Sometimes we play like children
Before we remember who we are
No more skipping along the road
Or taking a joke too far
 Why blush embarrassed at the fun
 Of pretending to shoot an imaginary gun?

Now the world is our playground
We’ve forgotten exactly how to play
Life suddenly got so serious
And we let it get in our way
We removed ourselves from our dreams
Made them into our children’s themes

3rd Apr 2024 – Submitted to The Daily Spur – adjust

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Today I’m feeling:

Positive and energetic with any underlying feeling of tiredness just from exercise. Is it ironic that I’m feeling the best I have felt in a long time whilst Amy’s family is all struggling with their health and the stress that goes along with it?

Today I’m grateful for:

Finding a parking space outside the 7/11 next to the hospital as I had to go and wait with Amy’s dad whilst Amy’s mum went to grab some food and move her car. I bought a protein drink there to keep me going as I’m not sure when I’ll get home. I’m hungry after a long day.

The best thing about today was:

For my last class of the day, I gave the students a difficult listening and spelling test. I sat them apart and told them they couldn’t speak to each other. They had forty words to listen to and then spell. What made me happy was that all the students took it seriously and the ones who hadn’t been paying attention were being found out.

This was the real goal of the lesson. I don’t much care about the results of the test.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

I knew that I would have to take Leo (Amy’s dad’s dog) for a walk after work and had built that into my thought schedule for the day, knowing that I would be tired as this is my busiest day of the week. During the morning I got a message from Amy that I was also needed after that at the hospital to relieve Amy’s mum for a while. Whilst not that unexpected it meant readjusting my mindset that now I wasn’t even sure when I might get home and to eat. Again, I submitted myself and got my mind straight about it. No point in being upset.

Something I learned today?

I learned the reason why China had to develop its own GPS system. In the mid-90s the USA declared a Chinese ship was delivering chemical agents for weaponisation to Iran, without any evidence at all. The USA forced the ship to stay at sea and demanded other countries refuse to let the ship dock. The Chinese offered for independent assessors to come and check the ship but the USA refused! Then they switched off GPS for the ship to use so the captain didn’t know where they were going. After 20 days the crew ran out of food and water until finally supplies were sent from one of the Gulf countries and it was allowed to dock. When the contents of the ship were checked it was all harmless as the Chinese had said. The issue of the USA’s ability to turn off GPS and later banning China from using the suddenly ill-named International Space Station pushed China to forge its own path ahead.

What are some of my strengths?

Patience, determination (when I care), perseverance, easy-going attitude.

At least that’s how see myself. I wonder what others might think my strengths are?

How do I find peace?

I think I found it by travelling a long way and forfeiting a lot of the things that previously brought me pleasure in a less peaceful world (big city rat race office job). 

Making life a little less complex and being in an environment with fewer choices has made me more peaceful. If I had done this 10 or 20 years ago I think I would have felt more restless but right now it’s perfect.

Quote: Happiness is a virtue, not its reward – Baruch Spinoza

I didn’t understand this on first reading so shoved it into ChatGPT asking it to be explained to a twelve-year-old. Then I could make sense of it. 

The point of this statement seems to fall into place with time and practice. I can recall times when I knowingly did good things for some vague notion of brownie points. Maybe by repeatedly doing things like that, I learned the habit of doing good things and in time my reasons for doing them became less contrived. I have become happier over time as I’ve matured. 

I don’t believe in karma as such, in that I don’t believe that if I do something good then something good will happen to me, but that if I do something good it just makes me feel better. My karma is internalised rather than hoping for some kind of reciprocal external reward.