happiness

List of Wisdoms

List of Wisdoms

Firstly, I read the desiderata:
“Go placidly amidst the noise and haste.”
Gave myself approval (imprimatur)
to make my list of lists. To cut and paste
my chart of wisdoms; distilled of strife,
refined, reduced to an essence of truth:
– Experience is the practice of life.
– One must have the grace to surrender youth.
So on, the list progressed … dot after dot:
– To enjoy time’s passage, go with the flow.
– To know who you are, don’t be who you’re not.
– The more you think you know, the less you know.
. Wisdom is suggestive, best known by gist.
. Wisdom is illusive, shy to enlist.

© Tim Grace, 21 April 2014

To the reader: The reduction of wisdom, to a list of truisms, is an attractive contemplation that leads to a refined sample of ‘best of’ behaviours. The first few, often confirm acts of social responsibility; sealing the contract between oneself and others. These ‘responsibilities’ are soon followed by the ‘accountabilities’ that establish (as good) generous reciprocity. And so it seems, the wise respond to needs, they take account of wants; and most of all, they share the benefits – in the interest of common wealth.

To the poet: Around this period of writing, I was also retiring from thirty-years of career building. Not surprisingly, events were associated with a strong-tinge of reflection on change over time; and lessons learnt. The economical nature of phrasing a line of poetry is similar to the construction of a truism… the verb and its subject make obvious associations with a familiar object – in the interest of common sense.

List of Wisdoms

List of Wisdoms
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There Are Moments

There Are Moments

There are moments when everything makes sense.
For just a second nothing is at odds.
Simplicity abounds, becomes immense;
earns the approval of a thousand gods.
It’s at that moment, between wake and dream,
that all things become imaginable;
all things at once adopt a common theme.
One point of truth becomes conceivable.
Clarity of thought is clean-cut and crisp;
vagaries sharpen so ‘that’ becomes ‘this’;
images emerge, give shape to a wisp;
that which is simple, more beautiful is.
. Where stems the answer to “why is it so?”
. From the essence … in the presence of flow.

© Tim Grace, 18 July 2013

To the reader: If you haven’t had your introduction to the works of Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (chick sent me high) you owe it to yourself to make that connection. Through this acquaintance you’ll meet yourself at your potential best. As the theory goes, there are deliberate steps you can take on the way to achieving flow; an essence you learn to channel from within a zone of intense satisfaction with your own condition of contentment… in pursuit of happiness.

To the poet: You can’t bottle flow; it’s a meditative energy, that through active absorption describes a form of fulfilment. My gateway to ‘flow’ is through the comfortable challenge of poetry. Effort, along with challenge, is a necessary ingredient. And so, in the right mix, these energies combine to create a state of self-contained purpose. Flow, by definition, is a dynamic stream of consciousness, coursing its way through mind and soul… in pursuit of happiness.