A book to read

Well as fluffy and sachharine as yesterday’s entry was, today’s will be different, because I’m having an existential crisis – or more probably PMS. And, hell, I don't much do fluff and saccharine.

But we’re not going to discuss the crisis, because my existential/PMS angst is pretty much as boring as it gets. Lordy, I bore the hell outta myself with it, so I’m not about to impose it on others.

Today, an excerpt from a book I’m reading “Eat, Pray, Love” a memoir of her year travelling to Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert, pretty much her spiritual journey. It was recommended by Blue Poppy , and it says much about the book that I absolutely love it, despite the fact that I have all the spirituality of a door knob. Me 'n God? Not so much, though I find others’ spiritual journeys fascinating – except when they go into the whole, “my beliefs are the right ones” spiel.

But again (as usual) I digress. Moving on:

“Letting go, of course, is a scary proposition for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well – that would be the end of the universe. But try dropping it. This is the message I’m getting. Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens. The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in mid-flight, after all. The trees do not wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood. Life continues to go on. (…) Why are you so sure your micromanagement of every moment of the whole world is essential? Why don’t you just let it be?”

I know a few of these people, I recognized them when reading this paragraph, and it really must be hell to put all that pressure on oneself. I can’t help but thinking also that these control freaks somehow have an exaggerated sense of their own importance, though I’m probably totally “dans le champ” (out in the field – what would the expression be in English?). Hell, I don’t know from psychology. But, seriously, the world won’t end if you actually take a vacation. Or if you cut people some slack. Or if you just chill already!

I’m pretty much the contrary – apathetic some would say (notably those control freaks), but I won’t be giving myself a heart attack anytime soon, rushing left and right trying to control every aspect of everything. I’m quite content to watch life rush along while peeling peaches on the balcony. For me, that’s where it’s at. I’d even venture to say that I’m probably a helluva lot happier than they are.

My mom, wise woman that she is, once told me, “There’s no point worrying about all the stuff you have no control over, take care of what you can change and that’s quite enough for anyone”.

The woman? She rocks.