The seasons, the revolution of heavenly bodies, the water cycle, circadian rhythms, the endless chain of births and deaths, the structure of the atom, reality is made of circles.

Some are obvious and some are set to time frames that differ significantly from our lifespan, which makes them difficult to see.

If you look at life from a distance, you are going to notice things repeating. Older people have the field advantage here, because they had a slightly longer running time for this experiment called life.

Reality is stingy with its resources, it doesn’t like to waste energy (which gets recycled anyway, as you recall), so, when it finds a working structure it repeats it forever. Speaking of the Big Bang and the heat death of the universe, neither of which benefit from a before or an after, respectively, in the eyes of science. I’m going to go out on a limb here.

Endless Cycles

Things are fated to run in circles: you start something, you do it, you end it, and then you start it again. Look, it’s summer number forty-five, it’s Christmas number seventy-two, it’s sunset number eighteen thousand nine hundred and four.

You’d think we’d be annoyed by the endless repetition of events, but we are not, we revel in anticipating it, the sense of familiarity we derive from it gives as confidence and makes us feel safe: we too run in circles and the recognition thereof makes us at ease in the world.

Variations on a Theme

We don’t get bored, probably because the circles have minor variations, no two are ever the same, and that slight difference, the surprise, together with our familiarity with the theme, makes us eager to experience them again.

Repetition Equals Stability

We record the number of repetitions proudly; they make us feel accomplished and wise, and they are ever more precious to us as our own cycle unfolds, like rare artifacts the kind you say they don’t make anymore, while in the back of the shop new batches of those rare artifacts are being produced as you speak.

There is no end to energy and reality has all the time in the world, endless time; it never needs to rush, and it never runs out of resources. Everything it will ever need is available and everything it will ever create is of itself.

We often mistake its drive for efficiency and its occasional fluctuations for lack, and forget that the end of a cycle always brings about the beginning of a new one.

Coordinate Systems

These cycles provide us with a system of reference; they help us orient ourselves and are part of the larger map of reality we slowly put together over the course of our own cycles – our lives.

They help us remember things have a beginning, a middle and an end, and when that end comes, there is a new beginning, just like the old one, but slightly different.

They help us realize anomalies are natural occurrences in these cycles, which can be assigned a probability, and which we can anticipate, just like we do the hundred year flood, or the latest snow on record.

They help us accept we can never wade in the same river water again, but that what flows around us right now is water just the same.

The circle of night and day became personified, and, as it is the case with everything there is, its symbols were assigned genders.

The circle of the seasons became the ages of a goddess.

The circle of life became the wheel of life and death.

We celebrate meaningful moments in this round year we live forever, we landmark its times, for harvest, for planting, for breaking things down and for building them back up, and we rejoice in the knowing there is always a beginning.

As we grow older, we start appreciating the subtleties of this endless repetition.

We stop skipping through the boring parts to get to the good stuff and understand there are no boring parts, everything is an extraordinary display of order and directed potential if you take the time to really see it.

There is an entire world of processes in motion in every mundane detail.

We belong.

In conclusion, what are the points worth remembering?

1. There is no such thing as scarcity, existence can’t, by definition, run out of itself.
2. Reality runs on infinite time.
3. All energy is recyclable energy.
4. Every end brings a new beginning. Everything running in the present will end, eventually. Nothing ever stands still and all processes in motion are at specific stations in the cycle which can be assessed.
5. Our own life cycles intermingle with the ones that surround us in the fashion of wave interference: some influences are constructive, some influences are destructive. Ride the wave, so to speak. This is the meaning of being in harmony, or in balance, with the universe.
6. Some circles are so large we mistake them for straight lines.
7. Our experience of time is subjective: the older we are the more we put things in perspective and the faster and rounder lines get.