After a gray, rain-soaked morning, the sun came out here on the mountain, providing an excellent opportunity for a walk. A chill wind followed me (or blew directly into my face!) for much of the way, but soon the sun and my body's own metabolism warmed me to a comfortable temperature, and the discomfort soon passed. On the whole it proved a glorious afternoon in January, and I could not help but smile at its tranquility.
Experiences like this seem to offer a new angle from which to view the often cut-throat and competitive practices of human beings. This is good I think, because seeing things differently can sometimes prove difficult; getting out of our own heads--as disconcerting as that might be--appears to be one way to grow as a person. Maybe.
In my own life, and I suspect in other's too, pressures exist on all sides to conform to certain practices and ideals. If there's a human society without them, then I've yet to find it (though wouldn't that be interesting? maybe). Speaking for myself, the idea has generally been that a happy person is he or she who is eminently successful at whatever he or she does. If there's a metric for measuring the differences between different people's ability, then the "happy" person was he or she who came out on the side of that metric that someone at some point deemed "better."
Outrunning your peers, outperforming them in maths, or getting into an elite college have all served as such a metric, and at some point I've played each of those games. Sometimes I won and sometimes I lost. That seems to happen for a lot of people, at least those I've met or about whom I've read. Maybe it happens to everyone.
Interestingly, winning the game seemed to have the same effect as losing it once a few days had passed. Well, actually I've heard stories of professional athletes or politicians falling into depression for months following the loss of a championship or an election, but having experienced neither in my short life, I will for now suspend judgment. What I would say is that time seems to make most victories less euphoric, and most defeats less disastrous. So whether you win or lose, at some point you seem to end up somewhere between the two.
If that's true (and it's most certainly an 'if'), maybe human beings are actually suited for that middle-ground in the emotional landscape. Maybe. I've met some folks who are always depressed, and some who are always euphoric. I wouldn't think it possible had I not met them, but so it is. Perhaps they have their own middle-ground, for the depressed folk somewhere between "morbidly depressed" and just "sad", and for the euphoric folk between "ecstatic" and "blissful." It's an idea, nothing more or less.
But if there is a middle-ground of some sort, what if we all tried to make that ground a happy place in which to live? You figure a goodly number of people spend much of their lives on such ground, so it doesn't seem illogical to give it characteristics to our liking. Rather than competing or striving after things, what if instead we all found a way to sit quietly and listen to the rhythms of the world? It sounds boring when you think about it(maybe), but actually doing it can be fun, at least so I've found. It can also be quite difficult, as difficult even as performing Ravel or mastering a jump-shot. Doing nothing feels like wasting time; becoming still is like becoming something less than human, at least a human that is alive. Maybe.
Yet in becoming still, perhaps you will begin to find things with which to decorate that middle-ground in your life. Noticing the frenetic tendencies within yourself, perhaps becoming still allows you to view the world in a different way. After all, a road looks quite different when you're driving a car then when you've stopped on a walk and given it a long, stationary look. When still, you notice all the bumps, grooves, and minor details on a surface that in motion lacks all such subtleties.
In this light, maybe becoming still isn't boring after all. Noticing details large and small, perhaps the change in speed can also yield a change in perspective. It seems true of physical motion, so why not mental motion too? Something to consider. Maybe.
Happy Tuesday, friends :)
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