where the seeds are

One of the aphorisms I have come back to time and again in my life is that Chinese one, about how the seeds you planted carefully flower not, but the seeds that fell by the roadside yield a willow that bares shade. I find this true about so many things: about how one envisions one's professional life versus how it turns out; what one's interests/ early crushes are and become; a general sign of the plodding nature of mankind...
For we think we are fast, or we will be fast in what we do. We envision great things taking a short amount of time. But this is so rarely the case.
Also. When we figure out some truth: about speed, about our profession, about more personal aspects of our personal lives, we may wish to mount our high horses, and ride them from such heights. Ah! But the truth is the seeds from that proverb; they will be scattered even where we expect them not to be scattered.
Far below, in the fields of confusion and disorientation, some seeds of absolute beauty and absolute truth can be found - sometimes with more accuracy than anywhere else - even the perspective granted by high horses, just waiting for someone to find them, to lead them away from confusion. Seeds of perfection exist where we least expect. Where we have the least control over it all.
We have no claim over the truth, it exists where it must; as for our high-horse perspective, well, it has a very small radius, and is far more limited than we would like.
But if we are honest, we see that even the shade we enjoy every day was not directly of our own making, so we should be understanding that the truth is out there, jogging enthusiastically into the tough neighbourhoods to display itself for whoever wants it. The truth is no one's slave, and will trickle down into the most improbable of situations, and maintain its poise.
Once we see the truth, the next challenge is to hold onto it. To remain in that shade, protected from that which ails us. But if you've noticed the underlying point of this post: it is to accept one has no claim over what comforts us: it is everywhere, and available to everyone in every situation, who is seeking it.

Element.