And So, A Warm Farewell to November
Austin has been cold these past couple November weeks.
Till just recently, the grey weather has sat unmoving in the sky like a meditating stone and the stillness has seeped down into the trees and the buildings and the grass and certainly it has affected me.
It comes has no real surprise, then, that my energy level has been fairly low, although it gets like this at this point every year.
The weather affects my mood, it subdues it and makes me more melancholy. However, I do not call this depression. Depression sucks the life out of you. Melancholy is more like a dense buzzing of energy, like the contemplative embers after a fire. After the blaze burns out, they stand guard to keep you company. And in my case (and in that of many others) it's where much of my creativity seems to lie.
I have found the pursuit of happiness to be too exhausting and disheartening, in a world of constant flux and change. I have also found pain to be a wonderful teacher, and see that it can be seasoning to life, something that adds flavor and a bittersweetness to it. In this sense, pain need not be an enemy, and it need not be a source of suffering.
And it seems appropriate since, true to the flux of Life, this is a time of flux for Tristan. But this melancholy feels more like a cocoon of change rather than a hinderance.
A new roommate recently moved into the house I'm sharing, and my inner cat came out, in that I mostly barricaded myself in my room for three days while I got used to someone new sharing the same tiny space after months of just two people at home. This is just another way to adjust.
Lest this note sound too somber, this is not a case of me sitting in a pool of self-pity at all. This is more an deeper appreciation of how to see the world, and to look at it with as little judgement as possible. To see it for what it is, and to see what I really am.
To see what we call pain in the world and realize that perhaps, that does not have be to be a source of suffering, but just one aspect of a deeply nuanced life. To look at the feelings that move in me, and the thoughts that move in me, and no longer view them as the be-all, end-all of life, it is welcoming of everything, unconditionally.
A celebration of life is not a celebration of happiness. The sky does not celebrate sunshine over dark clouds or night. The sky welcomes it all and what needs to happen happens.
For life flowing through human beings, is it any different?
If anything comes from this post, I hope it is that just because something doesn't feel happy doesn't mean it is wrong for that time. What if happiness is not the same as joy, or bliss, or peace? Life plays many tunes.
Till just recently, the grey weather has sat unmoving in the sky like a meditating stone and the stillness has seeped down into the trees and the buildings and the grass and certainly it has affected me.
It comes has no real surprise, then, that my energy level has been fairly low, although it gets like this at this point every year.
The weather affects my mood, it subdues it and makes me more melancholy. However, I do not call this depression. Depression sucks the life out of you. Melancholy is more like a dense buzzing of energy, like the contemplative embers after a fire. After the blaze burns out, they stand guard to keep you company. And in my case (and in that of many others) it's where much of my creativity seems to lie.
I have found the pursuit of happiness to be too exhausting and disheartening, in a world of constant flux and change. I have also found pain to be a wonderful teacher, and see that it can be seasoning to life, something that adds flavor and a bittersweetness to it. In this sense, pain need not be an enemy, and it need not be a source of suffering.
And it seems appropriate since, true to the flux of Life, this is a time of flux for Tristan. But this melancholy feels more like a cocoon of change rather than a hinderance.
A new roommate recently moved into the house I'm sharing, and my inner cat came out, in that I mostly barricaded myself in my room for three days while I got used to someone new sharing the same tiny space after months of just two people at home. This is just another way to adjust.
Lest this note sound too somber, this is not a case of me sitting in a pool of self-pity at all. This is more an deeper appreciation of how to see the world, and to look at it with as little judgement as possible. To see it for what it is, and to see what I really am.
To see what we call pain in the world and realize that perhaps, that does not have be to be a source of suffering, but just one aspect of a deeply nuanced life. To look at the feelings that move in me, and the thoughts that move in me, and no longer view them as the be-all, end-all of life, it is welcoming of everything, unconditionally.
A celebration of life is not a celebration of happiness. The sky does not celebrate sunshine over dark clouds or night. The sky welcomes it all and what needs to happen happens.
For life flowing through human beings, is it any different?
If anything comes from this post, I hope it is that just because something doesn't feel happy doesn't mean it is wrong for that time. What if happiness is not the same as joy, or bliss, or peace? Life plays many tunes.
posted by Tristan | 9:29 PM
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