On A Good Day

ON A GOOD DAY it feels like nothing can stop me. It's like I am channeling the powers of God, I have been called and counted and this remarkable understanding of love and sense of self, others and purpose oozes from my fingertips. In many ways it feels as if I am uncontainable, like I am bigger than my body and greater than a sum of my parts. I am not alone and I feel a connection to humanity, nature and the universe. I get a sense for how it spins: wheels within wheels, circles within cycles, micro and macro. It all comes down to the same glorious design and purpose and I'm looking at all, touching it, feeling it, inhaling it and I realize that we are inseparable. I was made to walk this earth just as every other. Our lives where made to collide and intersect and although there is pain and other inclement weather, this is not the status quo and these are not chains that are set to bind and confine us.

On a good day I feel as though I am found and placed on a high shelf. It is not because I am better than anyone else, it is simply because that is my value along with everyone else. On a good day I am raised up and can see so clearly. Beyond what I can normally process in my head. Beyond what is dragged around in my heart. It lifts like helium. It shoots into the sky and explodes like fireworks in the dark. All my conflicts, all my fears, all my inadequacies, all my guilt and all my wrongs. They become huge explosions resonating throughout the sky, sending shock waves throughout the earth. There is an explosion of light. A multicolored spectacle of space pioneering sparks.

I'm with friends, family and strangers on a good day. We're all watching the firework display and letting it all go. We link arms together and watch it all explode. On a good day we're all up there. So, so high. So, so free. But we are also on the earth. We are extensions of ourselves. We are in all things and we are in each other.

On a good day we are clutching at something intangible.

It feels redemptive. It feels real.

Joy Theory

JOY THEORY

WHAT IF JOY was to be both the inspiration and objective of every decision we made? Would we make different decisions? Would we change where we worked? Would we change our friends? Would we change how we spent our time?

Ask yourself. Why are we alive? What is life all about? What do we desire? Is it not joy? Is that not why we are here?

It's something I've been thinking about over the past several months. Why do we often not consider joy in every decision we make? And if joy is not the object of every decision we make, why do wonder why we end up unhappy, bitter, or depressed?

In light of these musings I have recently been testing a theory: The Joy Theory.

The Joy Theory

We were created out of love and were intended to experience and share unending joy. Nothing has changed. Life is meant to be joyful. Our spirits are meant to rejoice and seek good things. When we are pondering doing something, we should ask ourselves if joy is involved. If it isn't, we should ask ourselves why we intend to do it. Choose the things that lead to joy and really seek them out.

So this is what I have been doing. I have been trying to reconcile my plans and actions to joy. If I can see no joy coming about as a result of an action, I don't do it. If something will bring joy, I do it. 


I apply the theory to all aspects of daily life (when I remember); getting out of bed, what to have for breakfast, who to hang out with, whether to help someone in need or not, to sit and watch television or not, to go out for lunch or not, if I should go for a run. 
It sounds stupid, like all of those decisions are not very important ones, but I've found that they actually make a big difference at the end of the day. It also scares me to think about all of the things that I do without knowing why, things I don't really want to do.


It makes a big difference when you help someone out of a joyful heart or help someone out of joyless obligation.
As does going for a run.
Or having a cup of coffee in a cafe.


The above things do not really seem to be a problem if done joylessly, but what if our lives are a culmination of moments and decisions like these? If we choose badly, we deprive ourselves of joy. We forget why we are living. We forget why we were made. We lose perspective.


This is bad.


In my experimentation I have found that the Joy Theory is not just an applied rule but it is also an outlook. In seeking joy we are not just seeking momentary pleasures but long lasting pleasures. Joy comes from things that are immediate and things that are to come. Good and bad things have a habit of self perpetuating. We are the sum of our decisions. We choose the path in which we walk. We make the bed in which we lie. Where do we end up if our decisions are devoid of joy?


(Note that pleasure is not necessarily the same as joy).


Consider going to the pub when you are in a bad mood compared to going to the pub when you are in a good mood.
Consider buying a sweater when you have had a bad week compared to buying one when you have had an amazingly good one.


Chances are, going to the pub in a bad mood isn't going to end joyously. Chances are, in a few weeks, or months, whenever you look at the sweater you bought you will be reminded of the mood you were in when you bought it. Will you be reminded of that terrible week or that amazingly good one?


How about relationships?


Does application of the Joy Theory change the company you keep? The girl you pursue?


How about your job?


Or when considering consumption of that extra row of chocolate?


The Joy Theory. It's an interesting experiment. Why not test it and see where it takes you. 
I've been testing it and I'm a believer.


This blog is dedicated to my very good friend and fellow peregrino Matt Chernishov, who has made some very good decisions in the name of joy.


joy
–noun
1. the emotion of great delight or happiness caused bysomething exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation: She felt the joy of seeing her son's success.
2. a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated: Her prose style is a pure joy.
3. the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety.
4. a state of happiness or felicity.
–verb
5. to feel joy; be glad; rejoice.

You will show me the path of life. In Your presence is fullness of joy. At Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore. 

Psalm 16: 11

Sink or Swim: A Short Story, A Parable, A Tale of a Man Who Does Not Want to Die Alone

The following is a continuation of the blog entitled: A Short Story, A Parable, A Tale of a Man Who Hates His Job.
In this edition, Fish is in Uganda (after leaving the refugee camp in Kenya). His life is going to plan and he has found a lifestyle that he can fund without need of work. He is happy in his accomplishment, but one day the stars and universe force a change in his ideology...

Sink or Swim: A Short Story, A Parable, A Tale of a Man Who Does Not Want to Die Alone

Fish walks down the dusty beat up streets of Kampala watching life occur around him. It is a day like any other of the past 3 months he has been in Uganda. Street sellers lay their knock-off Nike on the pavement, women courier objects on their heads, children peddle unwanted souvenirs to tourists, and yet again, a man has hopped off the bus with a live chicken.


One thing is different however.


He has an overwhelming emptiness in his soul. He is restless, his life in torment.


Fish does not know where these feeling had come from and curses their sudden manifestation. He had enjoyed life and was happy the preceding days and months, but all of a sudden he found himself struck with a bipolar tick. It triggered a change in his thinking and ripped apart any sense of inner peace. He could no longer function properly, his mind hijacked by thieves, his body gravitating toward self pity. He was all of a sudden vulnerable, insecure and unsure.


He tries to determine the trigger, the thing that set off the physical, spiritual, and emotional storm. One thing he was sure of: It happened today. He thinks back upon the events of the morning; getting up; taking coffee at a corner stall in his neighbourhood; walking into town. He thinks about things he had seen along the way; kids playing football in the dirt; women carting various objects on their heads; a taxi driver speeding around a corner and nearly taking out an elderly man; joyous newlyweds celebrating outside a church; knock off goods peddled to tourists.


There was nothing unusual about the day or its events. It was like any other except for the fact that Fish's soul had been slowly ripped out from inside of him and placed into a washing machine of knives. He leans against a wall and slides his body down until it reaches the pavement. People rush past briskly, life on the main streets of Kampala to different clocks. He watches the mesmerizing patterns made from the light in between spaces of passing legs. Fish starts to feel an empathy for this space and a longing to devour it or give it use. He looks up at the sun, so bright yet hazy in the sky and watches it's rays illuminate the Ugandan flag that sits atop a building across the street.


'What the hell is wrong with me?' asks Fish.


It is then when a man stands by the exit of the building he is leaning against. In one hand is a rolled up newspaper and Fish takes note of the date which is showing. The man looks down at Fish and acts surprised when he realizes he is white.


"You okay Mizungu?" he asks.


"I'm fine" replies Fish lying.


The man walks off.


Suddenly everything is clear.


Fish curses himself for not realizing sooner. No wonder he felt the universal pull of tides, no wonder he felt the shattering of a thousand hearts and subsequent remodeling into one. It was the centre of the Piscean month, his birthday.


Inside of Fish are two scales, each one equally balanced; hopes and fears, strengths, weaknesses and insecurities. He feels them start to spin clockwise about the fulcrum on which they are balanced, at first slowly, then with increasing speed until everything was a rotational blur, orbital, with centripetal force. Fish knows that there is nothing he can do about it. A life force coursed through every artery, infecting every cell. Today, more than any other day he feels a directional pull on his soul. It is a forced reflection on previous years, a reconciliation of choice and destiny, a realignment and setting straight. Today Fish feels the essence of his soul. He is agitated and knows that he should not be in Uganda. 


Fish rises to his feet and finds himself amidst a pedestrian sea. He desires to be strong but finds himself being insanely needy. He feels various aspects of his body walk off in various directions but he himself goes nowhere. His head is full of conflict; scattered thoughts, lies and ideologies. He is unsure what they mean and what to believe and in questioning their original source, scrutiny becomes the undertow in which they are all drawn. There is only one thing Fish can trust and that is the feeling inside. Everything else was an externally pinned vector to a broken compass. Feeling pulled in so many directions, Fish's instincts are to run.


And so he forces himself through Kampala's crowded dusty streets. He doesn't know where he is going but knows that he must get there fast. He sidesteps souvenir peddlers, leaps over knock-off Nike products and squeezes in-between cages of soon to be executed animals; his cadence forever in debt to desire for movement. In the external act of doing something, he ignores the pain inside. He runs past the church he passed earlier, the bride and groom now dancing, through the soccer game, around corners in a rat warren of alleyways. Eventually he arrives back at his fifth floor shanty town apartment and collapses on his back exhausted inside the front door, breathing like a dog.
Above him the ceiling turns fuzzy and darkens with stars appearing -two opposing fish- before reverting back to their normal appearance. He can't remember the last time he felt his lungs and body burning so badly, his head so light. Panting for oxygen, Fish decides he enjoys the pain as it destroys any connection to the emotional psychobabble in his system. At the point of near complete exhaustion he feels more alive and focussed than ever. His head is clear and his thoughts pure. He starts to see visions; the good Lord bruised and broken on a cross; children running through a field; a woman in a flowing dress. He finds himself overcome with a desire to live and love. It spurns a necessity for connection and work.


He realizes how misled he had been in his desire to alienate himself from the world, to want to live in a refugee camp and amongst locals that didn't speak his language. In doing so he forwent love, a family and meaningful social connection.


'What am I doing?' thinks Fish. 


With breath returning he gathers his things and shoves them in his back pack.


'Damn my Piscean sign' he thinks.


Once again he is on the move. He has the notion of either sinking or swimming as he closes the door behind him. The precariousness in doing so makes him feel more in love than ever.


He dreams of home but does not know where that is.

The glyph for Pisces represents two fish swimming in opposite directions. The notion of savior, martyr and redeemer all belong to the motif of Pisces. There are no boundaries and no superiority amongst people. Pisces is concerned with universal truth, wholeness and unity. Famous for their escapist tendencies, they tend to slip away from the harsher realities of life. As a rule, they tend to drift through life and can be vague and dreamy. Pisceans are known for their instincts and flood of emotional and imaginative in-pouring and out-pouring. The twelfth sign is attuned to the deep undercurrents of the collective psyche. Bound up in chaos and blurred reality, the fishes need to protect themselves from exploitation. Alcoholism and drug addiction express their powerful longing to go back home. In true chameleon fashion, Pisces is as changeable as the sea and often flow with the current. The individual born under Pisces is often ultra sensitive, compassionate and kind. On the surface they represent a delicate vulnerability and fragility. Often they have an otherworldly quality and truly empathetic nature. Pisces completes the phase of the four social signs, and dissolves all boundaries that existed. Piscean sensitivity can descend into self-pity and they turn to drink, day-dreaming and fantasy. The body is often experienced as a prison, and they regularly fall into illness and depression, instability and delusions. Art, music, poetry and the imagination express the ‘hidden’ watery depths and the treasure lost and buried at the bottom of the sea. It helps to heal some of that ‘homesick’ feeling that they are often afflicted with.