Welcome back to SunnyRoomStudio. Glad you could drop by!
From the title of this post you might think I wanted to address the weather today, or something along those lines, when I really intend to write about clarity. I hear the word tossed around quite a bit, but is there any consensus as to the deeper meaning of the word?
When people say “I finally found clarity” it sounds like something that arrived after months of confusion or uncertainty. But how lasting is this so-called “clarity” and what are we really experiencing (perhaps)?
Nearly everyone has mixed feelings about many aspects of life. This is okay! Yet, we struggle in vain to avoid those mixed feelings, for some reason. We want them to “go away” — we want the illusion of “clarity” it seems.
- But have you ever noticed how clarity soon dissipates, how any solution creates a new problem?
I, for one, think clarity is overrated. And usually fleeting.
What we are so sure about one day, seems to slip away like the seasons. Pretty soon the beautiful autumn tree is bare, and we are searching again for “something” to bring us “clarity.”
Remember the mind is all about polarities — yes, no. Back and forth. And even though we tend to complain about the discomforts of confusion, our minds seem to delight in uncertainty, in sorting through “issues” that are often superficial and temporary. It’s almost become a source of entertainment, hasn’t it? Case in point: endless discussions via TV and so on.
So before you go perpetually running after clarity, pause just for a second, to consider this: what seems clear one day will usually seem foggy the next. Or eventually. Maybe we waste tremendous energy in our pursuit of something that feels “clear.” Maybe we resist mixed feelings too strongly. Maybe clarity only exists on a spiritual level, far about the fray. Maybe we can just sit with those feelings and they, too, will pass. After all we are usually working with incomplete information — the partial story, only.
- For the next couple of weeks, let’s consider our attachment to clarity … staying open to a deeper truth around this need for something definitive. Let me know how it goes; what are your insights? Notice any connection to this drive for clarity–the needling discomfort it can generate–and all the negative, even destructive, distractions we create for ourselves? Is it possible that addictive patterns in our global community (around anything that turns excessive or obsessive) are also linked to an intolerance for ambiguity even when it appears to be largely inherent to the human condition? I hope these are good questions! ~ dh
Sometimes, simply by sitting, the soul collects wisdom.
– Zen proverb
- Thanks for visiting, see you again on Friday, November 21st.
- Remember: If you haven’t looked within, you haven’t looked.
- Click here for more about my October book release Always Returning: The Wisdom of Place … if you should read it one day, please let me know how you discovered it and if it touched your soul. Thank you so much!
