Shireroth

Water... one of the simplest of compounds, and yet one of the most (if not THE most important) in our world. And in most places, reassuringly abundant. Water is everywhere, in many forms. As a liquid water surrounds the continents and fills the seas, and rains down from the sky; as a vapor it constitutes part of the air we breathe; as a solid, it may cover the ground as snow or ice, or drift in the air to form clouds.

And water is in us, in every cell in our bodies, and in every other body. Living things need it, in a way that they need few other things; some require oxygen where others do not, and some take sustenance from sunlight, some extract it from chemicals and heat, and some consume other living things. Some will die in the slightest warmth, and others will shrivel in the most insignificant chill. But water is universal. All but a few require large amounts of it every day, and those that can survive without often do so only by the barest of margins, waiting for the rare day of moisture.

But aside from its more general physical importance to living things, water (like many other things, when one bothers to observe them) can also hold truths about life. As one who has delighted in water the most out of the four ancient elements, I will attempt in this thread to express the lessons I learn, as I learn them.

*walks in, takes a seat, and listens intently*

*whispers to self* maybe this will distract from the fact I havent performed a service in so long.

Quit talking to yourself. It makes you look crazy. :P

Observe the branching of the rivers as they make their way toward the sea. What ends as a great and mighty river begins as myriad streams and rivulets, some mere trickles until they join together and become mightier.

Observe this, and ponder its meaning. For all things are thus: any event, or any object (an object being, in the end, a an ongoing collection of events), has its beginning not in one cause, or in one process, but in many. From the movements of atoms to the direction of the breeze on a spring day, from the building of a new house to the destruction of a civilization... from the simplest to the greatest, see the causes of a thing as they extend backward in time in an ever-growing network of processes pooling together.

When you look at a problem, do you look also at its beginnings? Can you peer through the mists of past events to see the joining of the streams that led to such a river?

When you look at yourself and the world, and cry out: "who am I, and why am I here?", do you look back to see what has come before you, the streams of heritage, of blood and mind and spirit?

To understand the present, it is not enough to observe the present. You must know where you have come from. Trace the streams backward to their beginnings.

But do not neglect to see forward, as well... the joinings yet to come, and the views of the mighty river that leads to the endless, shining sea.