Slowing down and appreciating the little things
This is an entry from my journal.
I seldom travel. If I go further than a few kilometres, it will be to the next closest city for some essential task, such as to buy a new pair of glasses or take the dogs to the vet. Otherwise, I just stay in my area and tend to my tasks. The journeys I do are on foot. Even though I cover a lot of ground, I still experience the same place, more or less. Life here is largely uneventful. There is some work being done in the surrounding vineyards three times a year and that is all to it. The area is otherwise devoid of human activity.
I do not feel bored. I keep drawing inspiration from the phenomena I witness. Everything in nature is on the move. Each unit in this continuum of life, from the smallest to the largest, does some kind of work. The celestial bodies, which may well be constituents of a greater organism and conscience, contribute to an interplay of factors whose full extent we cannot fathom yet whose manifestations we study in awe. Wherever we turn, there are systems of systems, which themselves exhibit pattern and structure, with feedback loops that constitute language, inherent dynamics that establish rules, and procedures which amount to computation. The processes are comprehensible, the products discoverable, the ends obscure.
Instead of demanding that the world grants me what I want, I learn to observe it and, where possible, to participate in its workings. This inspires me to compose the following poem, which I will also post in the “Poems” section of my website:
The November skies
Set ideologies aside
The flocking crows
shall guide you
to look skyward
where the travelling Sun
paints its November skies
The full moon is high in the sky right now. It glows in a near-white light. The higher it is, the more intense the white colour. Whereas at moonrise and moonset, the glow is of a more yellowish hue. The valley alights on such nights and you can see far away. Moonbathed hikes are among my favourites. There is a special aura to them, like something extraordinary is happening. And it actually is. To think that there is a satellite around our planet, which itself orbits a star, which in turn moves around a specific section of the galaxy, and so on. How many of these relationships have to be in line for me to be here doing this!? I do not take it for granted.
Nighttime is generally more quiet than daytime. Most birds are resting and this time of the year I do not hear any frogs or crickets. The foxes can only be heard during their mating season. Otherwise they operate in stealth. I went for a walk with my four dogs. The puppies are growing each day. Oreeon must be closer to 25 kilograms now. Meelon is smaller. Maybe 20? They are getting along well with my two older dogs, Atlas and Raizou. All four of them are playing tug-of-war and games of chase. It warms my heart to see them happy.
The younger ones can now cover longer distances. Though I am easing them in. Their body is still developing. For now, we are getting used to moving a little further each time, in the mornings and at night. This helps the puppies gain confidence in their abilities. They do not feel overwhelmed by all the new stimuli and can explore the world at their own pace.
Forcing things to happen is when the problems begin. I cannot make my puppies behave like adult dogs. If I push too hard in that direction, I will get adverse results. Their joints will suffer from injuries, due to the increased workload. They will lack the skills they gain through daily playfighting to actually stand their ground when necessary. Their sense of initiative will not be cultivated because they will be conditioned to conform with my forceful whims.
Mine is the laissez faire approach to life. I allow things to come about organically. When I act towards a certain goal, I do it in a manner that respects the natural boundaries. For example, I will give new shape to the land, but still allow vegetation to grow, plus whatever I will plant. This way the soil will never be prone to erosion and I will not have to constantly support whatever structures I set in place. My schemes thus factor in the other forms of life, trying to work with them towards a new equilibrium. Not even the Sun, this luminous body of immense power output, can exceed the boundaries imposed upon it by its nature.
In this slow-paced life, I have the luxury of not getting disturbed by too many events happening in quick succession. When we move faster than our natural pace, we eventually lose our balance, literally and in terms of our perception. This we can understand from the times we have gone on a ride, such as with a speeding motorcycle or a fast car. Our brain gets conditioned to the new normal of everything in sight disappearing from the periphery of our vision within milliseconds. If we get off the vehicle abruptly and try to walk slowly, we find that we cannot control our body the way we normally do. The reason is that the faster pace is setting in place the capacities for tolerating more of the same. Eventually, it also creates the expectation for faster and ever-thrilling experiences. The same happens with fast-paced video games, such as first-person shooters. Once you are immersed in the game, you cannot simply get out and walk slowly. There has to be a period of adjustment in between.
When speed is a choice that can be sustained, then it is consistent with your actuality. Though it often happens that the rhythms of quotidian life are imposed upon us by circumstance and inertia. We do not think about them and allow them to happen, until we eventually find ourselves in a situation where something elusive is upsetting and depleting us. It is the fact that we are pushing against the boundaries, trying to be faster than what our nature has regulated as the viable upper bound. Mental fatigue and physical pain are the signs that we are doing something wrong. Usually we complain about it, but do not act decisively to change our ways. We instead dismiss them as “this is life” and try to find some coping mechanism like the hottest trends with meditation and stoicism. No, this is not some inevitability forced upon you. It is an instituted arrangement of interpersonal relations, underpinned by social expectations, that demands from you a pound of flesh each time in the service of some goal that you can actually live without.
Another aspect of this disempowering passivity towards the fast-paced experience is with the Internet. We get involved in so many online groups or activities to the point of spending most of our day in front of a screen in anticipation of the next notification. Ding! The excitement rises… The stream of information that hits us each day is akin to the highway where seemingly immobile objects around us escape our conscience while we continue forward apace. Nothing has staying power at that point. It is a surface with no depth: a facade of a thing, a simulacrum of an experience. There is the one, now it is the other, succeeded by the next, and so on in what effectively becomes a two-dimensional experience of life. In the blink of an eye, years pass and we wonder what did we even do in the meantime.
When I first started paying attention to the near-static things in my milieu, I noticed not only their beauty but also the benign effect of slowing down. I became more patient and would not be annoyed by something not becoming available right away. I would work with what was readily available and be content with it, instead of feeling dejected for not having that which was meant to be delivered in a just-in-time fashion to my doorstep.
This is happening right now, for example. I have spent the last two years working towards upgrading my off-grid solar power setup with a new battery. In the meantime, I have had to make compromises of not using the desktop computer past the late afternoon and of not having electricity at night and early in the morning. Instead of complaining and suffering the torment of blaming my tough luck, I accepted that things are happening organically and I may discover enriching activities of an alternative sort. My adaptation has thus been graceful: I did not insist on having one specific set of factors and allowed my mind to be open to new possibilities. This has allowed me to be stronger and more resilient.
I have learnt to compartmentalise my activities. In the past, I would listen to music in the background while writing or programming. I eventually understood that this was a bad habit from the time I was conditioned to a faster pace. My being was yearning for that stimulus because it was effectively addicted to it. It would not tolerate the relative calm. My greater mental fortitude, which is the product of slowing down and living within my means, allows me to be in control of my feelings. I now listen to music with intent. I give it my undivided attention. It happens when I want to and involves my participation.
The same for the devices I use. Long ago, I would type on the laptop for hours on end. When I would feel tired sitting at the desk, I would take the laptop with me to the couch. Eventually I realised this was not conducive to a separation of concerns. I was not allowing myself to have clear delineations between work and rest and was ultimately less productive and less energetic. The laptop stays on the desk. If I ever need to go do some computer work elsewhere, I will take it with me. But it will always be a regulated usage.
And the same for my exposure to the Internet. I do not passively consume “content”. If I watch a video, it is because I am interested in learning something or listening to a conversation. If I read an article, it is for similar reasons. Otherwise, I am not keen on “catching up” with whatever the news is, nor am I curious about the current vaunted thing that everybody is hyping up. I do not care about the latest controversy and so-called “drama”—such a nice Greek word that we are now associating with tempests in teapots. I am not in the business of accumulating Internet points and the ephemeral validation they promise. When I am done with my work, I shut down the computer and go outside.
Many of our world’s dominant beliefs involve some form of escapism. They tell us how this life is somehow problematic or undesirable and that there is another realm where our existence is of a noble kind, provided we meet certain conditions. My world-view is different. It unfolds without expectations about future lives and potential worlds. I do not feel compelled to believe in anything other than what I experience. I do not sense the need to be anywhere else. I remain present in my presence, a hero in my struggles who faces the challenges with grit and tenacity. If there is another reality, I will be present in it because such is the necessity of being.
Slowing down has empowered me to accept this life first and to delve in its bottomless depths, before seeking another. I am not distracted away from what is pertinent to my environment. There is no disturbance within me, no pressure to force things into becoming. I am like the stones and the canes around me. They are endowed with musicality. In them there is structure and pattern, as they echo the cosmic rhythms and sing in concert the song of the stars. They are partaking in—and influenced by—processes beyond them that interface with their internal mechanics. I am no different. Not anymore special that each presence here. I do not pray to any universe to conspire in my favour.
The moon moves to its next phase. November is upon us and December will follow. There is less green all around. The same place is never exactly the same. It is ever-changing and I have developed the capacity of appreciating it. To what end? Why would I even worry about the end when I am still here, my friend?