Greenlights

by Matthew McConaughey

And while I was going crazy, I kept telling myself that there was a lesson I was put there to learn, that there was a silver lining in all of it, that I needed to go through hell to get to the other side, and I did. We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows. We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing. It’s better to jump than fall. And here I am.

Noise-to-signal ratio. We are more constantly bombarded by unnatural stimuli than ever before. We need to put ourselves in places of decreased sensory input so we can hear the background signals of our psychological processes. As the noise decreases, the signals become clearer, we can hear ourselves again, and we reunite. Time alone simplifies the heart. Memory catches up, opinions form. We meet truth again, and it teaches us, landing on stable feet between our reaching out and retreat, letting us know we are not lonely in our state, just alone. Because our unconscious mind now has room to reveal itself, we see it again. It dreams, perceives, and thinks in pictures, which we now can observe. In this solitude, we then begin to think in pictures, and actualize what we see.

It’s hard to find constants, natural laws, universal truths in life, but when we have kids, there is no intellectual discussion or philosophy as to how or how much to love, protect, and guide them, it’s an instinctual commitment, an immediate, infinite, and ever-growing responsibility. A privilege. A greenlight.