I met a Coelho-esque man on the beach this morning. He cut into my reverie, causing me considerable difficulty in returning to the world in order to respond to his greeting. He was persuasive and charming, wanting to photograph me looking away, out towards the future. Ultimately I said no, choosing not to cede to the spontaneous possibility of the moment. There was regret, but my need to not hand over my power to a stranger was greater than my need to discover what might happen if I said “yes”. In that moment, it was the right decision. He was disappointed but polite and I watched him striding off with purpose and enjoyment into his own adventure for the day.
Here is what I like to imagine: Paulo Coelho is travelling incognito in Australia and I met him, all unawares, on the sand before the sunrise. And, just for a moment, we danced. "A wild heart is awake to the pain in the world, but does not diminish its own pain. A wild heart can beat with gratitude and lean in to pure joy without denying the struggle in the world. We hold that tension with the spirit of the wilderness."
Brené Brown When I was 15, I received an invitation to be part of a small collective of teenagers moving in together to raise a baby and support the group financially. It was as mad as it sounds, and yet it totally wasn’t. I knew deep inside me that it was the wrong choice for me and, as it happens, the whole plan fell through anyway.
But what if it hadn’t? What if I’d chosen to heed that part of myself that saw the importance - the hope - in that desire to fulfil a destiny not controlled by others who may have had very different plans and interests for that baby? My parents would never have allowed it of course; not only was it “immature” and “irresponsible”, it would have “ruined” my life and my chances for future success. And it’s that thought that makes me ponder: do we truly have the power to protect others - or ourselves - from the possibility of future regret? And from which regrets shall we protect ourselves? Would it have been a lifelong regret if I had elected not to continue my education at that point and had put myself outside the ready acceptance of comfortable society? Or would I later have found a way to achieve what I wanted to achieve via some other fashion, bringing to the table greater life experience and knowledge of what I wanted that education for? Shall I compare the potential of that regret with the regret of always making the “safe” choice over the one that burns within me? The regret that tells me that I misused my opportunity for education in the name of “sensible” and thus never achieved the socially and financially desired end anyway? I have the privilege of living in a society where there’s a fairly decent chance that I won’t actually die from lack of financial security and abundance. I therefore have the privilege of wondering, what if? It is absolutely true that what I want, believe and value now is different from what I wanted as a teenager. Kind of. But it is equally true that my beliefs, values and desires now are different from those of just ten years ago, when I was a fully mature and world-experienced adult. If I could go back to any point in my life, I would no doubt make some of my decisions differently, and not just on the basis of hindsight. In another ten years, it seems likely that my choices of today will no longer feel like a good fit either. Perhaps, in the end, there is no “right” place to be, no pain or mistakes from which we can truly be protected. Perhaps there is only the place of being entirely congruent with who we are right now, standing on the fluid and ever-shifting foundations of selfhood. |
Introduction
"Only that day dawns to which we are awake," wrote Thoreau. This blog, in words and pictures, is my attempt to be awake: to be alive to the mystery of life. It is an exercise in gratitude and wonder, and an open invitation to beauty. Archives
May 2019
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