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Sunday, November 17, 2024

The Superhuman Achievement of Keeping On

People have written about the middle-of-the-night black thoughts—those times when your mind reviews the past but with an emphasis on every embarrassing, or wrong, or morally dubious, or inexcusably naïve thing you ever did. That idea resonates with me because it's exactly what my own mind does. I am grateful that I follow this course only in the middle of the night, those nights when I wake at 2 and never go back to sleep. If I relived those shameful events in daylight hours, I'd go mad.

 

Like everyone, I am surrounded by people and families in trouble. I carry with me right now four dear friends who are struggling with health. That doesn't include the dozens of additional friends and family who have different sorts of difficulties. And it doesn't include troubled nations.

 

Why, if I allowed myself to think this way, I might have to conclude that suffering is the human condition. Surely not. Just see us cobble together moments that feel pleasant or that bring us comfort. See us snatch pings of joy from the cacophony of the daily bombardment. See us reach for happiness. We are human. We are wresting a liveable life from often unfriendly, inauspicious raw materials.

 

We carry on, following the carrot held in front of us even while we are thumped with the stick. So now comes the hard part. The real test is this: when we seize those moments/years of pleasure or comfort, we must be sure that we don't achieve our happiness at the expense of others. If our happiness is gained by grinding others into the dust, then we don't deserve it and it should not last.

 

I'm reminded here of the recent interest in connecting Jane Austen's fictional families with the slave-based sugar plantations in the West Indies. This revelation has changed everything.

 

And see how I have swerved dramatically from the personal (the you and I of this story) into the political (the "they", who are, of course, us).

 

I'm sorry. You are sorry. He, she, or it is sorry. Are THEY sorry? It's safe to say that this essay is unravelling, tugged by the wayward and undisciplined opinions of my id. And when I get into my metaphoric id, you know I'm in trouble. Go back to the concrete.

 

Concrete? Bad choice. That whole industry is Mafia-run.

 

Something material. Oh yes. Domestic bliss. That'll be a safe direction. I'm looking at the narrow shelf above the sewing table. On it are two bottles of ink (one of them India ink), a jar of lavender buds should I ever want to make a couple of sachets, and a plastic container of eighteen tubes of glitter to be used in crafts. Do any of these items contribute to domestic bliss? Well, of course they do, or I wouldn't keep them, right?

 

 
 
Copyright © 2024 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
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Sunday, November 3, 2024

Being Convinced

Be wary! Be very careful.

The streets and the hills 

teem with people trying to convince you.

Pick me, they say.

Pick my product. Follow my creed.

Follow me!

 

Well, don't do it, honey.

Hucksters proliferate

and their prosperity depends on

their ability to convince you.

Stay firm.

Your own path will appear in time.

Wait for the teachers who have nothing

to prove, nothing to sell.

Wait for the real deal.

Watch for signs.

Watch for light.

And in the meantime,

do your work.

Connect by the everlasting light

that appears (never twice the same) every day

in the portals of your safe house.

Do not respond to snake-oil salesmen.

They do not have your best interests at heart.

 

 
Copyright © 2024 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
Audible.Com: go to https://www.audible.com and search for Ann Tudor




 

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Equilibrium

Equilibrium

 

If you work on balancing your physical body,

holding it in space without tipping to one side

or the other,

or standing on a single strong foot, ankle steady—

if you achieve this goal

(which may be unattainable)

will you then also have gained

the equilibrium sought through decades?

Will you than automatically know wise from foolish,

good from bad,

right from wrong—

in short, will you have found the state of grace

held out as a reward?

On the off chance that the one will lead to the other,

keep working at those exercises:

Stand on one foot.

Close your eyes.

Balance. Balance.

Don't fall.

 

 
Copyright © 2024 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
Audible.Com: go to https://www.audible.com and search for Ann Tudor