Are You Ok? : The Little Letter Series: Delights of the Ordinary No. 54 (S2)
All things break. And all things can be mended.
#TheLittleLetters is my new series where I send you tiny letters of little learnings as opposed to long-form essays. They may help you gear back or throttle up but I promise most of them will be positively wise.
It is a pretty soulful Saturday.
And I languidly sit in this small yellow-lit cafe, writing to you on a warm weekend afternoon with some tea and ‘maska-bun.’
And when I was rubbernecking around, suddenly the heavens appeared changed and now August hinges into September. Soon we will behold the blushing ruddiness of autumn outside and inside our being. Just as Alan Lightman, physicist and writer says, “Nothing in the physical world seems to be constant or permanent. Stars burn out. Atoms disintegrate. Species evolve. Motion is relative. Even other universes might exist, many without life.”
Despite all of this wisdom, on our blue ball of earth, we are still excruciatingly bending our spines to fit into the frozen, stiff runs of life. In my minuscule heroism of life, I have felt the burden of every moment that has gone wrong. Because at so many points I have believed that I am responsible for the world and what others think. My logical head had screamed so many times that it was my duty to fix things.
On such days we have to remind ourselves that we all can be desperate and delusional many times. Desperate to force-fix every crumpling crease of our life and delusional to think that every atom should be under our plain control.
Yet, the certitude of life is none of us created the world. And everything and everyone is not our burden. The best thing, as Nick Cave puts it, “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think… It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
And ultimately, “You have to have faith in your own intuitive process. That is really all you can do… Have faith in yourself, so you can stand beside whatever it is you have done and fight for it, because if you can invest it with that faith, then it has its own truth, its own honesty, its own resilient vulnerability, and hence its own value.” - Nick Cave.
“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So, go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
- L.R. Knost
To End:Excerpt from A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration Praise Song for the Day By Elizabeth Alexander
Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.
All about us is noise…
Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.
I know there’s something better down the road.
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light.
This month we seemed to have witnessed many clouds and grey rains. And like most things in life, clouds pass.
See you soon in September!
- Anugrah
Delights of the Ordinary is for us who are trapped in the world of hustle culture but are quiet at heart with an itching creative bone. This newsletter intersects culture, art, science, and philosophy with our practical 9-5 job space.
Who am I?
Hi, I am Anugrah. I write Delights of the Ordinary for us who are trapped in the world of hustle culture but are quiet at heart with an itching creative bone and love for life. My newsletter intersects culture, art, and inner health in our practical 9-5 job space. Feel free to share. You can know more about me here and here.
Delights of the Ordinary currently is a free publication. Yet it takes me many hours of effort to write and curate it. I may need lots of coffee to keep me going. You can :)
Stumbled on my publication? Explore all my previous editions here. And in case you don’t wish to spend time browsing then complement this post with The Antidote for Self-Doubt, We Imagine Because We Are Living or read about Decision Fatigue and Our Creative Life.
If you ever feel like dropping in a message or a comment, do not hesitate. We all can only thrive in people. We can be those ordinary creative beings who can change the world. You and me.
All OK at my end....
Much love
Nice click, good read