I was talking with a friend recently and she asked an interesting question about purpose and age. She had recently celebrated a milestone birthday and wondered
What Now?
How should she be spending her days? What purpose(s) should she be pursuing? What really matters at this stage in her life? I suggested that the most important things she could do now (and always) were to choose joy, practice gratitude, and seek out wonder and awe as frequently as possible.
For me, the regular practice of making photographs ticks off all those things. I experience great joy, see beauty in unexpected places, and feel gratitude, awe and wonder frequently.
Lately I’ve been feeling a great heaviness and growing craziness in the world, so much so that I stop watching the news and reading about current events for several days at a time just to give myself a break. I need to find sanity and safety in looking for the good in ordinary people, ordinary events, ordinary days.
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don’t Hesitate)
― Swan: Poems and Prose Poems
I wish I had answers to the woes of the world but they are far bigger than me. So I do small things that I hope make a difference and I continue to pursue joy and see beauty because I need it to counteract all of the negative stuff happening. I hold the long view that life is intelligent (even if humans are not) and that life will find a way to continue despite everything we humans do to thwart it.
Meanwhile since I am still alive and kicking I guess that there are still things for me to learn and do here on this earth. It amazes me what I keep learning about life and about myself. I hope that as I get older I continue to learn and grow to the very end. Love and curiosity, that’s what I hope to retain until my last breath here on earth.
And you my friends, what now for you?
May you walk in beauty.
Note: I bought a bouquet of ranunculus flowers at the Food Coop this week. They are a deep rich red, with so many luscious layers of petals. Enjoy.
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