Monday, November 07, 2005
Sometimes it's the simple things...
Life can be complicated. The harsh realities of it can
sometimes hit you when you are least able to cope with it or are least
resilient to it. It's very easy to get swept under the waves of
complexity and become overwhelmed by responsibilities, practicalities
and expectations. When you're already feeling like things are not
going well, these are like individual hammer blows to the
spirit. Trying to maintain a sense of perspective through
difficult times is quite a challenge, especially when often the
immediate reaction is to get in there amongst the complications, get
dirty, and make a lot of noise.
Simplicity - the kind of feeling that children, with their limited
outward reference and restricted sense of repercussion and appearances,
experience all the time - feels like a precious resource at present. It's hard to emulate as an adult - it
takes quite a knack and effort to switch off from adult emotions
(particularly paralyzing feelings of failure and self-consciousness) and embrace something
more basic and primary, such as the feeling of walking through leaves,
squelching through mud, cooking for yourself, laughing at a daft dog in
the park...
Child-like fascination in things, in sensations, around events and
ahout people is very simplistic. Children do things just to
see what happens, in anticipation of well, absolutely nothing.
They inquire, they question, they prod and they open themselves up to
things which adults tend not to. Or
at least they used to. How true it is now I don't know, but I
hope that it is.
Going through a rough patch at the moment, I'm even more intent to make
the most of the simple things that come my way and enjoy as child-like
a vision of the world as I can. Not all that easy when you have
adult responsibilities (a business, family, bills) to consider, but
they feel very important to me at this time when other things have
taken a disastrous turn and when life has not quite turned out how I
had hoped (and not how others had expected/hoped for/from me,
perhaps). I know too many adults who have lost their sense of
simple curiousity, of simple relation to the world around them, and it
is not pretty. I see bitterness and tiredness and it's sad to
see. It's not how I want to be.
So, cooking properly for myself, walking daily (sometimes with and
sometimes without borrowed dog), quiet drinks in the pub, the little
bits of music-making I can fit in, chats with people around the
village, and little triumphs of spirit over adversity... all of these
things have an amplified value and importance at the moment. Not
complicated things, but things I can manage and can feel some sense of
well-being from doing..
Posted by Jon at 12:47:15 PM in Musing (23) | Comments (0)
