Life as a Work-in-Progress

Often we think of fixed points or processes -- things that will "never" change -- and set our paths by them. The Northern Star, the sun setting in the west, the moon moving around the Earth every 28 days or so. But here, at the 100-foot level, life is more fluid, un-fixed if you will. Philosophies change, fashion and music, all the way down to the molecular level, if we think in centuries and decades and years, instead of millennia and eons.

Our short time here on Earth then is always a work in progress - processes change, nothing is ever really final. "The only thing that remains the same is change" - except maybe the concepts of pure love and pure fear. The very extremes most of us understand very well, it's the huge spectrum in between that causes confusion. Always changing.

In this short life, there are no guarantees - we may wish for them - but reality is, that's not going to happen. That's the big "grow up" step we make at some point in our lives.

I found the poem below on my Facebook Likes, about learning and growing up. Strange, children talk about when they're all grown up -- when is that? Someone else said when you start doing the things you really love and feel alive -- that's when you start to feel alive. Another person says life begins at 40.

Perhaps all of these things are true, because I've haven't felt this alive since I was 15. Reawakening to your true self is so so amazing. I highly recommend it.

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Author: Veronica A. Shoffstall
After a while
you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't always mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't always promises
and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and and your eyes ahead with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers
And you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong and you really do have worth and you learn and you learn
with every good-bye you learn.

Dying and Living Gracefully

I just finished the book, "Seize the Day: How the Dying Teach Us to Live", by Marie de Hennezel, a French nurse working in a palliative care unit in Paris. 

It is eerie knowing the people she writes about are already dead, long gone: yet she writes with such compassion and clarity, that these people seem still alive and here. If I was to visit this hospital now, I am sure I would see the memory of these people on the faces of doctors and nurses and other psychiatric staff who still work there. It really isn't about the money: it is about human dignity and doing work that is meaningful and compassionate.

Classical psychology/psychiatry always has this "emotional distance". It keeps one objective and able to withdraw and cope with the sometimes horrible things patients say. What Mrs. de Hennezel is able to achieve with her brand of psychology, based on Jungian principles, is a much more compassionate and physical form of healing and accompaniment. She is wonderfully alive, and her book is a testament to that. Teaching someone to live is no small feat, but in the Western world that is her construct, we can afford to be a little more touchy-feely, she claims. It heals the living, the last rites.

They say, the dead have no religion. But the dying do, and we are all dying, just as soon as we are born. The other books I am reading are also on this similar thread of the true nature of the human and breaking through all the lies and constructs we've been given since we were a child. It's a good theme.

Not sure where to go from here, but that's alright. Reading and writing such "fluffy" stuff is becoming a larger part of my life again, while the "hard" sciences are becoming much smaller and I hope to diminish them completely in the years to come. 

It suits me right. I am not daydreaming anymore! From the Facebook page of: Never Give Up on Yourself: