My Endeavour

To make it my “passion to discover on a daily basis ‘the life contained in all things.’”

(Quotation: Phil Cousineau quoting Monet)

Ennui

Ennui: a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

Retrospectively, I believe my transition from New Zealand to Sydney was a foreshadowing microcosm of my transition from Australia to home. I will be going from the consistent unpredictability of travel to the daily grind of the expected. In returning to Sydney, I went from moving to a new home after just a few nights, to staying in one place for 10 days. I began to get comfortable. I began to feel anxious. While I enjoyed the company I was keeping immensely, I felt a restlessness growing inside of me. It’s as if the anxiety was subconsciously self-induced in order to make up for my “lack of occupation” - my ennui.

While I am very grateful for moments of leisure, I am learning over and again, in a wide variety of circumstances, that I need to be occupied, even in these moments. Not with just anything. Occupied with a purpose. Perhaps I am still learning HOW to occupy myself when the opportunity for leisure presents itself. Yes, for me the best kind of leisure is that which is also purposeful.

As humans we are meant to strive for a purpose of being. It is why we are here today. It began as a method of survival, and as we have evolved, enjoyment has weaved it’s way into our priorities so that we have eventually learned that what it is we do to keep ourselves alive can also be something we love. Even the most mundane jobs can be sources of flow if we train ourselves well, and it is these very same jobs that provide for our physical needs and keep us - and thereby our species - alive.

So how do I avoid ennui when I return to Portland? I believe, by engaging in all my actions purposefully - with love.

Questions

I am finding over and over again that the more connected I am to my true self - to my soul - the more I meet people who are kindred in mind, heart and spirit. They are artistic and easy-going and have spent a good deal of their waking hours deep in thought. Generally in philosophical debates with themselves and with humanity. More often than not, interestingly enough, they are often admirers, or even followers, of Buddhism. (As such, they also happen to be admirers of other great spiritual leaders, such as Jesus). The primary statutes to which they hold are usually as follows: don’t attach - attachment is your only enemy; live and let live; do everything with, through, & for love; create your own path - no one can create it for you; home is wherever you are; be open to anything & anyone you may come across; practice the art of letting go… Just to name a few. I am examining my heart, mind and spirit - and questioning:

What are my attachments? How strong are they? Am I willing to let go? Where do I consider home? How close am I to being capable of feeling at home anywhere? What is the source of my anxiety and how do I release it? Where does my hope come from and how do I take hold of it? Am I creating my own path? How much influence from others am I allowing in it’s creation?

All of these are a various stages of being answered, and all of them - both the questions and the answers - are subject to change at any time. That is the beauty of being on a journey. Not a single moment is one of stagnancy.

An inch of surprise leads to a mile of gratefulness.

Brother David Steindl-Rast

Butter

Absolute freedom. Balmoral Bay was smooth as glass, I felt as if I was gliding through butter. Such freedom, such clarity.

I found adoration for the Divine out on the water. I cannot deny the presence I feel when I am in the midst of the elements. Especially when that element is the ocean. What an incredible, vast body of water. A simple, obvious observation to be sure. How often do we stop and admire it? Not often enough. When we do, does that admiration lead us to gratitude? Rarely.

Why do our hearts not swell with joy? Why are the words “thank you” not rushing from our lips? I don’t care if you’re an atheist, believing you have no one to thank. Or if you believe you know who it is you’re thanking. Or if you’re like me and don’t care who hears your gratitude - you’re just happy to have some. This world is filled with too much glory, too much splendour, to not be thankful for your very existence. Life - simply breathing - is a beauty all on it’s own. That beauty, coupled with the rhythmic lull of waves meeting the sand… For me, that is bliss.

Standing on that paddle board, I had to ask myself, what is this presence I am feeling? Shall I call it God? Is it the energy of the ocean itself? Is it the combined energies of all the life forms the ocean holds? Or is this coming from within? Is it simply the love and joy I already possess just bubbling out of me, drawn out by a blissful moment? Could that love within me also be called God? What is this power that melts my anxiety, eliminates my fears, and fills my world with colour?

Do I have to know? Or, can I simply say: “Thank you”?

When everything is a possible poem, the world is suddenly far more interesting.

Unknown

An Irishman's Review

A buddy of mine who hails from Ireland has taken a keen interest in my writing. Upon reading the previously posted poem “Analog Clock”, with me asking him if it needed more, he responded with the following. Pretty spot-on I’d say.

“I ain’t no poem guru and don’t have the same abstract lyrical flair you have but from my reading into it, this piece tells of one’s (Its self-biographical right?) journey inwards in search of the most fundamental life questions and a search for personal truths. It appears the mind has been put under trial and finally confronted! The tick and the tock of the clock is representative of the deafening noise of the conditioned human mind, the trash-talk of the ego, hiding the answer i.e. between or "within” the tick and the tock. The path to get there involves weaving around these disturbances creating an anfractuous path. It feels as though those self questions that were initially asked were met with silence, envoking frustration and as a result the “tick and the tock” were working to find the answers, building to an unbearable agony and what seems to a point of no return, until a realisation (sense of awakening) has been met, the answer to these questions IS the silence?. I’m not sure if I’m a million miles away from this or not (haha!) but either way it ain’t a bad thing to have a third party point of view, am I anyway near the intended underlying plot line? I don’t think I would attempt to add anything to this in a poetic style, it’s your baby with your flow and language, I reckon it would become very disjointed looking if I tried to add anymore. It could be turned into a song though which is a different direction.

BTW, does this piece really need anymore? It seems to me like it stands on its own two feet, you have made your statement, the end leaves the reader thinking, which is what you want right? Maybe an independent sequel needs to be written at a later date?? Sometimes short poems have the greatest impact.“

Thank you, Cian, for honoring my words with yours!