I love the idea of finding something pleasant in your immediate surroundings everyday. If that's not the secret to happiness, I don't know what is. That is what children do, find delight and wonder in the present, in the world around them. And children do seem to have a special claim to happiness. Unashamed, spontaneous joy.
I went to the Youtube link and watched the David Whyte commentaries about the art of Jerry Wennstrom (I think that was the name). Never heard of either of these guys. And Jerry seemed like the ultimate wierdo and I was not at all drawn to his art. I found it rather unsettling and uncomfortable. But what they said rang very true.
Their discussion of reclaiming innocence through a journey of darkness is a theme that I've been ruminating on for about 15 years now. I think that it is what Christ meant when he said, "Be ye as little children". That is, innocence, as in keeping that element of wonder and surprise and joy alive in our hearts even when we are old. It's a rejection of becoming "jaded". WE choose innocence. Whereas, children don't choose innocence, they are fresh and new. They simply are. Whereas, as adults we must consciously choose it. In a Joseph Smith lesson that I taught a few months ago, there was a quote, "As you increase in innocence and virtue, as you increase in goodness, let your hearts expand, let them be enlarged toward others...."
It is an interesting concept to "increase or grow" in innocence, as we tend to think of innocence as something that is had and lost, never to be regained again. But it is not so. Innocence does not solely belong to the unconscious realm of children. It also belongs to the conscious world of adulthood, where it means so much more because it is chosen. And I found it so true when David Whyte said that when we lose our innocence is when we become "besieged by the world". How true it is!
He also talks about the sad adult response to the world that we have to act upon it in order to somehow deserve to be a part of it. Rather than simply accepting the world around us and BEING a part of it, without feeling a call to action. Simply a call to BEING. which I also think is another aspect of childlikeness.
Another issue he brought up that hit close to home was the difficulty of claiming our own happiness. And that by claiming our own happiness, we'd be "out of a job" so much so that "grasping the hand of contentment is like grasping the hand of death." Meaning, that if we cease to struggle, are we dead? I've often wondered if some people are addicted to the adrenalin and drama of trauma and struggle. Brings to mind Carly Simon's words, "Suffering is the only thing that makes me feel I'm alive." And goes back to my earlier meanderings of being frightened by joy.
Several years ago, I read Sue Monk Kidd's first book When The Heart Waits, that she published long before she was the famous Secret Life of Bees author. I thought it was a brilliant book about seeing yourself through a midlife crisis. Cocooning and waiting out the darkness. Waiting for what it has to teach us. Really really good.
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