Vulnerability is the essence of your presence in this world.
You will not live forever. You forget that time is your most precious resource. You live as though the day is disposable. You wait until all those false contingencies are resolved. You inhabit a life that is not your own. You worry that time is passing you by.
Now, in the midst of a pandemic, you feel the sharp edge of your vulnerability. Your body is the potential setting for a dispassionate colonization by an infectious disease. Fear cuts deep pathways into your heart. Your courage is being scraped away. And your mind scurries about in the chaotic tension that is the latest news of the day.
Is this what it feels like to be colonized by invaders lacking the wisdom to respect and value your way of life?
We are social creatures. The feeling of belonging, relationship, and community are vital to wellbeing. But now separation has become your ally. You must distance yourself. Wear a mask. Stay at home. Isolate. You may avoid the infection, but you cannot avoid the trauma. You are vulnerable.
Know this. You are not separate from that infallible energy that ensures your impermanence. You are not the master of nature. You have been given no special status on Earth.
The purpose of a virus is to survive. It has no awareness of race, gender, age, lifestyle, borders, nations, wealth, or power. Like human colonists, they have no respect for culture, tradition, or lifestyle. Unlike human beings, viruses do not care about material gain. You cannot bargain with them. They are completely indifferent to you.
What should you do now that you feel hunted?
The cracked dry earth of your vulnerability must become a faculty for understanding. When you are victimized by uncertainty, do not desire a return to normal. When you are pleading with your insecurities, do not deny the reality in front of you and pretend to live as if nothing has changed. When you are silenced by your anxieties, do not allow your creativity and imagination go into hiding.
First, release your fragile illusion of entitlement. You have already received it. You are here. This is your life. There is nothing more owed to you.
Second, liberate yourself from years of conditioning that have hijacked your identity. You have been assimilated into a fiction not of your own making. Discern your own beliefs through experience and discard the rest. Reclaim your life as your own.
Finally, venture inward into the depths of your vulnerability that you have avoided for so long. This is where you will find the other self that has been waiting all this time. This is how you will finally come home and recognize yourself for the first time.
Inside your vulnerability is wisdom.