Aggregate Will

It is common for us humans

Who are told to think and act as singular beings

To perceive ourselves as such

Will is described as a singular action

A singular desire, and a singular motivation

Yet this analysis cloaks the truth

Few if any of us ever wish for only one thing at any given time

No, instead we have many wills

Which exist simultaneously in an ecosystem of their own imagination

Preying upon, and sustaining each other

When someone who we love is dying

We do not wish singularly, for them to live

We wish for them to die as well

If for nothing else, but to discover what this would mean for us

And what possibilities would be engendered by their departure

When we are staring down from a high place

Terrified of the fall below

We do not wish only to remain alive

With breath coursing through our bodies

Our will is also to fall, deep, and rapidly into the abyss

To taste just how sweet death's polished lips could be

When we are seconds away from accomplishing that

Which we always dreamed of notching under our belts

We do not wish only to accomplish this thing

Which always felt impossible

Our will is also, that we should fail

So that we need not come face to face

With everything we have deemed out of reach already

So that we need not be reminded

Of everything we have hidden from ourselves

Beneath the thin mirage of impossibility

None of us possess only one will

Just as none of us possess only one spark of life

Amidst our gut life is given and taken every day

The millions of bacteria which sustain our every breath

Are no less a part of us than the millions of cells which make up our lungs

Our hearts, our bones, and our complex brains

Each of these cells are themselves individuals

And yet their individuality does not stifle our own

Just as our individuality does nothing to impede the singularity of god

This paradox of the one and the many

Is a fundamental law of the universe

Why should our amorphous minds be any different?

Each of these different wills

Which exist amidst ourselves

Is evidence of the disparate entities which gave rise to our coalesce

Some call these entities flesh and blood

Some call them DNA and RNA, microbe and animal cell

Others still refer to them as deities

Who personify the various properties of our universe

The myriad elements of creation

Earth, water, fire, air

Others still refer to them as concepts

Individual expressions of greater bodies

Whose will is personified by the changing shapes of human bodies

Desire, love, fear, rage, sadness, envy, purity

In truth there is no need to separate these things

No need to attempt one's usurpation of another

Like our inexorable universe

Each of them is incessantly intertwined

And has been since the day of creation

And has been since the end of times

Time as well, is only a mirage

It exists, as concrete as the light which bounces from imposing buildings

And yet does light truly still exist

When one closes their eyes?

Are the inflections of sight imperative upon the perception of the blind?

Or the dialects of sound upon the deaf?

They are important only in relation

Just like anything else

Time is a field we move through constantly

And yet its reference points are only useful

To those who see through one's own dimension of time

Just as sight is only essential and translatable

To those mired in one's own perception of the senses

You are not a single being

You never have been, you will never be

You are a million of them

Possessed by a million different wills

A million different desires, loves, fears, and memories

Your ancestors speak through you

Just as you are the conduit

Through which your descendants speak to them

You have never desired only one thing

And you never will

So forgive yourself

Forgive yourself for all those desires you can't explain

All of those fears which appear irrational

When one is lacking true rationality

Forgive yourself for all the loves

Which you would never question

And yet you doubt nonetheless

You are whole amidst your brokenness

You are one, because you are so disparate

Love yourself myriad being

And love every possibility which exists within your soul

This moment you wish to escape

Was engineered just for you

This life you wish to ascend from

Is the result

Of thirteen billion years

Of ceaseless ascension

There is a holy place

Beneath the tree of life

Too high amidst the heavens

To be shadowed by doubt's midnight wings

Come and find me there

In that place I wait for you