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Activated Thinker

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The Invisible Thread

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Beyond the Reach of the Senses

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There was a question that lingered in her mind.

Why should we need to see something to believe that it exists?

We cannot see love, pain, or suffering, yet we recognize their existence. We cannot touch a memory, place a feeling on a table, or give shape to what moves through us. And yet, we know that all these things are part of who we are.

She began to wonder whether we had become accustomed to recognizing only what our senses could reach.

But is existence limited to what we can perceive?

Faced with this question, she returned to what distinguishes a living body from a dead one. The appearance remains the same, but something no longer responds.

What was no longer there?

And what if that which we cannot see continued to exist?

The question seemed simple, but she had no personal experience on which to base an answer.

No matter how hard she tried, she could not establish a connection between what she felt and anything she had ever seen or experienced.

She smiled at the paradox.

It was probably something entirely new.

But her mind could not find the answers on its own.

She searched through everything she had ever seen or learned. Yet no image seemed to correspond to what she intuitively sensed.

She imagined a small seed of light, to which every human being might be compared, each carrying within themselves imprints whose depth and complexity exceeded their own capacity to recognize them.

She could see no sense in accepting that an existence could begin from nothing.

After all, her body was made up of elements that could be traced back to the formation of the Earth and the universe itself: iron, calcium, magnesium, and many others. It was part of an ongoing chain of transformations that had begun long before her arrival on this planet.

There was also what each person seemed to carry from the very beginning: perceptions, aptitudes, and innate talents whose origins were not always easy to explain.

Added to these were encounters, feelings, choices, discoveries, losses, and changes of direction. There were deep connections she could only feel, without understanding them. Some memories remained vivid. Others seemed hidden beneath a thick veil that rarely grew any thinner.

Certain experiences could no longer be recalled, although perhaps they remained dormant, somehow contributing to the person she had become.

How many things might be held within our seed without our knowing how to recognize them?

Who knows? Perhaps our existence was greater than our ability to remember it.

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She was fascinated by the possibility.

But something still puzzled her.

If every human being could be compared to a seed, what would happen when its shell fell apart?

She returned to the image she had created. A seed had an outer covering, but what it held within went far beyond that exterior.

But what about that which was not the shell?

That was when a thread of light began to emerge.

An invisible thread connecting the shell to the essence. It could not be seen, touched, or detected by the senses, yet it maintained that link beyond physical form.

This essence would not be subject to the ravages of time. It would not belong to the material realm. It would be timeless. It would simply exist, like a feeling or an idea that seems to travel across galaxies, with no permanent home.

Her perception took her even further.

She envisioned an immense cosmic aquarium. Within it were the Sun, the Moon, stars, human beings, plants, animals, objects… The aquarium represented the Whole. Nothing existed outside it.

The water filled the spaces between all these elements. She realized that the universe was this totality, which our senses could not encompass, even though we were entirely immersed in it.

There was no empty space.

She imagined countless seeds, each with its own essence, its own invisible thread, and its own unique journey. All of them, however, were immersed in the same water in the aquarium.

They were connected not because they were alike, but because they shared what surrounded them.

Perhaps the distance between them was merely a condition of what we are able to perceive. Their connection did not depend on proximity, nor did it need to be visible in order to exist. It was inherent in the very substance that surrounded them.

She began to understand that individuality did not mean separation. Whatever happened to some of the seeds could alter the conditions of that environment and, in turn, affect the others.

If a significant number of the seeds became ill, would the water itself not be affected as well? And would that change not reach all the others?

Then she began to realize that what so often unsettled human beings without offering them answers might arise precisely because they lacked points of reference against which to make comparisons.

If there was no experience, there could be no concept.

Mystery might simply be the absence of an experience capable of giving it shape.

Mystery is everything that has not yet been discovered.

She could not see or explain everything. But she could feel. And that was enough.

She looked within herself and thought about how much she still did not know about her own story.

Who knows? Perhaps she was far more than she could remember, far more than her senses could reach, and far more than the form she took at that very moment.

The invisible thread did not need to be seen in order to endure.

And now that she had considered looking beyond what she believed, she was able to conceive of its existence.

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Rosana Elizabet Schumaher
Rosana Elizabet Schumaher

Written by Rosana Elizabet Schumaher

I am Brazilian. Although English is not my native language, my words seek to touch the universal, because feelings belong to all of us.

Activated Thinker
Activated Thinker

Published in Activated Thinker

You have the thought, but you need to turn it on.