Every Joy is a Gain

 The 19th century poet, Robert Browning, once wrote, "Every joy is a gain, and a gain is a gain, however small."

This is something I have always believed. I have blogged about my optimistic outlook before (see the keyword "optimism" in the links to the right of this post). Yet it can take a lot of courage to embrace the idea behind Browning's words. When we are in a bad or sad situation, when all the joy seems to have drained out of our lives, leaving them grey and bleak, we can easily look around and see no hope, no prospect of ever feeling joyful again.

Which is why I believe that having some kind of daily gratitude practice is so valuable, to give us another perspective on our lives. Somewhere in her books, Brené Brown writes about gratitude, and shares a practice that her family has: they go round the table during the evening meal and each person shares something they are grateful about on that particular day. And she says that this may only be gratitude that the day is over, if it has been a difficult one. Which I believe rather proves Browning's point that "gain is gain, however small." Simply being alive at the end of the day is its own joy, because every day, someone (in fact many someones) will have breathed their last.

I call my own gratitude practice "small pleasures" and record them in the daily log of my Bullet Journal each evening. And I can *always* think of something - a moment of sunshine, a kind word from a family member or friend, completing (or making progress with) a particular task, noticing something beautiful in the natural world. 

I think that noticing moments of beauty and kindness and yes, joy, in our daily lives can help us to appreciate that not everything in our lives is awful. To give a current example from my own life, yesterday I had a hospital appointment, the upshot of which is, I will be having surgery on my left foot later this year, to correct my deformed toes, which are becoming a problem. And, amid the nervousness that this news inevitably brought, I was able to feel joyful that once I have recovered from the operation, my foot will be able to fit into ordinary shoes again (not trainers and one pair of boots). 

I wish you every joy that life can bring and the power to notice them as they happen.

Finding Peace at Home and Away

 We have been on holiday in our favourite part of Wales since last Saturday, and will be driving home tomorrow. It's been a glorious week, yet very relaxing. One of the highlights was visiting Dolgoch Falls, as we do every time we come here, which is an incredibly special space for me. It was the only day we had some rain, but even then it was still beautiful.

We have also spent a gorgeously warm and sunny day in Aberystwyth, which was new for both of us, and visited Bodnant Garden in north Wales yesterday, which was glorious in the sunshine. Although even the overflow car park was nearly full when we arrived, Bodnant is such a large site that we never felt crowded with people except at the refreshment places. It was too late in the year for the laburnum arch and for the rhododendrons and azaleas, but there was still so much beauty to wonder at and glory over. Towards the end of our visit, we came back to the house and the rose gardens, which were in full and luscious bloom. 

All in all, it has been a gorgeous week - we've had a mixture of sunshine and rain, long days out and relaxing days where we stayed local (Barmouth to the south and Harlech to the north) and simply relaxed. I love being here, on Ystumgwern Farm, in our lovely upside down cottage, just being peaceful. I've done some writing, a lot of reading and just enjoyed spending time with my beloved. For me, this is the best kind of holiday. Lots of time to recharge my batteries, and when we go home tomorrow, I will feel relaxed and at peace.

 

Being Cheerful

The 3rd century BCE Chinese writer and politician, Lü Buwei, once wrote, "The heart must be in harmony and calm; only then will it be cheerful."

Quite what is "harmonious and calm" about a jug of home-made lemonade, I'm not exactly sure, but there we are...

My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines "cheerful" as, "contented, in good spirits, hopeful; bright, pleasant; willing, not reluctant." And yes, I absolutely agree that harmony and calm will help us to have cheerful hearts, but not "only then". Because of the last part of that dictionary definition, "willing, not reluctant." I believe we might do something, in a  "willing, not reluctant" spirit, but feel far from calm while we are doing it. For example, one might say something like, "I could cheerfully have throttled him/her."

I Googled "cheerful quotes" and while many of them agreed with Lü Buwei, and more conflated cheerfulness with optimism, some definitely showed another side of the word. For example:

"The average man has a carefully cultivated ignorance about household matters - from what to do with the crumbs to the grocer's telephone number - a sort of cheerful inefficiency which protects him." Crystal Eastman (an American lawyer). And yes, I know that this is a dangerous generalisation - in our house, my husband and I split the housework fairly evenly.

And I believe that the heart can be "in harmony and calm" when we are feeling far from cheerful. For example, when we hear of the death of an old friend, who perhaps died peacefully in their sleep, surrounded by their family, at a good age. In this circumstance, we might accept that they had a "good death" (if there even is such a thing) but would certainly not feel "cheerful" about it.

Yet I do believe that harmony and calmness can help us to view life in a more cheerful way - to accept what comes without heartburning, and striving to live in the present, neither being too nostalgic about the past, nor worrying overmuch about the future. They might even help us to be more compassionate.

A False Dichotomy

This week's quote, by the Scottish philosopher, David Hume, is an odd one, "Reason and genius evoke respect and esteem. Wit and humour inspire love and affection." And the illustration chosen to accompany it is weirder... a photo of Eastbourne pier... why??

However, I refuse to waste time and energy trying to work out why that image goes with that quote, when I have bigger fish to fry. Because I disagree with Hume, or at least with the apparent dichotomy he sets up. He seems to be saying that on the one hand, if you show reason and genius, you will "evoke" or call forth, respect and esteem. Which are worthy of evocation. On the other hand, (and this is the bit I disagree with), wit and humour will "inspire" love and affection.

Why can't reason and genius inspire love and affection? Why can't wit and humour evoke respect and esteem? Admittedly, these two sentences are quoted completely out of their context, and might make perfect sense in it. But on the face of it, I cannot agree with him. Reason and genius are not necessarily cold aspects of humankind, only able to evoke "respect and esteem". I can think of many occasions where they have inspired yes, respect, but also affection, in me.

Nor are wit and humour always benign. I can think of plenty of examples of wit being used cruelly, to tease, to scapegoat, to satirise.  I was teased badly as a child, made a butt of jokes, because of my patched glasses. And you only have to go back a few years to remember the Charlie Hebdo furore, when that French satirical magazine was attacked for mocking Muslim beliefs. I wrote about it here.

I believe that human beings are far more complex in their interactions than the quotation suggests. That which evokes respect and esteem in one person, may leave another person cold. And our sense of humour is often unique to ourselves. Some examples of wit and humour will "tickle our funny bones", when others pass us by without cracking so much as a smile. And we are also capable of growth and change: some things we found funny in the past make us cringe now... I'm thinking of racist and sexist TV programmes of the sixties and seventies, which were popular then, but really dreadful in retrospect.

So may we all be free to respond to outside stimuli in whatever way makes sense to us (so long as it doesn't lead us into cruelty or hatred or indifference).

Life is Enough

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen once wrote, "'Life alone is not enough,' said the butterfly. 'You must also have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.'"

And I agree with him to a certain extent. The things and experiences we love - sunshine, freedom, a little flower in the butterfly's case - can make all the difference between enjoying our lives and merely existing, dragging ourselves from one day to the next without any moments of transcendence and joy.

Life is a mystery - we have no control over when and how we enter it, nor how or when we will leave it. And, to be honest, we don't actually have that much control over the time in between. All of us grow older, and closer to our final day in this life,  at a rate of 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year. I was only saying yesterday, "I can't believe it's June already." Because the first five months of the year seem to have simply flown past.

But I recognise that this is a subjective view and that for some people, these last five months will have dragged, seeming to last for an eternity. In fact, all our views are subjective, precisely because each of us inhabits a unique body, each of us perceives the present in a unique way, depending on our past experiences, and our physical, mental and spiritual health. 

I believe that each of us can choose how we respond to the things which happen to us, which can make all the difference. So many things are outside our control (or at least, partly so) - our health, how other people interact with us, the body and mind and spirit we were born with...  There is a fabulous blogpost about this by Lori Deschene, on the Tiny Buddha blog, here. To summarise what she says: we cannot control other people and how they interact with us; the past, the future, outcomes of what we do, how we age, our overall health, that we will get hurt, and the suffering in the world. 

But we CAN control how we respond to all these - which is also explained in the blogpost. It can be quite difficult to choose not to engage negatively with negative experiences, but if we can manage to step back and not allow ourselves to react emotionally, our lives could be much happier. It's a matter of learning to let go of what we can't control and of appreciating the good experiences. Easy to write, difficult to do! But so worth the attempt.

 

Life is a Mosaic

Daniel Spitzer, the 19th century Austrian journalist and satirist, once wrote, "Happiness is a mosaic picture made up of nothing but inconspicuos little joys."

And I agree with him, up to a point. Happiness can be made up of "inconspicuous little joys". But I'd like to extend the metaphor to encompass the whole of our lives, which can be compared with a mosaic in their rich variety - containing sorrows as well as joys.

Nearly 30 years ago, I was working on a cross-stitch sampler to commemorate the first ten years of my marriage. I wanted it to be a surprise for my husband, and spent every lunch-hour at work stitching away. It comprised a rectangle of  "quilted" squares, with the following words in the middle: "Marriage is a patchwork quilt: bits and pieces of two lives come together to form a new whole. Some meet perfectly at the corners, while others must be stretched to fit. The dark pieces set off the light, and the rough add texture to the smooth. And if Love is the thread that stitches the pieces together, it will last a lifetime."

And today, nearly three decades later, these words are as true as they were then. No-one's life is full of unalloyed joy. All of us have encountered pain, sorrow, grief and suffering, as well as joy, elation and happiness. Yet as the sampler says, "The dark pieces set off the light, and the rough add texture to the smooth." Exactly like a mosaic. 

I also think that the mosaic / patchwork quilt metaphors can remind us to step back and consider the whole picture, rather than being so focussed on a particular tessera / cotton patch / life event that we cannot see the whole. Cannot see the wonderful balance in our lives, or the presence of the Spirit. This stepping back can help us to detach from our emotions, to enable us to react in more skilful ways to stuff which happens to us. Or at least, so I have found.

Self Deception

Last Sunday evening, my husband and I attended a screening of a live performance of Good, a play about the Holocaust by British playwright, C.P. Taylor. It was both astonishing and disturbing. There were only three actors – David Tennant, who played the protagonist, Professor John Halder, who gradually turns from a liberal minded man in 1933, whose best friend was a Jew, into a high-ranking member of Hitler’s SS. The other two actors were Elliot Levey and Sharon Small, who both played multiple characters, without changing their clothes or leaving the stage. It was a tour de force of brilliant acting, against one, very minimalist set. And, like I said, very disturbing. It demonstrated superbly how the slow drip, drip of evil propaganda can change someone’s opinions, while still enabling them to justify their actions to themselves as “one of the good guys”.

I don't believe in evil as an independent power in the world. No-one is born evil - there is no such thing as original sin. I believe that every human being has the power to choose between good and evil. However, the choices that each person makes will set them on a path towards a life filled with good deeds or evil ones, and the farther one walks along the chosen path, the harder it is to turn aside. As the Native Americans believe, "it depends which wolf you feed." C.P. Taylor’s play was a brilliant and chilling illustration of this in action.

I have to believe that there is a divine spark "that of God" in everyone, but perhaps those people we call evil choose to ignore its promptings. There are many degrees of evil; for example, I do not believe that the majority of German people during Hitler's Reich chose evil consciously, although the dyed in the wool Nazis certainly seem to have done. But the Nazi propaganda machine awakened the latent anti-Semitism in many German hearts, giving them someone to blame for their hard lives, and enabling them to believe its lies, and close their eyes to what was going on.

The Nazis were obsessed by an ideal: the supremacy of the Herrenvolk, the German race, and the elimination of all others. And this ideal led to death and destruction on a large scale. It seems that if we allow ourselves to become obsessed by an ideal, it skews our judgement and corrupts our reason. If we idealise something or somebody, we don't see it / them straight. Examples of this are littered throughout history.

I believe that it is only by the exercise of compassion, by being open to the hearts and minds of others, by recognising that each of us is "unique, precious, a child of God", that the closed mind and consequent intolerance can be avoided. Because the problem has not gone away. Intolerance is alive and well in our society. If we are not careful, we can fall into judgement and “othering”, seeing other people as somehow less than we are ourselves. It can lead to all sorts of -isms: sexism, racism, homophobia.

Why do we do this to ourselves, to each other? We are all human beings, each one unique, each one worthy of love and justice and respect, each one with unique gifts to offer the world. Or that is what I believe...