saturday musings

"in dwelling, live close to the ground"

Tao Le-Ching

i am slowly, painfully and repeatedly reaching the conclusion that life is a bottom-up affair. devastating news for this here inveterate top-downer (should you doubt the veracity of the epiphet, i briefly refer you to my phd dissertation, which in 210 pages manages to avoid any mention of real data, for fear of it spoiling the kissability of the theory), but there you have it. top-down is pretty but non-livable, as i have had to find out repeatedly, painfully and slowly. bottom-up is messy, but at least, if you get scared, or lose your balance, you can always sit down. and although bottom-up never looks like it will get you anywhere (as in to a nobel prize in literature, public ovation, or presidency of the new republic of women), in the end, it's the only way to be somewhere at all.

for instance (the previous paragraph having shown convincingly that i am not out of the woods yet as far as theory-obsession goes): rather than wonder who to be (answers: writer, artist, postwoman, shepherd, midwife, stand-up comedian, woodpecker, circus act, guru, etc.), wonder instead what to do (walk on the beach, bake, cycle, spend time with children, knit, make music, talk to friends, sew, cook, write, think, write, draw, crochet, yoga, blog, etc.). rather than wonder how much one should spend on groceries, wonder for a while how much one does spend on groceries. rather than spend three hours online, in the dead of night, trying to find absolutely fantastic but utterly unfindable strawberry (mara des bois) seeds, get the regular strawberry seeds out of the kitchen drawer and plant them.

i hope you're all having a lovely bottom-up weekend!