I don’t quite have a sense of where to begin or how exactly I’ll string my ideas along, neatly together in one sensical message. But in fact, that brings me precisely to my main point. It doesn’t have to fit into a neat package. It doesn’t have to make perfect sense. Not now. Or ever. I don’t have to anticipate knowing the ending and I don’t have to understand the process right this moment. I can give in to the flow and let life surprise me, but I can relinquish myself to the sheer delight of its mysterious unfolding.
Looky here, I’ve got a happy pill, a panacea or a new spiritual practice. I promise you, it will secure its place as your ultimate go-to antidote for decades to come. So thence, enough suspense, I offer you my two cents:
Life is NONSENSE.
Light the incense and be tense no more.
At the expense of overthinking, so you’ll score.
Dispense offense, and hence defense.
And whence you do, commence to this woo-woo.
By nonsense, I don’t intend a trifling, inconsequential, pointless sort, but rather a magical, playful, inspiring, perplexing, ironic, and light-hearted sense of the word. I shall embellish. We try to silence incessant chatter inside our skulls through yoga or raise the beating of our hearts with caffeine only to then lower it by smoking a ciggie or slowing down our breath, in for 4, hold for 4 and out for 4. But do we realize the miracle of each thought, heartbeat, and breath? They happen automatically; we need not make a thought, force a beat or choose to breathe. But we don’t often grasp the wonder that they are, and the sense and relief of our often times immense non-sense.
The crackling of logs in a fireplace, a symphony of music engulfing our soul, rocket ships, the internet… HOW? AND WOW! Science offers lengthy technical explanations but can they do justice to the nonsensical awe they inspire?
Our brains… NONSENSE!
Running into someone you know in a foreign country… NONSENSE!
Singling out a stranger in the world to love and raise hell with for as long as you both shall live… NONSENSE!
Tiny ants walking in a line, bees spitting honey… NONSENSE!
Magic Mushrooms… NONSENSE!
Pearls of laughter touched with rue… NONSENSE!
Diamonds in the night sky and an unreachable golden sun that can reach and change our skin tone… HOW and WOW, and yes, downright NONSENSE.
Am I being dense? Or is all this poppycock, hogwash, mumbo jumbo balderdash finally making sense? (side note: synonyms for nonsense are curiously all light and a delight.)
So science gives its reasons, but religion, what say you?
The Christian world as created by God makes quite a different explanation. The difference itself… NONSENSE! And yet, it might just make perfect sense to see Life as The Divine Comedy and so perhaps refer to God as The Comic Divinity. We view Higher Intelligence—or the “Divine Mind”—as having “human” qualities. So we could say the Cosmic is comic, in its delightful combination of mysterious magical existence, connection and play.
Let’s go deeper and perhaps lighter. Heaven is imagined as ethereal, joyous, airy and light, therefore not heavy, not austere. Heavy stones, heavy hearts, they weigh down. They are grave. But in all things spiritual, there is lightness. A kind of merriment and playful frivolity. Angels are portrayed winged, drifting and existing lightly about. This may raise the question then, how might be the “Lord” of these graceful white-clad flower-bearing spirits?
Where is all this non-sense going? I wonder why, when we face difficulty in life, we expect everything to make sense. We (I) try to reason and cerebrally sort it all out, wanting everything to fit into neat packages with neat explanations. But then we get disappointed. And expect Time to solve our problems, imagining one day in the future when all shall be resolved—all in place—and finally, yes finally, we’ll be satisfied. We try to make sense of things now. But a child does no such thing. A child marvels at the nonsense of it all. A child lives wholeheartedly in the NOW, seeing the delight in everything. Angels are often depicted as young innocent child-like cherubs. Coincidence perhaps?
When we lose ourselves to the dance or to the music, play an instrument, a game or a sport, or just become immersed in a delectable meal, we don’t rush to get to the end. Each moment is too delightful to even consider such nonsense. The object of these simple but indispensable life pleasures is not to rationalize them, is not to anticipate their passing or find the quickest way to reach their end. No, the whole point is in the magical nonsense of their essence and process, in the very experience of their wondrous unfolding.
What if we can apply this mentality, this approach, to everything else? To a broken wrist or a hellish fight with the spouse, to losing a job or feeling lost in this immense and complex/complexed world?
Can the essence of nonsense be our happy pill?
Can we live our lives the same way we dance, play and feast?
Well, bring it all on and try me!
SHARE
A haven for eccentric, thoughtfully crafted and curated info and inspo.
Copyright 2023 – The Blog. All rights reserved
A personal proposition to a savvier, more qualitative, way of life.
We don’t give it up for free.
(And neither should you.)