Don’t waste your life

A gatha (ie a mindfulness verse):

“Great is the matter of birth and death; impermanence surrounds us. Be awake each moment; do not waste your life.”

No, do not waste your life. I was trawling through photos early this morning, having been woken about 4.30am by neighbours and fighting cats. I’m glad the humans and the felines gave me an opportunity to be awake so early today, I truly am.

Well, what can you do once you are awake? That’s it really. No going back, the path is clear: get up or lie there for hours wishing you weren’t lying there for hours. So, determined not to waste my life – no that is a lie, I was not determined at all, I was groggy with sleep and wishing I was horizontal not vertical –  I staggered to the kitchen, made a cup of tea, and then with computer on lap caught up on the scores from the Australian Open Tennis in Melbourne. Go Tomic! Go Federer!

Then I deviated from the tennis to the New York Times, to stories of Aspergers syndrome, to Sherlock Holmes and his supposed mental illness and addiction to cocaine, and landed without passing ‘GO’, without collecting $200, in my own photo store.

Life is full of strange journeys. In the catacombs of my own digital photo library, what did I find? Where did I land – at the Daly pub, in the middle of the NT!

Daly Waters Pub NT

What a great spot. Highly recommended. I passed through there six months ago on the way to Brisbane from Darwin. I think all of the caravans travelling through the NT were camped there that night on about four square metres of land. Everyone was crammed into this tiny camping ground in the middle of the outback. All that vast space out there, and we humans were huddled up around a grog shop. How Australian.

The white shoe brigade was out in force, and what a great life they have. I love them. They are not wasting a moment.  Ironically they seem more settled and happy as they move around this vast continent than we are, anchored to the spot in suburbia. They are IN the moment I tell you. No, do not waste your life.

Thank you humans, thank you felines.

New Year, neurones and the environment

A very shiny new 2012 to you.

Here are some happy thoughts from Mr Mark Twain to get you started with your coffee, on this sunny Brisbane day . . .

New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.
(Mark Twain)

Clearly a  ’bah humbug’ kind of person from 1 January to 31 December, enjoying every miserable sweet moment with a smile.  I wonder if he was really funny to be around or intensely irritating. I see him on the shores of one of those formerly pristine Hawaiian beaches, writing and observing Polynesian customs in his own eclectic way. There he is, sipping an early version of a pina colada, enjoying the coconut milk, rum and pineapple flavours, savouring the physical taste of the drink along with the metaphorical taste of his own witticisms about life, the universe and everything.

As this is the coffee hour rather than the cocktail hour, and I am not on the shores of a breezy tropical beach, but here in burby inner city Brisbane, the witticisms are few, and the reflections transparently shallow. But, I have one un-novel idea, which is laudable, given the proximity of last year, this year and a few alcoholic beverages in between.

Idea #1 for 2012
Environmental advice: Save on neurones – don’t make any New Year’s resolutions.

I didn’t make any. Not a one.  This puts me ahead I believe. There is nothing to be broken, nothing to feel remorse about, nothing to fear, no guilt to carry, no high bars to aim for. This is very positive news. Relief surges through me. I won’t be paving hell with any of my resolution flotsam or jetsam.

New Year’s Day:  Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
(Mark Twain)