is it more, or less, present to your awareness
at different times?

We may discover
there are many possible answers
amazingly different.

How do you relate to it, with it, in it?
What is it like today,
right now?