You Cannot Be Contained
I will never forget the day when my son, who was maybe 2 years old at the time, sat in the middle of the living room and set up his plastic trees. Around the plastic trees he placed his plastic dinosaurs. Then he retrieved his yellow school bus and began to reenact a scene from the movie “Jurassic Park.”
He turned the bus onto its roof and let out high-pitched screams while his t-rex jabbed at the wheels. I could not stop giggling.
We watched the movie every day for 2 weeks straight. One particular day, I overheard some lines that I just cannot get out of my head:
If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, ah, well, there it is. - Dr. Ian Malcom
(During a preview tour of the park, scientists tell the guests that they breed only female dinosaurs in order to control the population. However, while they are running around the grounds of the park attempting to stay alive, they stumble upon nests full of dinosaur eggs. Despite the scientists’ very calculated precautions, the dinosaurs’ genes mutated in order to facilitate reproduction. Life found a way.)
It is the same way with our music.
It is the same way with our painting.
It is the same way with our writing.
It is the same way with our dreaming, our desiring, our truth-telling.
No matter how hard we may try to suppress our beings, they always find a way to break free.
Because our uniqueness cannot be contained.
Our souls cannot be contained.
Our essence cannot be contained.
So if there are people in your life who want to squelch your wild spirit (maybe that person is you), realize this:
You cannot be contained. You will always find a way.
(Source: alishasommer.com)
