An Accumulation of Consequences

Consequences abound in life, and I am reaping my fair share these days. I am sure that this has always been true, but in these times when I am making so many different and new choices, the pace of change has been unsettling at times.

The consequences align directly with my choices. It can be no other way. And yet when the consequences are not exactly what I want at the moment, when they are inconvenient, I find myself looking over my shoulder to see if there is someone else that is responsible. In more recent times, I am catching myself doing so, and have to acknowledge my folly.

In the movie “Searching for Sugarman”, Sixto Rodriguez is asked how he feels about the lack of success in his early musical career and he responds so beautifully “nothing beats reality”. A North American Buddha if there ever was one. His power is in his surrender, acceptance and eloquence. A grand lesson in three words.

Rodriguez reminds me that my reality is my story. And my story is my life. It is an accumulation of consequences. The resulting rhythm is me, Tom Kerr.

I did not really understand properly the connection between choice and consequence for a very long time. My access to such basic awareness was damaged at a young age, when I was betrayed so deeply that healthy biological responses to life’s situations were unavailable to me. For many, many decades. Yes, decades.

The choices made by other men authored consequences in my life, as well as in theirs. The results include some very poor decisions by me, and I can and will continue to make the connection between their choices and mine. This cannot be denied. And yet, I have found no strength in looking over my shoulder to see if there is someone else responsible. By turning to look back, I would be taking my eyes off the road, disconnecting myself from the newly found source of strength I never lost, but had never known either. Unexplainably, my life-force was directed “forward”.

Maybe an unexpected result of coming to my memories so late in life is that the choices of revenge and anger were no longer available to me. If this is true, then I find myself grateful for such a consequence.