Reason & Whimsy

as the new year is gradually feeling more Usual, so might my blog feed. no more daily lists and summing up of stuff that made my heart beat faster. i've been at work for two days running already, and everything that reminded of Xmas there has been tidied up, ready for next year {unless it ended in the bin...}. we're more than ready for a new year. 

my apartment still looks quite Xmassy, though that might also change, after this afternoon - haven't made my mind up yet. it looks so cosy, still, reminding me of the weeks leading up to Midwinter, to the time to revert inwards. some people might call it Not Being Able To Be Realistic And Move On... 

as ever, i'm stuck between two voices in my head, two voices that can be called Reason and Whimsy, if i want to simplify it. Reason is the one who keeps me in check, who stops me from being too far out, who makes sure i eat some healthy stuff every day, and not too much chocolate, that i go to bed on time to get up to do my job okay. Reason is everyone from my mum to my ex, via most people i know. Reason also goes by the name of Sensible One, and Reason is not too fond of my other voice, finds Whimsy a bit annoying and weird. 

Whimsy is easily distracted, likes chocolate and coffee a LOT, dreams even more and has very unRealistic goals in life. Whimsy wants to travel and see Europe, in a red camper van, have morning coffee on a mountain side, looking out over a village in Austria, have lunch in Berlin, where they know a nice vegetarian restaurant in Charlottenburg, cook dinner with stuff they bought in that sweet little organic shop in Sweden... Whimsy wants to enjoy life, cos they know the world is so much more than where they grew up. {Whimsy is my dad, i think...}

Reason and Whimsy clash quite often.  

one of the things i've learnt over time is that Reason is a bit of a scaredy cat. it likes routine, it likes life to be predictable, then things go okay. another thing i've learnt is that life is rarely Predictable...

another thing again that i've learnt is that Reality {something that Reason is very fond of} is not the firm fact - the only truth - that we are presented with. for many years we have been told that there is only one reality, the one that we learn about at school, from our parents, from the world around us. science has told us what it was, Life, dissected the parts, examined,  come to a conclusion, and there you have it - the world as it can only ever be: Proven By Science... 

only, Life doesn't actually let itself be dissected and examined. it's not that simple. it's not that straightforward. it never has been. sure, things can be taken apart, and looked at, and conclusions made about what was seen, heard, touched, sensed, but what one scientist sees and concludes can be different to what another sees and concludes. and if you take a living body apart, for example, and put it back together again, one does not create a new life... what's missing is a vital ingredient, something science has never been even close to quantifying - ?

Reality is only what you perceive it to be...

my reality is different from yours. your reality is nothing like mine. there's that quote that goes around Pinterest/Instagram, which says: some people live in a bitter, angry, hate-filled world, some people live in a friendly, caring, joy-filled world. same world. {or words to that extent} or that thing that Henry Ford said, one time: whether you think you can, or whether you think you can't, you are right... what we consider to be the Real World, the Reality that we should all just learn to live with, is just an illusion. a construct that we have learnt to believe to be the truth. don't even consider questioning this...

but what if we stop believing this truth?! what then...?!

when Mo, my lifelong fellow-traveller on the path to Enlightenment, posed this question to me, i wasn't yet ready to think along those lines. yes but... we live in this world... isn't that what we're supposed to deal with? this truth? this reality? this reality, was her reply, is only true if you think it's true... huh?! how the f^^$ does that work, then?! 

it has taken me years to get what she meant. whatever we believe to be true, is true... all the things we consider to be true, are what we have learnt under the constraints of the society we live in to be True. to be facts. as soon as we let go of this, and start believing that anything is possible, then it will be possible. and another thing: we are not meant to suffer... 

{this is one that especially my mother has elevated to an art form... not only she, but she has been my most consistent challenger in life and my hopes of becoming a Happy-Go-Lucky kind of person...}

we are NOT meant to suffer... ever... life is supposed to be fun, and joy-filled, and easy, and pleasant... we are supposed to have abundance and joy as our default setting. but first the church, and nowadays the government & media, have done a brilliant job at making us belief that we have to suffer before we are rewarded. we have to endure the hardships in life, especially at the moment, not want too much, listen to our leaders, cos we don't know right from wrong anymore. first the church, and now the government & media, have made us doubt ourselves, doubt our inner voices, our inner belief system, our intuition. we have stopped relying on ourselves such a long time ago, that we don't even know what our inner voice sounds like. so we believe leaders, put our faith in guru's, ask teachers - anything but our Selves... or maybe a little bit, when we meditate at times, and put a Buddha in the window - the small tokens of dipping our toes into the well of wisdom that is concealed in our selves. 

but that also reeks of crazy. one of the things that {church/media/government} have been very successful in getting us to believe is that anyone who questions the Generally Accepted Truth is mad. anyone who questions science is mad. anyone who doesn't go along with the Generally Accepted Truth is dangerous... strangely, now more so than maybe 25 years ago... dividing people has never been so easy... {but this is food for another blog post all together, i feel...}

so, Reason and Whimsy keep battling it out... while i'd really like to have them united, of a fashion. something to work on in 2021.