Inner Life
Driving to work this morning, headed east on Walnut,
I had the pleasure of seeing an enormous, beautiful
full moon low in the sky between the buildings and trees
on either side, and I thought how the moon would seem
to float like a balloon in a tunnel and make a lovely
photograph if it weren't for the power lines crossing
every several feet overhead, which had the visual effect
of slicing through, or worse, tethering the moon, and
I tried as I drove to spot the perfect location and angle
which would allow an unobstructed view, a realization
of my imagined scene, but for the eight or so blocks,
it wasn't to be found, which could be a point in itself,
but isn't my point for sharing in this case. I'll explain:
We seem to be overly concerned with productivity,
with getting efficiently from point A to point B.
And we have aligned our many resources more and more
over my lifetime to some end that appears to value
a small number of measurable outcomes (money,
grades, followers, speed) and devalues more complex
ways to experience the world (the beauty of imperfection,
the wandering journey, the slow and unstructured nature
of dinner conversation, play). And don't we feel lesser
when we don't have money? And don't we feel guilty
if we waste the day? And we've built a world to make
sure we are always connected, giving away our attention,
constantly entertained, and leaving no space to be idle,
for our minds to lie fallow and grow richer through
recovery, through the earthy unfocusing of our eyes.
I didn't have the radio on in the car this morning.
I was just driving, and I saw the moon floating so large
over Walnut like a balloon, and I played a game
of perspective that might not have ever been played
or might have meant nothing at all, except that I wondered
why this happened, and then I thought about a John
Berryman poem that said "Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no Inner Resources." And I thought
about lunacy, and it occurred to me that maybe
that's all wrong. What if boredom is our inner resource?
What if we've forgotten the gifts of feeling bored?
No comments:
Post a Comment