On becoming the ocean
To go back is impossible in existence
Fear
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
-Kahlil Gibran
”Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence”:
This sounds, at first, like such a forbidding statement. It speaks of closed doors, and finality.
But I find this idea so comforting, because without it, we feel that we should at least try to go back to all the good people and situations that lived and happened in the past. We experience a kind of magical thinking: if only I protest loudly or compellingly enough about this change, about this farewell, if only I make the right call, if only I travel to the right destination, if only I perform the correct ablutions: then things can be as they once were. We know rationally that we can’t go back, but we feel as if, if only we worked at it hard enough, we could.
And all this trying, and the futility of it, is so much more painful than the letting go itself.
It also stops us from becoming the ocean.
What do you think? What has your life experience been?
I think for a long time I’ve been trying to go back – back to people, back to relationships, back to versions of myself that no longer exist. I’ve often thought that if I just explained myself better, tried harder, loved more, fixed things, or made the right decision, I could somehow get back to the way things were.
Reading this made me realise that maybe that’s where so much of my suffering comes from.
The line, “Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence,” felt both heartbreaking and strangely comforting. It reminded me that no amount of effort can undo grief, change people into who we needed them to be, or return us to who we once were.
I think I’ve been standing at the edge of the ocean for a while now, terrified of what happens if I stop fighting the current. Terrified of letting go of identities, relationships, expectations and old versions of myself. It has felt like stepping into the unknown would mean disappearing.
But this reframed it for me.
Maybe it isn’t about disappearing at all. Maybe it’s about becoming something larger because of everything we’ve been through.
I can’t go back to the person I was before loss, heartbreak, diagnoses, relapse, or disappointment. But perhaps I don’t need to. Perhaps the task isn’t to become who I was, but to become who I am now – someone a little wiser, softer, more accepting of my own nature, and more willing to build a life that actually fits.
The river can’t go back upstream.
But maybe the ocean isn’t something to fear.
Maybe it’s where we finally become ourselves.
I do reflect on my past from time to time. Among the thoughts are both joy and regret. Yes I do regret some things. And by regret, I don’t mean I regret where I’ve ended up. The moments I remember with regret are moments, and relationships where I just didn’t muster enough courage to take a chance. What I regret isn’t the life I have now, but the past life I might have lived. And I don’t “suffer” within this regret, I kind of stand above my past self and look at him and say, “yeah, sorry, but I know it was hard for you, and you did the best you could”. As for death, I guess I kind of play a mind game, but it is more real than a game. I remind myself that many people die young, and I’ve already enjoyed living well beyond that point, and I tell myself I could have passed yesterday, and then I see the day before me as the immeasurable gift it is.