My imperfect world

There is always something that is not right. If only it was a little bit cooler, if only that plastic bag was not spoiling this perfect view, if only that noisy chatterbox would shut up in the table behind us. We have an eye for imperfections, a capacity to identify that which is amiss and precludes us from enjoying an otherwise perfect moment. I wonder, though, if it were indeed a bit cooler, with no plastic bag or noisy chatterbox, would we not find some other mismatch that would spoil our perfect view?

The only way we can achieve perfection is by accepting. Things are as they are in themselves and, regardless of whether we can perceive them in full through our limited capacities, they are the only way they could be. We are the only way we could be. I wonder how many choices we really make, how much responsibility we really have. If little (or none), why would we have the capacity to experience guilt?

I went to a creators’ website, and I wondered what internal urge had brought them to this. Did they choose to express themselves or was it unavoidable for them, a vital necessity? Sure, they had to overcome their doubts, insecurities, become vulnerable. But even this, was it really a choice? I try to remember when I started my blog on a Winter morning. Was it my choice?

Irrational as it sounds, my feeling is that it wasn’t my choice. It just wanted to come out. It. Like a little alien with life of its own that seems separate from its ‘creator’. I doubt very much that the mental construct we call ego has the capacity to create. Well, at least it is diligent enough to step aside… or maybe it doesn’t have a choice anyway. Maybe the unconscious, the soul or whatever name we want to give it is just too strong. Maybe the rule of the ego is an illusion. A glass wall.

Acceptance is the door to a calmer reality. Acceptance of what has happened to us, of what has not happened to us, of what we have done and not done. Until we accept, we will live in a world of alternative possibilities that will necessarily clash with reality.

Acceptance is the most critical action (or non-action). And if we do accept, what other activity but contemplation can we entertain? If we accept that ‘things’, our surrounding world is just as it should be, the only way it could be, that no further action is needed, what else but contemplation…