Epilogue

Epilogue. TREK'S END?

Now nearly sixty years old, I have reached that stage where
I am starting to muse over my life. Mine, probably like anyone's,
has been a long trek. I have been probing my feelings about
my choices, what I have done, what may I have accomplished,
and always that re-occurring question: what's next?

For the most part, I have considered my life in terms of my
"Seeding" hypothesis. For me seeds are symbolic of
*information.* The seeds that make the plants, the trees,
and us humans grow are informative. They determine how
we and all the other inhabitants of Creation should unfold.

I purposefully inserted the word "should," however, because
it's clear that often we created beings do *not* unfold
successfully. Again, there's those variables that can prevent
our becoming who we should be. They can range from
impoverishment to lack of awareness to plain stubbornness!
The lucky ones are those who managed, somehow, to follow
their inner daemon.

Thus far Fortune has attended me. Looking back, I feel positive
about my life. I followed my inner daemon and have no regrets.

Using a tree as an analogy, I am inclined to think of my soul as
the trunk--and, in this life, I have sprouted at least two branches:
one the Praetorian, the other the Philosopher. Seeming perhaps
an odd combination, I can only say that the seeds in my soul
determined me to develop these two major characteristics.

As for "what's next," well I am not a fortune teller. I'll continue to
pay attention to my inner daemon, read carefully those events
come my way in that they may point to yet another direction.
Maybe I am now just to be a man of leisure. If so, no apologies.
I will accept with gratitude even that.

Occasionally, too, I wonder about a future life. Yes, I am prone
towards believing in an ever occurring cycle of new lifetimes.
Perhaps not quite Stoic, in that mainstream philosophers of
Stoicism developed the idea of "eternal reoccurrence." They
were thinking that somehow, at given periods, the whole world
would recycle and return to the exact way that it had unfolded
before, *ad infinitum.*

But I am more prone towards the transmigration of the soul,
reincarnation if you will. Plato believed in reincarnation, as
expounded in his "Phado." And Pythagoras said that he could
remember some of his past lives. So I am not totally alone in
my opinion.

I'm inclined to believe that our soul--that analogous tree--resides
in the Universal Mind, taking leave, returning, ever growing new
branches, until it has reached a magnificent completion! This
opinion of mine gives me a meaningful sense of purpose--and
openness! There's also a "duty" involved, I believe. We must
come to understand our connection with the Logos, with the
Pneuma, in terms of the importance placed upon our lives.

As the Stoics say over and over, "we are as a microcosm to the
Macrocosm."