November: Less is More?
I've been thinking. Not new thoughts...but maybe new thoughts to me.
It's been a rough couple months. Rough because there have been changes, significant and impactful to life. Changes that we often notice are cosmetic ones, living on the fluidity of the surface of life.
Maybe these things are sad, maybe happy, but whatever they are they're small. Sometimes they don't feel manageable; they're stressful or jarring. But mostly, life goes on.
And then there are foundational changes--those things that reconfigure the whole way you go about your life. They dictate new routines be developed. They change the color that used to be "red" to "the red I now see" or the way you see yourself in the mirror. They are changes that one likely weathers but not without effect.
These are changes that change.
I've had a lot of those recently. Some hard. Some very joyful. Many that will become gifts but are still formulating themselves into something. Like tectonic plates shifting, slow and steady, the foundations of what I've known recently have shifted. And there's the weight of loss and the promise of hope that comes along.
I've decided I need to take notice of these in new ways. Instead of using November to share gratitudes or just write for the sake of writing (NaNoWriMo), I'm going to offer up the mantra "Less" and see where it takes me.
I have no idea what this will be but I find it an emergent theme in almost every glimpse of idea or energy these days. Things may have gotten overly complex in the past couple years. Like the earth around me, it might be a good time to lay fallow, retreat inward, and take stock of what's there.
Less may not be more. But I suspect it will be fruitful just the same.
It's been a rough couple months. Rough because there have been changes, significant and impactful to life. Changes that we often notice are cosmetic ones, living on the fluidity of the surface of life.
"Oh you have a new haircut."
"I got a new shirt."
"My favorite tree fell down in a storm."
Maybe these things are sad, maybe happy, but whatever they are they're small. Sometimes they don't feel manageable; they're stressful or jarring. But mostly, life goes on.
And then there are foundational changes--those things that reconfigure the whole way you go about your life. They dictate new routines be developed. They change the color that used to be "red" to "the red I now see" or the way you see yourself in the mirror. They are changes that one likely weathers but not without effect.
These are changes that change.
I've had a lot of those recently. Some hard. Some very joyful. Many that will become gifts but are still formulating themselves into something. Like tectonic plates shifting, slow and steady, the foundations of what I've known recently have shifted. And there's the weight of loss and the promise of hope that comes along.
I've decided I need to take notice of these in new ways. Instead of using November to share gratitudes or just write for the sake of writing (NaNoWriMo), I'm going to offer up the mantra "Less" and see where it takes me.
I have no idea what this will be but I find it an emergent theme in almost every glimpse of idea or energy these days. Things may have gotten overly complex in the past couple years. Like the earth around me, it might be a good time to lay fallow, retreat inward, and take stock of what's there.
Less may not be more. But I suspect it will be fruitful just the same.
Comments
Post a Comment