A Slice of Pi
By Lisa Shield. Posted on .
Do you ever feel like you’re stranded on a raft in the middle of your life waiting for someone to come along and save you? Don’t worry. You’re not alone. Ok. Maybe you are alone on your raft, but there are lots of other people floating around on rafts waiting to be rescued just like you. Take that kid in “The Life of Pi.” He was floating around out there for over 220 days. That must have been horrible, but it made a good movie and even better book. Check it out.
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Pi was out there on that raft, but he wasn’t alone, and neither are you. He was fighting off his demons. His demons took the form of a Bengal tiger. What form have your demons taken—are they in the shape of your high school sweetheart who cheated on you, your father who abandoned you when you were three, or your mother who was an emotionally unavailable alcoholic? If you look closely, you will find them all there on the raft with you. See. You’re not alone.
The thing is that no one rescued Pi and no one is going to rescue you. People might want to rescue you. They might even try, but they can’t. They can’t save you because no one knows what you need but you. You can try to find other people and things to fill the hole. We all do it. We try to fill it with food and drugs and sex and love and shopping—shopping is my personal favorite—but it never works. The hole doesn’t get filled because it’s a bottomless pit. Gosh! Talk about uplifting blog posts! I, myself, cannot wait to see where this one is going!
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Hummmmmm. Let’s see. So, the harder you try to find someone to save you, the more you push away the very thing you’re trying to get. No one can ever rescue you from your own life. It is impossible. Even if you find a person to give you what you want, it won’t make you feel better. Trust me. The hold won’t get filled.
So what does fill the hole? Love. Why? Because “love is the answer to everything.” Ray Bradbury said that. Thanks, Ray. The whole quote goes like this: “Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything. If you don't write stories you love, you'll never make it. If you don't write stories that other people love, you'll never make it.”
So, my advice is this: you are writing the story of your life. If you want to write a really bad story about being stranded on a raft in the middle of your life forever, go ahead a write it. But I don’t think you are going to love that story and I’m not sure anyone else will, either. Besides, Yann Martel already wrote Life of Pi. It’s been done. If you want to write a really good story about how you faced your demons, overcame tragedy, and learned to love yourself and your life, I bet lots of people will want to hear that story! I know I would.
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