The WordPress/JetPack writing prompt for today is:
If you had to sum up your life philosophy in one sentence, what would it be?
I’m in my 60s. I’ve experienced a lot: Some amazing, some not so great.
I’ve lived on 4 continents.
I’ve hand fed giraffes, swum with dolphins, walked with penguins along a beach, and released a baby sea turtle into the South China Sea. I’ve touched a wild cheetah. I’ve wandered Las Ramblas at night, and Cape Town during the day. I’ve stood where the desert meets the sea. I’ve swum in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian ocean and dipped my toe into the Southern Ocean.
I’ve also been shot at. I’ve been held at gun and knifepoint.
I have friends who are “private security contractors” (aka mercenaries).
I’ve spent time in a UNHCR settlement.
I’ve seen dead bodies (on the ground, not as part of a funeral). Friends, people I loved, have died from something other than natural causes: from violence, from AIDS, from suicide, from just being stupid.
I’ve done stupid things and somehow not died.
A diamond smuggling gang tried to recruit me while showing me around an illegal casino in Windhoek, Namibia. The recruiter, an acquaintance, died violently a few months later. I was told best not to ask questions.
And yet I’m often judged as naïve because I refuse to be jaded. I actively look for beauty around me – natural and man-made.
I remember sharing a cab with a stranger in Busan, South Korea (both ESL teachers who lived near each other, heading home after a pub quiz night). I commented that the skyline was very pretty at night. He replied that ‘you get used to it.” So I asked him how long he’d been here. Six months, he replied. He asked me the same question.
My answer, just over three years, stopped him. He wasn’t equipped for the idea that you don’t have to stop feeling that sense of wonder.
It’s easy to see the beauty when you’re standing on the edge of a volcanic crater in Tanzania, looking down onto a plain full of antelope and wildebeest. Now look at the sky, no matter what it’s showing you, and find the beauty. Look at clouds and see the pattern and texture of the air that you’re breathing.
In the corporate world, when I was there, I was seen as almost comically naive. Despite the fact that I could be right about something, the fact that the idea came from me automatically weighed against it.
I remember how shocked a higher-up was, when she learned that I was the company’s in-house expert on a specific piece of arcane technology. The tech people knew, that’s why they suggested tasking me. The higher-up agreed, thinking she was setting me up to fail. When I finished the task under budget, she protested. The VP of tech intervened and explained I was an asset they often consulted.
Don’t give up your sense of wonder, no matter how people react to it. They may think you’re stupid, or naive. That’s a price you’ll have to pay for seeing the beauty in it all. Think of it as an act of resistance against the cynicism of the current political culture. Yes, it’s hard in these trying times. It makes the tragedies more painful, but it also brings joy.
And we all need that.