Saturday 19 November 2011

Sometimes life doesn't feel the least bit spiritual

Sometimes even trying to live life from a spiritual perspective is irritating. I suppose it is a lesser version of the 'dark night of the soul,' when the paper-taste of life is strong in one's mouth and all you want to do is spit it out.

Sometimes things are just crappy, shitty, awful, hard, horrible, disappointing, tedious, upsetting and utterly pointless. Or at least it feels utterly pointless and perhaps that place of pointlessness is just where one needs to be.

A good rant or rave at life, god, consciousness, the world, fate or whatever the fuck runs this crazy place can be very satisfying. Swearing is good too. The worst words you can think of are the most satisfying no doubt because they have had shock value for centuries and that is retained in cellular memory.

Sometimes life stinks. Sometimes it is cruel, unfair, mean-spirited and the thought of 'making the best of it' just makes you feel like sticking your fingers down your throat and vomiting back at life the ghastliness of it all. It doesn't sound very spiritual but then that may be a seriously subjective judgement. Perhaps it is more spiritual than anything because it is so real.

Putting Pollyanna in her place, not just taking it and taking it and making the best of it can build grit, determination and ultimately a sense of humour. As the alchemists of old and new would say, it is in the 'worst' of things that we find the 'gold,' and the treasure is that which is thrown away and not valued.

We don't have any true answer to life. All we ever have is a set of beliefs, which are our 'answers' and which make sense to us most of the time. Sometimes nothing makes sense and those answers are as dry as the dust of an endless desert and as destructive. And yet even the desert is seen as a place of growth - it's true value and nourishment being hidden.

But no doubt it will pass. And in the words of  Mr Bennett in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - no doubt sooner than it should. But for now, perhaps the task is to rejoice in the utter awful disappointment of it all and to recognise that life, in many ways, is utterly ridiculous and should sometimes be seen as such.