Quite simply, they are tools to help me understand the Big Questions:  What is "all this" anyway?  Why am I here?

So, one of my personal tendencies has been to start something new, throw myself into it, get all excited about this new thing, get all entranced, and then slowly it fades after a period of a few years.  I was always sort of distressed by this tendency.  I thought it seemed shallow.  It shows a lack of stick-to-it-ive-ness.  It shows an inability to finish things, and a short attention span, and a tendency to get bored.

But today I had a realization.

That whole idea comes from a really straight line point of view.  Something has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Very Western, very linear, very rigid. 

It seems to me that the spiral is a better paradigm to use.  Something begins, and is revisited in a different way, and then revisited in a different way, and then revisited in a different way, and so on. 

And all of a sudden I feel much better about this tendency in myself. 

My mother always asked me what I wanted to do, and gave me abundant opportunities to make my own choices and decisions.  She even gave me enough room to make my own mistakes.  Only as an adult can I realize how hard that must have been for her.  As a parent, I'd assume you'd want to do your best to protect your child.  But paradoxically, you've got to let your child learn to fail.  As I did.  It was SUCH a learning experience for me.  What a profound gift that was!