Are You For Real?

I’m starting to wonder what that is. Real, I mean. A good friend gave me a book recently, about philosophy and humour, and somewhere between those two I may have lost my point of focus. Once you start messing around with perspective and relativity, reality gets a little slippery and starts swaying like Moses’ staff in the wilderness. Good ole Reality, something that I’ve been brought up to believe is as solid as a nice cedar stick, becomes all floppy and even makes funny hissing noises..

Dreams. Are they real? Are they, as serious dream analysts say; prophetic, inner truths, issues crying out for attention? Or are they just the runaway sleepy fantasies of our over-stimulated minds?

The swami walking on the bed of coals will tell you that the mind can overcome reality. We’ll have to believe that his, at least, certainly can, since the reality of those embers putting out plenty of heat seems to have been safely ignored by his soles. (Don’t try that at home.)

Will reality go away if we ignore it? Having actually tried this myself, I can testify to the negative. My library fine stayed right where it was despite a very valiant effort on my part to deny its existence. Blaming that reality on someone else having misplaced my book did help soften the harshness of my undeniably real financial depletion..

Life is real, of that I am sure. My perspectives do seem to turn on a paradigm, but each one settles into its own groove, the good bad and ugly combining to decorate the reality of existence. Much as I might like to believe the twilight fancies dancing in my REM rest, eventually I need to wake up and embrace the real me.

I blog therefore I am... :)

Sleeping Beauty ~ Thomas Spence

Q for Quest..or maybe Question?

I’ve been running around. Like a hairy goat. Like a headless chook. From one place to another, inside airports and train stations, and one thing is certain. Wherever I go, there I am. It’s been an exciting half a dozen weeks tripping on a holiday through Europe. Perhaps I thought the change in scenery would cause some kind of commensurate shifts in my viewpoint of life, or my personality, but I seem to have reached home in the same shoes I left with.

Looking over my shoulder, the whole experience is already rapidly receding into memories. Luckily I took a few snapshots or I may not believe it had happened at all. I’ve been on trips before, and have to confess that apart from the slideshow performed for a few very lucky friends, those photos haven’t seen the light of day since. Life seems to happen in the now, with little time to think back or forwards.

That gets me thinking...that if I haven’t changed, and the memories move so quickly into distant past, why do I go to all the trouble of packing hefty cases and lugging them around the world? (If my husband is reading this, now is the part where he’ll be rubbing his hands hopefully, thinking that my wandering days are done)..but no. Quintessentially quite the opposite! That’s like saying I’ll give up eating jellybeans.

The singular, wonderful, awe-inspiring experiences I have, moment by moment, in places I’ve never seen before, with people I’ve never met before.. are worth the miles. Perhaps some do change me a little, but on the whole it’s the joy they bring in that moment that adds to my enjoyment of life.

The shiver at the giddy views from a mountain, the zing of an exotic recipe, the giggle at a silly busker, the understanding as another piece of history’s puzzle makes sense, the surprise in the discovery of a foreign custom, the pleasure of an unexpected kindness..even the fear of losing my way, and the frustration of a rip-off. Everything adds up. I probably don’t even remember them all, but they are special moments.

I have special times at home too of course, but there’s still a lot out there for me to discover. My suitcase is stowed in the closet for now, but I think it knows it won’t have to languish in the dark for long...

Questions?...always.

Life is a quest.

Quality produce ~ Stresa Italy