Tag: contentment

Life’s Twists & Turns

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I was going to talk about something important, as always, but I’m currently wallowing in the post breakfast euphoria of this…

Focaccia eggy bread, with blue cheese, wild smoked salmon and a ‘garnish’ of rocket

I’m so painfully middle class I’m not even fighting it anymore. I also managed to remember that I was going to talk about different and uncontrollable paths in life. I realised last night that had this virus not become a thing I would have just been departing an Easyjet flight from Edinburgh to Athens, ready to say hello to some old faces and getting excited about a summer sailing around Greek islands drinking beer and wine, and eating too much of the world’s best cuisine. Yes I just made that statement. But that was what could have been.

I’m currently making pizzas as previously mentioned. This won’t go on forever and the lifting of lockdown will have an affect upon it but at most it’ll be a summer gig until the schools go back and the tourists disappear. This was never meant to be the plan as I said but it’s just what I’m doing now. Maybe in July I’ll have had enough of it and realise I’m wasting my time but that is something for future me to deal with. The point is that we clearly can’t control life’s ever evolving patterns. We can influence certain elements of it but let’s be honest in most things we’re pretty powerless. If you can’t sail, you just do something else. You meet other people, make other bonds. And you go with that and see what happens.

The truth is that while undeniably I’m longing for a holiday sitting on a beach somewhere in the sun and waking up whenever it pleases me, I’m perfectly content with this version of existence and how it’s unfolding. Maybe something will ruin that contentment, maybe something won’t. The point is not to tell you I’m living some kind of perfect life because I’m not, there’s no such thing, but there’s a good chance the whole world is doing something completely different in this Covid-19 version of existence and I just enjoyed the fact that last night I was sitting there and had a fairly good idea of exactly what I would have been doing. That I think is a rare pleasure, and a pleasure because I’m not longing for either. If we make the most of whatever we do end up doing we’re less likely to long for anything else.

And that goes for my breakfast too. It is Sunday today and while I love to think I would be in the Koukaki district of Athens looking for some little hipster brunch place, most likely I would be grabbing a spanakopita from the first bakery I could find from the few that open on a Sunday in Greece before driving to Preveza and fixing up a boat. Yes I desire that, but I’m pretty happy with whats sitting in my belly currently too.

As I read over that I felt at one point I wanted to vomit on myself. Don’t get me wrong the sentiment about uncontrollable existence and riding it’s wave still stands. It’s just I’m painfully aware that the two possible versions of existence I know of are pretty decent and there are plenty out there who don’t even have one decent version. “If you can’t sail, you just do something else“, I mean come on, what a wanker. But I don’t feel guilty, I don’t feel bad and I don’t feel I want to give up my blue cheese, what would that achieve. I’m just aware I’m incredibly lucky. Maybe I should find a way to share my blue cheese instead.

A Ramble On Death

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I was watching a video this morning on Facebook, on what I can’t remember; a telling indictment of the zombie social media turns us into. I do remember at one point some footage came on of men in the First World War. It was coloured footage which I always find really fascinating because it makes old film real and relatable in a way black and white can’t be. The Great War was from a time past and those involved have all died now. I haven’t checked it but I seriously doubt there is anyone left. You know you’re looking at dead people, they’re younger than I am now, but there time has been and now they’re dead.

I’m not obsessed with death, it doesn’t fascinate me in some morbid way and I once used to dismiss it in that way people do when they’re young and like to pretend they don’t give a shit about anything. That doesn’t mean either that I’m about to tell you all I’m scared of death but I am trying to understand it. I am trying to understand it because it plays a huge part in our behaviours as a species. We’re aware consciously of our own existence and as a result our own deaths too. Are we alone in this awareness? One day all this is just not going to be there.

This idea of nothingness is hard to comprehend. Imagine you go to sleep and that feeling of deep sleep is what you will be experiencing for eternity, except you don’t experience deep sleep consciously, arguably we don’t even exist in those moments. How then can we imagine not existing. We try to imagine something we have little empirical understanding of and it’s impossible. This is almost scarier than death itself, which kind of isn’t scary at all.

These soldiers were living in their time. This is the thought that inspired me to start this ramble on death. Why do we fear getting old and dying. These people, that was there time and they lived it, they got old and were replaced by other people living their experience of time. This is my time now and I need to live it because one day I will have to let it go and I want to do it with a smile on my face, content. Not content that I lived life to the max or whatever slogan you can come up with, but just content in the knowledge that now my time is up and it’s time for others to take over. There are plenty out there who are like that and plenty who can’t let go. It’s fear ultimately. Fear of stepping into an unknown time in life, closer to the ultimate unknown. I’m just curious, if I’m lucky to live that long of course. And also, in a way, if we’re to understand death do we first need to understand life? Certainly there’s an order to these thing and maybe with some kind of understanding comes a form of acceptance. It’s especially interesting because, in a way, there are no answers and what’s more powerful than that.

The Inquisitive Child

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It would be appealing in the moment to say an important lesson had been learnt today. In a way one was but perhaps not the obvious and straightforward one. You see, I did something silly. Although that’s one way of looking at it. The other is that today I discovered something new which makes it a great move all round. If you’ve been following this blog you’ll have heard me refer to all sorts of different jobs I do, one minute I’m working in a bakery, the next I’m renovating a house, and then I’m making pizzas; I may have mentioned others but I forget, anyway the point is that yesterday while stripping wallpaper in the flat next door I discovered a CD-ROM. For younger folk this is a something that was commonly used in a previous decade to put files on computers before we all got fast internet. It turns out putting random CDs into computers is not necessarily the best idea. My laptop stopped working and then wouldn’t load up properly. The lesson learnt then would be not to put random CDs into computers. It’s a bit like telling a curious child not to taste everything they see just incase it has a new exciting flavour.

In moments like this though I prefer to focus on the favourable positive elements of a story and the lessons learnt. Did I learn never to put random CDs into my laptop again? Well in a way yes, but seeing as I’m typing this now there must have been a happy ending. You see I managed to open up the back of my laptop, take out the drive and manually remove the CD. My computer then loaded up perfectly and seemingly all is back to normal. But it’s not normal because I have the added satisfaction of fixing a problem and of learning something new. Is that the lesson learnt? Well again kind of but that’s hardly a lesson in the metaphorical sense. My favourite type. So I learnt not to taste random things I find, but I didn’t really because I’ll probably taste them again. And that’s what’s important. The inquisitive mind should never be caged. Why would you not want to know what was hidden inside something random you find. I’ve found some cool stuff in my life. Maybe it’s a sign I lack contentment but that urge to discover that takes me on adventures to foreign lands also seems to make me see what’s on random CDs I find under old carpets. To recognise there is discovery in every little thing. Maybe understanding that leads to more contentment in a way. Who knows, except time. Time knows everything.

Forever the child tasting new discoveries. I hope that never changes.

A Tall Tree In A Dark Forest

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I was lying in bed this morning feeling frustrated. I’ve not been sleeping as well as I usually do and that usual is to close my eyes and suddenly the alarm is going off nine hours later. I’m not sure why I’m not, but for whatever reason I find it understandably annoying. The frustration I suspect is like a wind that gives the fire oxygen but it’s a lack of something that’s the kindling.

I’ve led a reasonably interesting life so far, been to a few places and met many faces. I don’t really feel proud of it like it’s some accomplishment despite the positive response I get when I tell some people. There is certainly a lack of contentment and despite how it may appear I feel a constant drive to achieve things. I often see some of my friends or really successful famous people and I’m envious of their lives. They seem to have a success I don’t. Careers, homes, families and bank balances yet I’m thirty four and my instincts have rejected all of these things until now. In fact I still see the futility of some of them and I know the things they have sacrificed to achieve them, things I’m seemingly still unwilling to as I plan my next adventure. Can we adventure forever though? We can’t eat our memories, we can’t shelter under them and eventually we just become those repetitive old travellers others avoid because all they have is their stories. I don’t often tell my stories unless they come up as a relatable anecdote, I don’t want to be that person.

So why the frustration? I hope you don’t feel me to be self indulgent with this piece but it’s simply I know expressing thoughts like this can help others with their own thoughts. I’m not saying my thoughts are anything special but more that I’m not unique and we all suffer the same things just through different eyes. The frustration stems from a lack of something in life as I said. I’m not sure if it’s a home because I have one now and it’s great and safe but it’s not going to bring me happiness on it’s own. Maybe it’s a family? A wife and kids. Again I’m unsure of that, although I don’t doubt it would be nice to have a woman in my life. Perhaps it’s just wanting it all, or more precisely wanting an idea of how I imagine it’ll be.

I was thinking that for all the knowledge I’ve learnt over the years; meeting wise people, reading wise texts, experiencing moments of understanding; I still don’t seem to put much of this into practice in my own life. It would explain why it is still knowledge within and not wisdom. The only thing I’ve learnt is that unlike twenty five year old me I try to avoid giving wise enlightened advice or talking in that empty way people do when they think they know it all. I feel an immediate inclination to end the conversation, or I’ll carry it on but sometimes it just feels stupid. I know it can impress people, and you see people taking it in but it doesn’t feel real. Unless you start living it it’s just a series of empty words.

A series of desires about something we imagine we want and a series of empty words then. I know the rhetoric about contentment and desires but I’m not content and I still desire. I know the words that give the impression of a level of enlightened but I feel as far from enlightened as I’ve even been. This is the frustration then. Why what I know doesn’t correlate in any way to how I act. This is why I feel confident I can say this aloud and it will resonate with others, another thing I know is that others don’t act on what they know either. Perhaps it’s just part of being a fallible human. Perhaps we just need more than knowledge of words. This drive to achieve life, live it to whatever fullest version we choose. Again this is just an idea of a desire. I think I need to end this here because I can see myself going in circles. The answers aren’t attached to my tail. Maybe the answers aren’t attached to anything. Maybe there are no answers. Perhaps that’s what I’m missing, but what does that even mean? Just empty fucking words again.

The Present & Desire

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I was thinking today about finding balance in life. I’ve probably mentioned it before but it always appears to be something that alludes me. In one moment I’m dropping everything and running off on an adventure, and the next I’m craving the stability offered from a home that if I’m honest I’ll struggle to create because I’m always running off on the adventures I yearn for after too long in a stable home like environment. Now either that’s an inability to find balance between the two or it’s an example of someone not being happy with what they’ve got and always believing the green happiness grass is just around the other corner. It’s also just an example of someone who wants it all, and probably another few examples of all sorts of things. For the sake of this though lets stick to the idea that I am unable to find the required level of balance.

There once was a time in life that like everyone else I believed that if I just did, saw, bought, met, went to x, y, z then happiness would be sure to follow. I was not conscious of that belief but certainly it was unconsciously there playing a part in my decision making. I am not suggesting for a second I’m some enlightened being who has managed to rise above such things because I still crave all those things in my own little pursuit of happiness but am aware that with their receipt I won’t be taken around some magical corner that happiness was simply hiding behind. It is also probably most likely that accepting this will bring me closer, as well as not actually looking for it in the first place, but as I love missing the point in the moment and clearly only know it intellectually I’ll continue this self-defeating quest.

By not constantly imagining the answer is around some instant corner nobody has ever seen let alone looked around, we must surely stop craving these extreme changes in life, such as finding the answer in some foreign land or by the hearth. Importantly also it takes away from the present, in that you’re neither in the foreign land or at home if your mind is always looking out for some hypothetical feeling of happiness it imagines it should be experiencing. You forget to actually enjoy the place you’ve made the effort to go to or the contentment and security of home when you take the time to relax. I suspect were we to enjoy these things properly we may stop craving them so much when we don’t have them anymore. Have you ever drunk that last mouthful of coffee without realising before looking in the cup to find there is no more and feeling unsatisfied. Compare that to really taking the time to enjoy and appreciate that last mouthful; you are content with what you’ve had, you feel satisfied. Why would life on a larger scale be any different.