I have stayed away from the computer for a week… not a particularly restful or enjoyable week exactly, just a week when lots of other things have been going on.
Here are some thoughts I wrote down in my note book on Tuesday:
I have been thinking in the night (I’m awake most nights) about how I go round and round in circles, and I’m still doing it, and it never seems to get any better, I don’t seem to make any progress. I don’t feel I’ve really changed since last year, and so it goes on, and how can I face the next year, when I’ll probably end up feeling the same.
Every year I think ‘this year it will be different, this is the year when I will finish the novel, find an agent/publisher, work out what the hell I’m doing with my life, learn to live with myself and be happy…’ of course, it never happens, I just stumble on not achieving anything and not feeling any better about myself or my life.
On Tuesday evening I finished reading ‘The Manticore’ by Robertson Davies (middle book of the Deptford Trilogy), and right at the end (after the hero has made a terrifying Christmas Eve crawl through a claustrophobic tunnel from a prehistoric cave system back to the world), he says:
‘… if we are really wise, we will make a working arrangement with the bear that lives with us, because otherwise we shall starve or perhaps be eaten by the bear… cherish your bear, and your bear will feed your fire.’
So what can I learn from that? To cherish my bear? Well, how the hell do I do that? And maybe that should be my New Year resolution. Maybe this year, instead of resolving that I will become the person I want to be (which never happens, of course), I should just aim to get through to the end of another year, without necessarily trying to make a drastic change (and inevitably failing), but without losing hope, just to get there, and maybe find some reasons to be happy along the way, because reasons to be happy can be quite small things really, but just to get to the end alongside the bear, and accept the bear for what it is.
And my ‘365 Tao’ book offers this for today:
‘Always finish what you start. That alone is discipline and wisdom enough…
‘When you come to the end of a cycle, a new one will begin… With each turn of the wheel you go further. With each turn of the wheel you free yourself from the mire of ignorance. With each turn of the wheel comes continuation.
‘Turn the wheel of your life. Make complete revolutions. Celebrate every turning. And persevere with joy.’
Happy New Year.