Making friends with reality

December 20, 2024

Making friends with reality

Driving from urban to suburban this morning took ten minutes, time enough for the illusion of free movement, unimpeded and graceful mechanical ease, superb. Of course it couldn’t last, and thankfully, I didn’t expect it to. I try my best not to argue with reality anymore, I never win anyway. An argument with reality is most likely to happen when I’m driving, especially city driving, and nearly always starts with a rhetorical question “what idiot….”, “who thought….” etc. etc. and off we go to hypertension central. So I try and adopt the Stoic attitude of Amor Fati.

Mindfulness, Stoicism

About Me

I have what some might consider an unusual c.v. I was an early school leaver, dropping out with no secondary education. I served in the military for over 20 years before deciding to move on and try my hand working in civvy street for a while. I then opted to return to full time education for four years and got a degree in the social sciences. I worked as a project worker in a community based organisation for twelve years before retiring from that post. Now, because I have the most precious thing of all – time, I can be a scholar. You may have heard of the term a ‘scholar and gentleman’, which referred to a person with a private income who could afford to be a scholar. Such a person could afford to study whatever took his or her fancy, most often the humanities though. I have many interests, but I am passionate about the human mind, particularly the differing perspectives of mind held by eastern and western philosophy. I am fascinated by how science is now confirming many of the ideas that were outlined thousands of years ago. I also own a 8″ Dobsonian telescope, I feed the birds daily, enjoy stillness, silence, qigong, tai chi, a good laugh, my family, my friends, reading and the leisurely pursuit of wisdom and knowledge.