Sometimes we notice we are in chains of some sort.
We suddenly appreciate that despite everything, old ways of thinking or being still hold onto us.
We might feel quiet despair, a sense of having lost our way; more animal than angel…tied tight to anxious time rather than dancing with eternity.
Perhaps we live what some call ‘an active life’, which can be another word for ‘a muddle’.
We arrange interests around ourselves, with ourselves at the centre – some bring happiness, some enslave, some distort, some narrow, some overwhelm…but we’re not sure we can tell the difference.
So we keep going with the arrangement because this is how things must be, surely?
What can emerge is a ramshackle inner life, constructed on the hoof and without awareness, comprised of many disparate and clashing parts.
‘Unthinking multiplicity’ describes many lives, when focused simplicity is the kinder, saner path.
The fact is, we often need to start again in life; and this is fine, a sign of health.
Someone who starts again is well.
So we take a deep breath and return to what it is we want to do and be. What is that?
Perhaps we could find it in a word or two, in a phrase, or in a painting or in music …a word, image or feeling that speaks of something essential and true about ourselves which might have got lost along the way.
And once found – and it may take a while – this resets everything.
It might mean letting go of some stuff that has gathered around you and your life – tasks, roles, assumptions.
I re-set a while back from a photo of a sculpture sent to me. It sits in my eye-live everyday.
We can live under the illusion that what we do is a given, that somehow we have no choice; after all, it’s how we’ve always done it. But we should never confuse custom with necessity.
Custom can be ill-health in disguise.
So we shift from unthinking multiplicity to focused simplicity: ‘This is who and what I want to be.’
When we notice we are in chains, we start again.
