I recall once in Hyde Park the center for all nutcases to have a chance to pretend they are intellectuals
By zevi770 · March 7, 2012
A guy was walking backwards in circles, so I asked him,
“what’s the point?” “well we are all going backwards. You leave your home, you go to work, you come back and you do it again tomorrow.”
O.k. the man has a point, we are going in circles.
In fact, time itself is circular.
The rotation of the earth is a day, the rotation of the sun around the earth is a year, the lunar month of course is earth seeing the waxing and waning of the moon as it rotates around us.
The man has a point, we are going in circles.
But is going in circles so bad?
Obviously if you are going backwards!
But what if?
Yes what if!
Every circle led you forwards!
You see, a straight line is not necessarily any different from a circle, if you have no change.
While in a circle – in fact the very word for change in Hebrew is time – you can have not a circle which is a straight line, namely the same repetitions like groundhog day, rather a new reality.
Each and every moment can be a new perceptive!
Now how cool would that be!
Every moment a new insight!
Every moment a new perceptive!
Every moment you are reborn!
One of the critical beliefs of Jewish mysticism is in fact the going-forward-circle.
The Baal Shem Tov explains this by the parable of a circular staircase.
You see he explains, as you begin to go up you actually need to turn away from the direction that you are going – unlike a straight staircase – however, however, however; the fact is, though you are turning away from your direction, at the same time you are going in the right direction, for the next moment, poof, you are magically once again in front – in the direction when you ascend onto the loft, where the circular staircase took you.
Similarly, this world is a circular, time based reality.
To see life as a straight line is to of course get depressed.
But to realize that the ups and downs of life are not pointless circles – we are not going backwards – rather like in the circular staircase we are always moving forward.
Yes at times we lose sight of our destination, but isn’t that the point of a circle, for if you are always going in a strait line your destination can never change