Little Ways the World Works: Delights of the Ordinary No. 12
Movements and Changes.
“It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis,” Henry Miller
I now live a few kilometres away from a creek and at a see-able distance from the Yeeor hills of the Western Ghats in India.
This change has been recent though!
As much as I mightily resisted this change, it has been inevitably the only constant. Longing for permanence is a complex mutual sport that our emotions and minds play together (I long for stability too).
They will always rebel when change and shifts happen.
The Places Change (and everything in between)
Earlier than this change, we were amidst massive high rises, along with the grand influx of air pollution especially during bone-rattling winter months, the grey skies being the usual thing and we were cordially okay with what we had. Leaving the capital region of India, Delhi, I have now moved to the financial capital of India, Mumbai, which is contrastingly covered with thickets of green.
While Delhi remains heavy on the lungs but open and airy to the eyes, Mumbai is claustrophobic to the eyes but light and airy to the lungs. In Mumbai, the ordinary life is so clunky and drably running at turbo-jet speed, that you may be amazed at how life still has no frills here, while Delhi has the mettle of being heavily decorated in all its ratios and fractions even when it moves faster.
Witnessing The Changes
Since I will be witnessing the ordinary mundanes of Mumbai from now on, I am learning to embrace ‘the changes’ of different cultures, different weathers, different latitudes and longitudes. And how surprisingly, changes are weaving itself into many absorbing stories.
Maybe someday I will sit with you over tea and talk about how people are the same and regular all over the world but so much different in their own irregular ways.
Because it is in the changes, whether mundane or massive, we have the capacity to draw into our beings the beliefs of surviving the odds of life.
To whisper to our own ears that, ‘things will be all right.’
To dignify our stance once more and start to be aware of the changes around us.
Changes Create Stories
And these are the changes that have had the capacity to make stories. And sometimes a massive one.
Because, periodically changes in our lives can be so shattering that they create cuts and wounds inside us - we go through mind-sucking days, devoid of sunshine and start to feel, ‘as if we are made of mush right now.’ Yet as we are sifted we are creating stories that bring a change.
It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.
- Neil Gaimen.
Tell Stories
Thus,
when you sit with your children, talk to them in stories.
Tell them the stories about the homes you grew up in. What all changed! The kind of primitive life our generation lived compared to today’s supersonic-technological-verve, still had the dimensions to make life worth living.
Tell them the stories that living a perfectly normal life may also mean imagining and innovating and becoming positively ordinary in our outlook and accepting the changes as swiftly as we can.
Tell them to somewhat believe in fairy tales because they give some hope when we grow up.
Give them the stories of life’s true experiences which are only accessible by playing in the mud, splashing the rainwater and then wondering why stars twinkle!
The scientific knowledge will soon take over them. They will know that the sun is a fierce ball of gasses, and the moon doesn’t shine on its own. But if you will tell them stories now they will still appreciate the world with wonderment.
We do not always want data analysts and coders around us. We also need those who can tell stories of ordinary things and complex-defeating changes in their lives and still feel wonderfully confident about it.
Let them have enough time to explore, find answers in delight and astonishment, and then face the changes.
Changes are synonyms for challenges.
The Faves
And, here are some of my faves that I found while changing cities:
To Ponder: “In a roaming conversation over tea,… Le Guin tells White:
“The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again. We’re drawn in — or out — and the windows of our perception are cleansed, as William Blake said. The same thing can happen when we’re around young children or adults who have unlearned those habits of shutting the world out.””
For me, life changes are one of them.
To Joy Watch: Tedd Lasso is a sports comedy-drama aired on Apple TV. It has all the macho-outdoorsy-cool vibes, added with the comical quirkiness that vibes perfectly with life lessons. Watch a small video of it here on YouTube.
‘Be Curious, Not Judgemental’ (Ted Lasso style)
To Listen: Sound of Earth can be the most calming echo to our souls. They brim with soft energy and strength, enough to break the distorted mundanes of honk-laden city life. I would highly recommend you to stop doom-scrolling the reels and tick-tock hacks; instead, get your headphones and listen to how the earth sounds. You can scroll the earth and stop at places to find it’s linguistic tone.
Internet can be soothing too! Depends on what we are looking at!
To End:
The Ordinary Humanity
We all witness some form of complexity in each one of us.
That is what humans are.
We fight, hate and speak cuss words with our mouths and in our hearts (it is the same thing though),
And yet we have so much capacity to make bewildering moments in our ordinaries,
That is why we are all standing on the same level called humanity.
With difficulties, arises some courage.
When the land is tough your softness also changes its rigour.
I believe we have learnt the art of making our own minds aware of the world around us.
And have learnt to live dutifully through it.
Lest we become better.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you celebrate the changes in your week, the next, and of course every week. You also celebrate with those people in your life who carry themselves while they carry you.
-Anugrah
Keep writing Anugrah. . This was a very authentic, thought provoking and enjoyable read.
Absolutely loved reading it. Yeah, change no matter how much we resist it, it is the only constant. Better embrace the fact and keep learning and growing through it. This reading for me was so soothing, like talking to a wise friend. Being comforted in the fact that others go through similar experience like us. That sometime wisest advice is common sense.