Stuck: On Pause

I want to write but cannot. I want to paint but have not. I want to live deliberately but cannot. These are the doldrums. No wind. No movement ruffling underneath the sails. Quiet. Remote. Still waters. Heavy, oppressive air. Five days of rainy, gloomy weather last week contributed thus to the sense of inactivity and lack of achievement. This too shall pass. This feeling must become momentary for this early morning at the beginning of the week.

 Internet Fair Use - The Doldrums at the Horizon

Gustave Dore characterized the feeling well in the shipboard doldrums below:

Internet Fair Use - The Doldrums on Board Ship

Coleridge wrote:

"Day after day

Day after day

We stuck, nor breath nor motion

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean."

I kept at Duty last week doing the things I must do at this juncture in my life's Journey. This also is part of the activity at the equator. Where the interconnected northern and southern winds and currents lay idle. Passing from one hemisphere of activity to the next. I continue to feel Grief. Amidst thoughts of loved ones lost.

Internet Fair Use - Grief 01

After business hours, I search the web for inspiration. Images. Text. People. Energy. But I can summarize when I say that, for me, the web is not the place to center oneself.  I find and discover this again and again. I am dismayed at the trite phrases and quotes that are promulgated about the meaning of life, happiness, and motivation. Philosophies, of course, differ. I think many of the expositions are truisms. There is some truth in there somewhere. But overall, it is all so trite and empty. At least for me in this moment.

I have also reviewed many of the old websites I have collated over the past few years. I remember a few years ago that I hadn't even reviewed any blogs or websites. It was a rarity for me. I think the common themes for most of them upon recent review was that I admired each of the web sites and bloggers for

• Doing what they love to do
• Finding their passion and making it happen
• Discovering and uncovering meaning in their lives
• Branding themselves
• Expressing themselves
• Being themselves
• Energy, enthusiasm, ingenuity, innovation, dedication, persistence
• Producing, not consuming

Many have stopped publishing since the 2011-2013 time frame. Some of them don't even say why. They just stopped. Some of the most creative and entertaining folks which is surprising to me. Many sites don't hold the pizazz and inspiration I must have seen in my first impression. So the links are being deleted one by one. I have the sense that life moved on for these folks. There was a time to share and a need to share. Something changed.

Internet Fair Use - Life is a Roller Coaster

So, for today, for this early morning, I am feeling just Stuck On Pause. The proper response to that dilemma...

 Internet Fair Use - Forget and Move On

...is to start walking...one step at a time. Change. The Daily Walk. Time to start the day and the week.

Change: Tacking to a New Course

"I can't change the direction of the wind, 

but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination." 

- Jimmy Dean

Internet Fair Use - Rounding the Buoy

Rounding the buoy for the next leg of the Journey. Have to tack in another direction and reset the sails. It's just what you do when you're sailing. Nothing special or different or unusual.

Happiness According to Winston Churchill

"In order to be happy," said Winston Churchill, "you need to find a task that requires perfection, is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it."

Internet Fair Use - Winston Churchill in Youth

As an individual endeavor and as a producer, I think that making great art, or preaching the whole counsel of God, fits this expectation of perfection and impossibility, even more than living a personal and honorable life, even more than serving others in a charitable or community cause, even more than the accumulation of wealth. 

Happiness seems to me to be a solitary pursuit, associated with the innermost self, not a social endeavor. I would propose that happiness is not the pursuit of pleasure or leisure or fun as espoused by many.

Perhaps Churchill's contribution in history was perseverance and fortitude and courage and national leadership in inspiring democratic people in the achievement of peace and freedom during and after a great war against all seemingly insurmountable odds. And amidst controversy. And amidst turmoil. And for his endeavor, there was a sense of Duty and Imperative.

Wouldn't it be paradoxical to espouse that he was having fun while accomplishing this endeavor? Did not the drive to accomplish this Noble Cause always still leave a sense of indomitable non-satisfaction? Was this a leisurely pursuit or endeavor?

The "happiness" or "satisfaction" perhaps came more from an alignment of the innermost self to the Noble Cause and expressing the persona in the ensuing and final achievement of making a difference in issues that mattered to him personally and to his people nationally and internationally.

Just thinking on things.