Discretion: A thought came to my mind this morning when I left my apartments: I spent most of the time in this blog talking about myself my personal problem. I rarely talked about other topics, a more general topic.
I was wondering what was happening inside my head? Do other people who wrote journal like me also spend lots of time just writing about themselves, about their mundane life? Perhaps because I don’t have a readers, so I don’t have the need to write about the thing I know?
The topics that I generally write in this topics are actually quite repetitive, my mother, my father, my Camel, my inner wisdom. I’d say the theme of my blog is Personal Development. I re-read some of the posts I just wrote a month ago and I already see the significant different in perspective and view. Even today and yesterday are already different.
Now that I’ve already over my dad, my mom, I decided to add more general topic to this blog, you know, something I observe in life.
Do you feel this longing for arrival?
It’s the end of the raining season here or we might call it the autumn, where the sun spend most of his time hiding behind the cloudy sky and the heat of summer has given way to cooler, more forgiving weather.
It occurs to me this cool morning, as I walk my dogs along the familiar pathway to work, that perhaps I am also in the autumn of my life. A welcome time when the rhythms of living are less urgent, and I can linger without guilt over books, musics, and the slower cadence of each day.
It’s strange to say so, as I just started Bliss a year ago, and I’m about to raise fund for the business. This supposed to be the spring time, where everything goes with light speed. It’s true, the fast pace that I’m working is very fast. However, my soul is speaking to me otherwise. There are some days, just like yesterday, she told me that she’s pretty much arrived at her destination, she’s not sure what else that she should do in this life.
As we approaching the office, passing through the grassy lands, the dogs lingers, rolls on the grass, sniff scents nears and there. I could meander here indefinitely, but the unfinished email I started this morning beckons my return.
“Come on guys” I said, “We have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep”
The dogs are unimpressed by poetry. They live in the present, unencumbered by regrets of the past and worries for the future.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
Robert Frost
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost poetry reflects his philosophy that life should not be rejected but accepted with all its limitations. Interestingly, the more you learn about Frost personal life, the more you understand how loss and melancholy affects his life.
In 1885 when he was 11, his father died of TB, leaving the family with just eight dollars. Frost’s mother died of cancer. He also had to commit his younger sister Jeanie to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness apparently ran in Frost’s family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression and his daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital. Frost’s wife also experienced depression and died of breast cancer. Only 2 out of 6 his children outlived himself.
Yet, he found rooms for beauty and hope in his words.
Having closed the door in the first chapter of my life and arriving not so late but also not so early in this career of production, I want the joy of creativity to be my lovely woods. A refuge from accumulated weariness, where there are no more promises to keep or miles to go before I sleep.
Perhaps you feel this too? A longing for arrival, peace, and well-being. The question is, absent death, do we ever get there?
Is it even possible?
When do we arrive at that magical place of peace and well-being, where there are no more promises to keep or miles to go before we sleep?
The answer, depends from person to person, for the life journey that we take on are all unique and different. I’m guessing the answer of this question is the meaning of the word “arrival”. I think it’s not much of a destination or place like the so-called ” Nirvana” that most of Buddhist follower mistaken, but rather a state of being within ourselves.
Your true home is in the here and the now.
Thich Nhat Hanh
My therapist asked me if I ever had the feeling that time is long, really long, longer than my mind could visualize. After my instant response to her, I continue to ponder on the idea until I stumble upon Aristotle’s account of time.
Time is a measurable unit of movement concerning a before and an after
Aristotle
He claims that time is not a kind of change, but that is something dependent on change. It is a universal order within which all changes are related to each other. In other word, time is not a thing but for measure. This statement resonates with my understanding about time. If there’s no time, the question is not “When will we arrive at this magical place, but rather, are we at the magical place of peace and well-being? ”
“The richest of all people is a little child who is so happy with few simple toys!”-
Mehmet Murat ildan
We all have miles to go before we sleep, and promises to keep. But that doesn’t mean we have to reach the end of our journey to find happiness.
If children can find happiness within themselves, perhaps we can rediscover it too?