Life the universe and everything in between

As the saying goes “that’s just the way the cookie crumbles” and generally when it does most are small enough to not bother savouring. Its easy to ‘acknowledge’ small crumbs and then let them be, as they are not substantial enough to eat and we find (more than often) that we are happy to not fuss about trying to claim each one. But when theres a significant crumble in the cookie there is generally a different response. You take action, you cease it and you savour it.

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Okay so ponder this. Yes, perhaps a little hefty but share your perspectives…

How do you explain human nature? 

(Why do human beings act the way we do? and what do you think our underlying natural nature is?)

A passage some of you out there might have read before. It might be a bit “hippy-ish” for some but love it and just wanted to share it.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

copyright © 1999 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

Ive been in contact with Rach since she left our flat & spontaniously took off globe trotting to satisfy a bad case of itchy feet. She writes beautifully on every eventful and non eventful situation life throws at her and i always find her stories so facinating and inspiring to read.

“My lasting impression of Paris I think will be that everyone is lost, Parisians and foreigners alike, not figuratively, but physically. Nonetheless, I do like to ask myself, what exactly it means to be lost, because this implies not being able to find what you are looking for or unfulfilled aim or desire and excludes any positive connotations.

I guess everything comes down to the means/ends debate. If you are not really aiming to get somewhere, does getting lost lose all significance? Is the means an ends in itself?

A couple of weeks ago Gibbo and I spent several hours looking for the favourite Parisian street to have a beer, and upon arrival only decided may as well have a beer given we had been looking for so long. Although I can’t speak for Gibbo, for me, the enjoyment of having a beer and looking for a beer were pretty much equal, and so the question is, were we really lost?
I thought this feeling might merely have been the result of the overwhelming “old(ness), big(ness), and cool(ness)” (Gibbo, pont something, 200 of Paris, but meeting Bran and subsequently Kathleen and Duncan, confirmed that yes, we were little fish in a big grey pond, and that getting lost, but not lost, is perhaps the defining characteristic of Paris.

Despite this, or maybe as a result, I have been able to create a picture upon this grey Parisian canvas. I like to call it “Melancholy and the Infinite Happiness”, and it goes something like this: No matter how lost you feel, physically or figuratively, friendship and solidarity are the magnetic north of life that sandpaper away the rough edges, and create a pastel blue background upon which the greys lose their power.

I went out in the world to get lost, and I think rather than travelling round, I should have cut straight to Paris, where, according to one drunk, bet-up, and amnesic Peruvian, it is naïve to try one’s luck.
Trying one’s luck clashes with the light blue. When we are completely content with the melancholy, is there any point trying to strike it lucky?, because, luck may just be misfortune.“