Computers with their networks of streaming information arriving from everywhere take in packets of bytes, and sometimes they buffer because of traffic in their lines of supply, but usually, the experience is almost seamless. However, at times, the buffering becomes a period of waiting for we humans. In reality, all we perceive on screens is a translation of a series of ones and zeroes into creative forms we understand.

A human being taught language from birth and reading, writing, the arts soon after, may gather information from the distant past, created by persons long deceased, but not indeed expired because their thoughts, ideas, individual creativity live as words or images captured in forms brought into the future, our present.

These interpretations of being are unknown to us until we encounter them and ingest them as packets we find useful. As they sit waiting outside our experience, they buffer in time. They are extant, valid, and exert influence, but until we discover them and peruse their content, we are unaware of their gifts. We do not know the minds who built our present. We, nonetheless, are unacknowledged beneficiaries of the contributions to the intellectual universe we have inherited.

Our processes of thought, creativity, intelligence, faith are not merely our own but are buttressed by everyone who has voiced and recorded some personal understanding throughout history. Our world, our society, our very being cries out for us to learn the lessons of those who bequeathed the lives we live through the exploration, exhortation, creations they left behind.

Books, paintings, photographs, recordings, movies, architecture, monuments, anything created has lessons to teach us if we take time to decipher the message. These things we who are conscious must protect from the ravages of those who would destroy bits of the past’s treasure because it does not conform to their worldview or the fashion of the moment. Freedom of expression is a right for all and everyone, including those who lived before us, and in essence, created our culture and our present.

We do not live as islands, we are immersed in the flow of history. We are free to dip into the stream when and where we like, but what lies in the buffer zone also has a presence and exerts pressure on our now that we may not discern, but is no less real.

If you wish to “live forever,” create something. If you only choose to journal, to doodle, do that. Create a legacy, leave a history. Leave a record of who you are and what you have learned. Your experience may be what someone needs to witness in order to become who they are meant to be. We do not intuit the specific reasons for our being, but we learn, love, give, create and so we leave thumbprints on the walls of time. We are and we matter, there is meaning and purpose in our lives.

Nothing is wasted. God in His wisdom does not make mistakes. No matter where you have been, are, or in the future go, your life is a rare and beautiful thing. It is no accident you are here, all eternity conspires to bring forth your offering to the world.

Tell the doubts, fears, negativity there is no place for them to shelter within you. Do what you must even as you fight to be courageous. You have the lives of millions supporting you, and you may touch millions along your journey, even after you are gone. Create a memory that will last through ages, and spend love as if your supply is unlimited because, in truth, it is.

The light reflected
In your eyes from other stars
Shines forevermore.

To know oneself well
Reading and writing are musts;
Outlining the soul.

Purpose to become
The person your heart reveals
When falling in love.

Owe the world nothing
But give others all you are,
Let love be your guide.

Hide nothing so real
You fear it may become lost
In its translation.

When tomorrow dies
Abandoned by the dreamers
Hope will still survive.

Weak, broken, and torn,
The pages of your story
Will yet be written;
For isolated moments
Do not the ending portend.

An accident, no,
I believe there is reason,
Even little things
Have significant meaning,
God guides every action, word.

As a prompt, delve into the work of the past and see what it may teach you, then express what you have learned in word or image.

Thank you for visiting Haphazard Creative. If you have found something, you enjoyed, please share with others, follow, and come back again soon. Blessings on you and all you set your mind to do. Create, love, be present, make your moments memorable. You have so much to give and share, never doubt you are precious and significant.

© Jo Ann J. A. Jordan