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Last week, I was on my way to a lecture when I saw a mini leaf-tornado and as I had plenty of time to spare without being late, I stopped for a while to watch it. Somehow I derived great pleasure from watching it happen, and when I realised this I thought of the scene from American Beauty where the boy-next-door shows the girl a video of a bag in a similar situation. Seeing that both him and I share the same characteristic, and remembering many other situations that I particularly enjoyed led me to believe that we could both be stereotyped as people that 'enjoy life's simple pleasures.'
This confused me. After thinking about the mini leaf-tornado:
-- the conditions needed for it to be created;
-- the fact that it happened on a path next to a filled car park between two tall buildings;
-- the power it needed to lift up a fairly heavy drinks bottle about 2ft in the air;
-- and the sheer chaotic randomness of the whole event, I've realised that it's not really that simple. So where does the saying: "Enjoy life's simple pleasures" come from?
Up until a few years ago, I took everything for granted. I saw a butterfly, and I knew it was a butterfly, so it was a butterfly. I saw a sunset, knew it was a sunset, and so it was a sunset. I never hesitated to question what they were, or even to try and experience them as something else. A person on a forum a few years ago said to me: "When you see a tree, don't see a tree. Try to see it as something anew. Experience everything in this way, and you will always be amazed." Since then, I have always been amazed by nature, no matter how many times I experience the same thing.
Everything is so complex, so why is it that doing this means one is 'enjoying life's simple pleasures?'
Or am I mistaken to what that phrase means?
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Apologies to all that read my blog for the lack of posts lately. The Christmas and New Years period was quite an intense one, and it has taken me a while to bounce back to normality. (Around my family, I'm a different person. Whether slightly or drastically is another topic [and also which me is normality] but anyway...) So, whilst I mull over the next post, here is something I wrote last year.
It was written mid-February after a very turbulent time stemming from New Years 2006/07. I learnt a lot from that period, and this piece of writing means so very much to me as it encapsulates all that I learnt into something so personal that, when reading it, I remember everything as if anew - yet if someone else where to read it, they wouldn't know the subjects. I have locked my feelings into words, and they are safe there, only available to me.
This and That
This is nothing.
That was something.
This could be something that was.
This could be more than that was.
This could be everything I ever wanted, but this is nothing.
This has been hard.
This has been confusing.
I wanted this, and yet this is still nothing.
Why is this nothing?
What reasons hold this back?
Will nothing come of this?
The more I ponder this, the more I think about that.
That could be something.
That could be what that was again.
That could be better than that was before.
That has hope.
A reunion,
A restoration,
A rectification,
A return to what that was.
An amendment to what went wrong.
Was the end of that a mistake?
Could that have been something more?
Could that be better now than that was before?
The more I pine for that, the less I wish for this.
This hasn't materialised.
This has been and gone.
This was a delusion, a one-dimensional view.
I no longer seek this.
Time has passed and changed.
Knowledge of the past heals and pertains.
There is no resentment, no anger or hatred.
Now there is happiness, fun, and good times like the old.
Now there is that.
Every moment with that gives me hope.
Every moment with that makes that all the more pertinent,
All the more plausible, logical, inevitable.
Every moment makes me want that more.
In the eyes of many, this is right,
But in my eyes this is not to be.
In my eyes, that is all there is.
In my eyes, that is right.
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From the Cloud Appreciation Society © Denise Scalzeri
This website is dedicated to "fighting the banality of blue-sky thinking" and I say: Good on them!
Clouds often go unappreciated. They can bring joy to your lightful day, and they can be consoling in grey times. They are there for everyone to see, and all we have to do is crane our necks slightly to be an audience.
I am fortunate around this time of year in that I currently have a 4:00pm tutorial every Friday at University, which is a 30minute walk away, and that allows me to enjoy quite a substantial amount of our sunset during my walk. By the time I leave the workroom at 5:00pm, it has long since gone.
So, I urge you all, once in a while, to enjoy these natural, chaotic occurences of our atmosphere.
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The thoughts in this blog on the purpose of life bring me to the quite upsetting area of suicide.
Many would comment on how irrational suicide is. Keep in mind this is a purely subjective opinion based on what value the commenter puts on his or her own life, and as such we cannot judge the rationality of others because we are not them. As Wittgenstein once said (forgive me for not finding an exact quote, but this is the jist of it): "As we cannot see into others, it is not logical to generalise our feelings onto them, hence we cannot only use an introspective view point to deconstruct identity from." (taken from here
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I think most people know the whole subject of The Matrix and the issues it brings up: What is reality? Are we living in a true reality? Is it all a dream?
However, one thought struck me that I haven't come across yet, and that's to do with purpose and what people gain from life. It seems to tie in with the above questions on reality and existence, but I feel it deserves some singular attention
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What is www.thepsychologyoflife.com?
It is the blog domain of a previous blogger. When I was asked if I wanted a blog domain, I chose this one from a list of inactive blogs because the title was the one most fitting with the topics I write about. I have decided to keep the three posts of the previous owner because I enjoyed reading them and I love the method they have been written in.
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Have you ever felt guilty from not doing something which you thought you could have done?
How about from something you thought you should have done? What actions do you feel you should do when given the chance? And why
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Many people call it 'goosebumps'. But what is it really? And why does it happen? More importantly: why does it originate from the lower right of the back of my ribs!?
Sometimes I only really know I'm feeling when it happens... Is it there to remind me? To make me think of something particular?
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Welcome to my blog.
A couple of months ago - during the summer of 2007 - I came to recognise my own true self. It was a huge moment in my life; and whilst it may not seem so to some, it was very important to me. This is because I felt my personality was complete. It was no longer a work-in-progress that had been building constantly in the back of my mind for 6years. At that moment I knew who I was going to be for the rest of my life
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Comment by Henrah
on The Simple Things
InsightBlog