O this senseless age!

That is a quote, I think...although I can't quite remember from where but it may be Edith Wharton. Sounds rather Age of Innocency. This was senseless age from an age ago, and yet it's getting harder & harder to deny ages have just been getting increasingly more senseless. The madness of the health care reform. The sadness of the serial earthquakes: Haiti, Chile, and now Turkey. The weirdness of previously unimagined things like global warming, the Great Garbage Patch and Twitter.

I was talking to my friend Z, today, the one who suggested I blog. He calls me on a regular basis, since we live on opposite coasts, to try and stay in touch; sometimes, we schedule calls, formally - and in fact he used to keep a spreadsheet of friends to call to ensure no one was missed for too long. At any rate, our conversation turned, as it does, to our inner lives. We touched on some of the more subtle changes we're experiencing.

I've been on a streak, full of renewed energy, confidence & creativity, and vision. I feel these days that "things are coming together," the opposite of what I sometimes feel, the ever-unpopular "things are falling apart." But Z spoke about his own unhappness, his feeling of sort of being stuck in life. It was the very opposite of my current experience.

And we both gained some perspective from hearing the other person's expericence. I felt compassion for Z, because I had been there and would, certainly be there again. It confirms something that keeps coming up, over and over (don't you love when the signals are clear?), for me these days, which is this idea of balance. That pleasure taken so far can only become pain - for where else CAN it go? - and vice versa. That you cannot, cannot have light without dark. Alan Watts explains it thus (I paraphrase):

What we want is a surprise. Life would be dull if we already knew it ahead of time. If you knew exactly what was going to happen to you for the rest of your life, you would lose all interest in anything. So, we want a surprise. And, since we are conditioned to like "pleasant," we want a pleasant surprise. But they can't all be pleasant - that would be almost as bad as knowing your whole life in advance. So, some must be unpleasant, in order for some to be pleasant, but we have abosolutely forgotten this is the way we set it up!

I'm starting to not only get this idea, but live by it, and it's really something...

I believe I said The Lost Chord would be a roadmap of sorts, or, perhaps, a guide. Here's a great tool for you: gratitude. If something seems to be going sour, try and see it from a point of view where you can be grateful. Boss yells at you? Be thankful you have a boss to yell, because unemployment is frighteningly high. Driver cuts you off? Be glad you're not on a public transportation (even though it tends to be 1) slower, 2) move expenive and 3) less convenient that driving). But you don't even need to force such complicated reframes if you don't want. There's a simpler way to be grateful.

I call it the Gratitude Alphabet . You can use it while falling asleep. Just think of things you are grateful for, starting with A. Me, I am grateful for apples...artichokes...art...architecture...etc. Then B: bass guitar lines, bubbles, Bach, Beethoven & Brahams, Yves Klein Blue, etc. You get the idea.

Let me know if you like it!