Simon says...
Know your why.
Of course, I had to have a reason for restarting this blog. After all these years. I had to ask myself, “Why?” and come up with a sensible answer. Simon (Sinek) says, “Know your Why!” Sometimes, I follow instructions.
The answer, I found, lies in a much larger question. “Why am I writing at all?” That, is the real question.
I ask myself that on a regular basis. Sometimes, the answer is, “They’re paying me.” Simple. Easy.
Sometimes, the journey to an answer is tortuous and convoluted. This was one of those times. Here, I am choosing, of my own free will, to write. For what reason? Why? There are several.
First of all, for me, love is an action verb. I chose to act on my love of words, therefore. I choose to exercise my facility with language and express my enjoyment of communication, and do a lot of writing in my life.
Second, I think in stories; I make up stories, and sometimes, they are best and most easily told in written form.
Then, often, I get annoyed at this world in which I live, fed up with this humanity of which I am a part. I get angry. Sometimes, humankind makes me sick and I turn to the world of words for solace, for hope, for a better view, a brighter perspective.
I am in that mode now. Sick and tired of some segments of humankind. My brain is searching for comprehension, my spirit is seeking solace, my body hunts for healing and my heart aches for protection. I feel out of place. I think I don’t belong here. I could not possibly. I wonder whether I am an alien species alighted on this planet by accident. Perhaps my parents found me in the wilds somewhere. Or maybe I am the product of fast-tracked evolution, arisen from the sea and become human in a flash in these times – Ariel become human kind-a-thing! Or I am a time-traveller, lost, who no longer remembers the portal.
The reality is that, too often, when I wake up in the morning I would really rather roll over and re-enter the oblivion of sleep. But, instead, I haul my body off my bed and drag myself to the bathroom wondering whether this might be the day that I get to hitch a ride to go live on an uninhabited-by-humans island somewhere. Do they still exist, though? Or are they all now repurposed as rendezvous points for drugs, arms and human trafficking cartels?
My morning ritual has, for decades, revolved around predawn pedestrian excursions – city street, tropical beach, high altitude forest, wherever I happen to be – to reassure my soul, order my thoughts, set my feet on solid ground. I walk to help me keep my balance throughout the day, whatever the kind of day. These days, that balance is hard to maintain.
Often, it lasts only as long as I hear no news of man-made atrocities:
children’s heads and limbs blown off in Gaza by Israeli, American and European bombs;
children sold into sex-work in Thailand to British, Asian and European men;
women dying for reproductive care in Europe and the United States;
young girls mutilated in Africa, the Middle East and Asia – and in the EU, US and UK;
young black men killed by police in the UK, the US and the EU;
African and Middle Eastern migrants drowned in the Mediterranean Sea;
Latino migrants and US citizens sent to gulags in El Salvador;
people jailed for questioning power in Asia, America and Europe;
Western governments exploiting and threatening Africa…
and so very much more, that balance becomes almost impossible to maintain and more and more difficult to achieve, because of course, I think of these things even when I’m not hearing or seeing them on a screen.
Their dark energy lives in the ethers now. Pervades and corrupts the very air we breathe, everywhere around the world.
I chose to begin writing this blog again, because I need to maintain my balance and light my way through this darkness. Writing helps me do that.
I write because there are others who feel the despair and misery of the human race and who want to believe, as do I, that the collective is more than, better than, higher than this baseness that is making the loudest noises in these times.
I write about Wisdom, Folly and Fabulous Shoes because, while we still walk through this life we must, in the collective, find the wisdom to survive the folly of human unreason.
The darkness in the world is so deep right now, we could all be forgiven for feeling afraid, or for beginning to despair, even. This Blog, newsletter, podcast - this writing that I do here, is intended to provide some light for the journey. We are traveling all together. Light or dark, we’re all in it together, and we get to choose whether to bring light or add to the deepening of the darkness. I choose to bring Light and share some peace with you.
Truly,
Shirley