Still Waters

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

Joseph Addison
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Hello Ally
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I once knew an actor named Brown (I don't remember his first name, sorry Mr. Brown) who had one very effective process in working out his performances. He began with the idea that what his character wanted, above all things, was peace. Like water seeking it's own level he wanted to achieve calmness, and every thing in the play that disturbed him was something to fight against. It gave him a good solid objective for every role. I saw him perform a few times and it was clear the technique worked well for him.

When he described it I thought about how easy it would be to apply that, not only to acting but to many of our actions in life. We want to be happy. We want to be wealthy, or at least solvent. We want to be healthy. We want the things that concern us in our lives to be harmonious and uncomplicated. We want our work to be done satisfactorily. We want our lives to run smoothly. In short we want peace.

But our days seem to be filled dealing with things that interfere with that peace, that calmness, and even though some of the efforts we make are joyful ones, they still relate back to the state of ultimate contentment.

But there's another side to that coin, it's the tight shoes theory. Why wear tight shoes? Because it feels so good to take them off. Why take on difficult or strenuous activities? Because it gives us a sense of pride and accomplishment. We can sit back, relax and congratulate ourselves for having done it, whatever "it" was.

There are a great many things wrong with the world that we can get all riled up and exercised about if we really want to. There's no point in turning the back and ignoring them. But there are people working hard to make still waters where trouble rears it's angry head. If something rocks your boat it helps in the calmness category to support them. To assuage guilty feelings is not enough, nor the point. That brings no lasting peace. But to care is the positive remedy for all the world's ills, and that is best done from a place of quiet confidence.

Sometimes contentment requires a humble and contrite spirit. If real peace is achieved those states are well worth having. They are the cure for active feelings of rage, resentment and revenge. With those emotion close to the vest there is no such thing as peace. Those are the disturbances that Mr. Brown would have fought against as the play progressed. To dispel all the negatives from one's heart and mind is the pathway to the still waters.

DB - Your Patient Vagabond
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AUTUMN QUESTION
My sincere apologies. The old gremlin has been at work again and I have lost the file that contained the 6 answers I got for the question. I spent 2 days trying to get it back but failed. Hence I am unable to post the answers I got. As for the rest of you, you're off the hook.

I've decided to drop it and turn my attention to a Winter Question. For those who answered, I am very sorry.

DB
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Alternative Approach 10/10/09

Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

Joseph Addison
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Read on if you've a mind,
or even if you don't.
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Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do,
You gotta have a dream, if you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

(Oscar Hammerstein)

I have had continual trouble all my life in one form or another. I don't like to write about it in Vagabond Journeys, that's not what this journal is for. But sometimes it's necessary just to clear the air and let people know, if they care, where the person is coming from who writes these words. Unfortunately some people, who seem to enjoy what they call my eloquence and poetry when I write "happy talk," turn sour and call it histrionics and dramatics when I have to address something sad and troublesome. Well, I'm sorry, but if I can't make poetry out of my pain then of what use is pain? Or poetry, for that matter?

One of the things I fear, when the sky turns dark and life grows gloomy, is that I might lose my sense of humor. I don't remember when I first discovered that I had one. Maybe it was the first time I got a good solid laugh from an audience. My boyhood was certainly humorless. It was filled with ridicule and sarcasm, the shadow land of humor. But somewhere along the rocky road I began to see the funny side of things. I learned to laugh, not at people, but with people at life. That is not to say that some people aren't very funny. The more self important they are the funnier they are. And that was another big step around the rocks. I eventually learned to laugh at my own self righteous pomposity.

So why, you ask with an appropriate smirk on your face, aren't you laughing at yourself now? I don't know. Maybe I did lose my humor. If you see it laying around anywhere, send it to me, Express Mail, COD. Thank you.

Another reason for the sadness everybody (okay, many people) suffer is the realization that the dream of one's life is not going to happen. One of the changes that took place in me the other day was the despair of accepting that the life I was holding in my mind as what I wanted for myself was never going to be. That is a deep sense of loss that plummets right down to the bottom of my invisible being. They can take away my family, my home, my money, my health, my work, my career, my books and my journal. But surely they can't take away my dream. Can they?

I stare at the table top like a nut and await an answer even though I know it won't come because I already know what it is.

And another great loss that shakes the ground one depends on is the loss of faith. Why does one's expectancy of good have to be a cheat? We come to have faith in so many things: the law of averages, casting bread on the waters of life, recognition of efforts done well, proper acknowledgement of ownership and rights, the rule of law, adequate compensation for work, friendships. But when the evidence of any of those is lacking in one's experience, and particularly of more than one, faith in the rest is shaken. I had to come to face how much faith I have lost over the years. It's frightening. Then, when all else fails, there faith in some form of deity. I tried that. I guess it works for some people. But when honest, earnest prayers produce the opposite result of what one is praying for, that faith has failed.

If you have followed me this far in today's journal entry and aren't looking for something to criticize me for, I will think of you as a friend and tell you that my sleeves are rolled up, my boots are beside me and I still have a sense of adventure around here someplace. I may have an old man's puny strength and not much else to help me except my wits, but I can't implode and won't. I shook my fist at heaven more than once and I will do it again. I feel I have been tragically let down by promises, people and events of my life and I resent that very much. But my life isn't over yet.

I will post a cheerful entry one of these days. I promise you.

DB
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