I love how I feel after swimming. I feel for the moment that I’m no longer catching up, that inner time and outer time are moving at the same speed and my breath is what connects them. The way I describe this sensation is to say I feel thorough. The word thorough means complete in all respects. When I feel thorough, it is an indication that my life is in sync, however briefly, with life itself. Not surprisingly, I think and see with added clarity during these moods of completeness. Whether it is exercise that flushes out the circulatory system, or meditation that flushes out the clogged up thought system, or honest conversation that flushes out the buildup that aggregates in the heart, it is this sensation of thoroughness we’re after. It’s what dance and song and pure music do for our vitality; they flush out numbness and enervation. These are all powerful ways to clear our pipes.
It’s interesting to note that being thorough means investing extraordinary care, tending to every aspect. Now we can see a developmental ethic. If we want to feel thorough, we have to be thorough. If we want to feel complete, we have to risk extraordinary care and invest in every aspect that is before us. In this way, being thorough is the doorway to feeling thorough. It seems rather obvious but, just as it is necessary to open our eyes in order to see, it is necessary to care in order to feel complete.
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