If the universe is full of infinite possibilities, does that mean we are infinitely possible too? I’d like to think so, but it doesn’t seem feasible. We seem to be bounded by our genetics, the way our brains are wired, our very thoughts. Can we go beyond such constraints to something else?
Working within natural laws, we can change ourselves to a certain extent. We can get a new job. We can move to a different location. We can divorce or remarry. We can become thinner, fitter, stronger, more serene. We can even look and feel younger, but we cannot actually be younger. Nor can we be anything but what we are — whatever that is. I suppose it’s a good thing our basic nature doesn’t change. It would make life intolerable if every 
morning when we woke up we discovered we were something different — a butterfly or a dragon, a flower or a star.
Still, in a universe full of possibilities, there has to be more possibilities than we see or even fathom. But how does one find (or create) these possibilities? I realize that wanting to be something other than ourselves is wasting who we are, but still, there has to be a way of becoming more of what we are, of reaching a greater potential.
I have such a desire to be “other,” though I don’t have any clear concept of what that means. Wiser, of course, and more in tune with the universe. Transcendent, maybe. Able to sense that which I cannot now see.
At the very least, I’d like to be able to just go along for the ride, see where life takes me without worry or fear. But even such a small transcendence seems improbable — I’m a worrier (thinker!) by nature and genetics, and fear is not just a mental state but physical reaction, a body response to danger, and we are such physical creatures. And anyway, aren’t worry and fear part of the experience of life, just as grief is?
Maybe there is more life on the horizon for me than I can now see, and all this cogitation is but a way of occupying myself until that life arrives. Or maybe the cogitation will help get me there by opening up my mind and soul to more, like a flower opening to the sun.
I’ve never been a greedy person — never really wanted much, especially not things — but now I see there is growing.
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
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