The Pathway to Depth

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us--to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.

"The Buried Life," Matthew Arnold


We rarely heed the call to deepen ourselves, trusting that time, experience and sheer happenstance will lead us to a place of profundity and wisdom. We go about broadening ourselves – admirable, ideal, praise worthy – and so we must. Depth, on the other hand, seem to be an after thought, a foregone conclusion, only because we have already expended too much energy on gaining a wider horizon, that in due time we become a reservoir of astuteness and insight. True. There is a kind of depth that only time and experience can give. A kind of knowing coming from the knowledge of life – after sufficient time pass, one attains some sort of understanding and awareness. For this kind of depth, time and fortitude are the giver.

But without a conscious and deliberate intent to grapple the issues we come across – without critical, insightful meditation, we do not reach a certain kind of depth important too in our quest for what lies buried within us. And so we subject ourselves into a dark night of the soul – of questions, and undaunted look into places we have not dared consider. We find growth and depth in this: in the loving struggle with something that captivates us, in the willing and unflinching autopsy of self. We find ourselves clawing, inch by inch; into a depth that becomes a well-spring of wisdom.

Thus, we do not just go through the motions of activities. We do not just involve ourselves in pursuits, no matter how noble, how grand they are, for the sake of just the pursuit. Continually, we must ask where does this all lead, and what does it mean. We ask the difficult question, and we must be prepared take in the answers to these questions no matter how disturbing, how unlike the easy answers we have been lulled into submission.

Breadth and length without depth leaves a picture much to be desired - two-dimensional, flat, uninteresting. Depth lends a nuance into our beings that connotes a certain truth: we have seen the truth, and we become a well-spring of the eternal.