Dear Friend,
Do you remember when we were young?
How, when our lives stretched ahead of us, the distances seemed so great.
When we thought of our futures, we saw them with our dreams intact. Do you remember?
What do we dream of now?
No body is immune to the passing of time. My hair, would now be the colour of my Grandad’s, were it not for the services of Sophie, the lovely talented hair colourist who taught me to mix the perfect shade for my skin tone.
I tried leaving it, going natural, but it didn’t feel natural to me. That’s okay. My Nana is with me on this one, she would say she was too young to be a grandma and introduced me to the secrets of hair dyes when I was a boy.
Thanks Nana.
Our ancestors are with us. They reach to us across time in the most ordinary ways.
We do need to be gentle with our thoughts. Tread softly, for we tread on our own dreams. The things that make life beautiful for each one of us, may be meaningless for another. Does it warm the heart? If so, then let that be okay for now. Touching up my roots, I think of her and laugh. Life is too short to beat up on ourselves for silly little things. If only we could be kind to ourselves more often. Forgiving of our human contradictions.
Today is Sunday and softly contemplating the sweetness of love and connection feels right. So much time has passed since I said farewell to Nana Flo, when I think of her I my heart opens so wide it contains the whole universe. When this heart expanding feeling is so close, how is it we can fall so easily into despair? Why do we forget?
There are so many ways we can hurt ourselves in this world. An insidious cause of suffering is social comparison. It causes social pain. It is not uncommon that we would rather hurt ourselves physically than live with it a moment longer. Social pain can be so acute.
Comparing ourselves unfavourably to others, we make ourselves miserable.
If the people around us have a standard of living that is more or less similar to our own, we tend towards feeling okay about our lot in life. Far flung figures like sovereigns and bishops in palaces and guilted carriages were not figures to be envied.
They were beings from other strata of society, aliens, incomparable.
If our neighbours were to convert their home to a palace. Park up the latest car credit will buy on the driveway, that’s a different story. We notice. Parts of us take it personally. We can’t help compare their lot with our own.
Studies with primates suggest social comparison is wired into us. Monkey populations who are blissfully content with their supply of fruit react negatively when they become aware of individuals and groups who have different fruit, and more of it.
Today on our screens we see people we know personally, with more. Doing things, going places. A highly edited, filtered and curated story. Ever more challenging are the glittering constellations of social media stars. They seem so much like us we fall into comparisons. Our lives to theirs.
Toxic comparisons catch us time and time again.
All food for the false self.
Jealousy is a story we tell ourselves. Someone else has something, is something, does something, that through a fault in ourselves, we cannot.
This places our dreams into the category of broken, lost. We banish ourselves. In our exile, we suffer.
So much of our culture is toxic, tempting us to chase external validation. Status. Possessions. Praise.
There is a cafe near my home, where a small community gather everyday. No-one is famous outside of the community. All have interesting stories to tell. Nothing fancy. Just companionship, everyday friendships.
Dogs.
Sandwiches.
Grey skies, sometimes golden sunlight.
Connected.
Happy sometimes.
We are happiest when we are connected to something real. Here now, with you. Before the next thing pulls at our attention.
It is our false selves that compare self to self.
The false self thrives on social pain, strengthens itself. The idea that you are not enough is an idea. Ideas are mental images or pictures. Mental images naturally drift. We hold them in place with our attention.
Spending a few moments doing nothing but drifting, I recall the Fischer Price TV I loved as a kid.
“Row row row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream”
What if we let life flow? It must do so, everything is changing. Everything is new.
Someone was once kind with you. Loved you simply for being.
If it wasn’t a human, then an animal once looked at you that way.
Those people.
They were wise.
To love is divine.
Comparisons are the puppet strings of the false self.
Worn out
Let them break.
Freedom.
When the realisation comes.
comes now, as a nice feeling.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey.