Joy
Taylor Swift sings about it but it does not exist.
At least not in the periphery of our minds.
We close our eyes and stem the tide but much as we try, images will begin to crowd our consciousness. Light filters in, a faint filtering of a prism, like waves breaking over mounds of hewn rock, and then a sound or two – voices that seem to belong to us but not – edging each other out until one or two take center stage and we are caught up in a story, much like a spider in its web.
The Art of Being Still
But my mind keeps wandering off – to where, I am not sure. It just needs to meander about and hop from one idea – question – thought – decision – realization – to another. I cannot stop it. I cannot keep it still. It has to ponder the blueness of the sky or the crispness of the winds (yeah right) or what I have to do next. And before I know it, I am standing up, or jumping about, or talking on the phone, or tinkering with my computer keys, or ruffling the pages of the newspaper or a book – anything but still. It will not be still.
Attaining Greatness
Whether I believe it or not, I think I need to experience this some of the time.
There are reasons, and there are reasons, of why sometimes it feels that the floor is suddenly giving way: unexplained fear, insecurity, a buckling in the face of adversity, a cowering, a fraying of the nerves, other people making you feel small that you are entertaining thoughts that they are probably better than you and feel threatened about that somehow, a praise that was left unuttered, a change in the direction of the wind, the weather, a tiredness that would not go away, a capitulation of the soul.