Keeping to the path of Joy (isn't easy)

Jan 5 (edited) in Blog

We appear to live in times of epidemic unhappiness.

Whilst, to me at least, it would appear our birthright is joy, the world of man seems to have darkened so much that misery has been normalised as an unavoidable and regular predicament.

Worse still, relief from that inevitable state is the return to some sort of happy functionality through means beyond one's own assets and capabilities.

In our so-called civilised world we 'get' happiness through consumer processes, like just about everything else in this world, and not through innate or natural understanding and wisdom.

I am losing, may have lost completely, two close members of my family to this darkness. Their drift and disappearance, whilst tragic to my personal desires, is not unremarkable in the daily, global scheme of things. In fact, it is diagnosed and medicated, in quite the routine way, that no doubt many succumb to, as others look on - helpless and resigned.

I resent this state of affairs, though of course must not have it pulling me in that same dismal direction or fate.

Only each of us alone, can keep on the straight and narrow of life's natural and grace-given delight.

In this world, those drowning in darkness will pull you under too ... if you don't protect yourself from their unconscious strength, which is calling for help yet will think nothing of taking your air, right down to the last of your gasps.

Where THEY are, they know not what they do, and basic survival instincts will be the order of their day. We can't blame or hate them for this, whilst enduring an unbearable poignancy.

We all walk this path alone in the sense that only I can truly put my one foot in front of the other, in this individualised, worldly experience.

Some will walk alone into the dark to each side, despite our warnings, often innocently or encouraged by the already darkened. Once lost, some will never return toward the calls of those still on the lit path.

What does it take to stay on this path and not, oneself, wander into the darkness - imagining that, by no longer being able to see, (or be seen), one might be a vision to others?

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