The ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone, and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence o… - David Whyte

We name mostly in order to control but what is worth loving does not want to be held within the bounds of too narrow a calling. In many ways love has already named us before we can even begin to speak back to it, before we can utter the right words or understand what has happened to us or is continuing to happen to us: an invitation to the most difficult art of all, to love without naming at all.

In some ways Coleridge committed a form of artistic suicide attempting to solve the complicated mystery he saw in the flocking starlings. In a harrowing self-indictment he later described himself as a 'starling self-encaged, & always in the moult, & my whole note is, tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow.' Slowly losing confidence in himself as a poet, he attempted to become an all-knowing philosopher-king. He ignored the simpler images central to his life as a poet and attempted to create an equally complex system of philosophy that would hold it all in place. He eventually produced the Biographia Literaria, an immense tome, impressive in learning, thought and scholarship, but in my heretical opinion as an unrepentant lyric poet, a tragedy of wasted effort and a loss to all of us compared to the vital geniums of his early poetry.

This happens in a parallel fashion to many skilled managers who convince themselves that the organization's vision is their own vision. They suddenly find themselves in positions that are seen as rewards for rather than consummations of their skill; their natural abilities may not translate into the job they have been promoted to, nor may their interest, but because of the pressure of the career path, they may convince themselves into a phantom life under an overarching system that includes everything except their own desires.

The great measure of human maturation is the increasing understanding that we move through life in the blink of an eye; that we are not long with the privilege of having eyes to see, ears to hear, a voice with which to speak and arms to put round a loved one; that we are simply passing through.