Semicolon

My deepest wish: that love would outweigh rightness, and rightness will stop being confused for righteousness.

***

An essay like this does not end. Tomorrow, I may come across a new passage in an old book that upends my understanding of any one of these thoughts. Or maybe my next hike will lead me around a bend on a trail I haven’t walked and the view I discover will shake my notions of what I know. Maybe my children will grow up to change the world in ways I’m not even aware it needs to be changed. Maybe I’ll finally get that book contract or maybe I’ll never come close.

I don’t know. None of us do.

Then again, I’m the guy who didn’t think he’d be alive to write an essay looking back on 40 years of living. How’s that for a clichéd ending?