The Natural Course [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

We’ve no idea how to grow peppers. And yet, here they are, red and ready for harvesting. I’ve just decided that our peppers are a lesson in the Tao: do nothing. Wu wei. Water the peppers when they need a drink. The natural course will show the way.

Is it any wonder that people avoid me at parties? “Gear down,” Kerri whispers when I find myself suddenly abandoned and standing alone in the kitchen. And what if I like being alone? What if my natural esoterica acts as a people-at-the-party-repellant? For an introvert, party-small-talk is exhausting, the empty kitchen a safe haven. The natural course shows the way.

I just read that striving for happiness is predicated on the belief that happiness is somewhere else, not here. Let go the striving and, perhaps, a different belief will enter. Perhaps happiness is here already. Or, as Viktor Frankl famously wrote that “happiness ensues.” It cannot be chased. Stand still and perhaps it will bump into you.

Sometimes, no matter where I am in the house, I know that Dogga wants to come back inside. He makes no noise. I can feel it. When I arrive at the backdoor he is standing there, open face, bright eyes, wagging wag-a-wag. He is certain that I will be there, joyful in our greeting. Happiness is nowhere else. No striving necessary.

The natural course shows the way.

[Kerri just said this post is a “random-thought-pie”! A perfect description of the inner workings of my noggin. I love it!]

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEPPERS

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Meet Your Obligation

a detail of my latest – and yet unnamed – painting

“I feel like I have an obligation to live,” she said, in response to the question from the audience.

Joyce Maynard was reading from her latest book, The Best Of Us, at The Book Stall, an independent bookstore in little downtown Winnetka. Kerri has been a huge fan for many years but had never been able to attend a reading so we jumped at the opportunity. The Best Of Us is a memoir. In 2011, in her late fifties, Joyce met her “first true partner.” A year into their marriage he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died 19 months later. Her book is the story of their all-to-brief time together.

“It’s not a book about death,” she said, “It’s a book about learning what love really is. What is truly important in life.” She added, “I don’t think people should have to pay 20 bucks for my catharsis.”

An obligation to live. I loved the phrase and all that it implied. Sometimes life collapses. This week, we remembered 9/11. We watched Irma wreak havoc on the heels of the devastation of Harvey. Fires burn homes and lives in the west. Listening to Joyce Maynard read from her book, I felt as if Viktor Frankl was sitting beside me whispering, “See! She is not looking for meaning where none can be found. She is making meaning. She is giving meaning to her path. That is the ultimate creative act!”

It is the fire that burns beneath an obligation to live. To not waste another moment of this amazing life seeking for that which cannot be found; but it can be given.

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