When I’m feeling ill, or there is something generally inhibiting me from functioning in my usual way, I always think this:

‘Once I feel better I’m not going to take my health for granted, I’ll be able to achieve so many things when I can breathe/walk/think properly again. Everything’s going to change and I’ll be happy.’

It was the same during a period of bad weather a couple of years ago (snow and ice) when I was stuck for about a week, having to walk everywhere on treacherous pavements in boots. It was not easy and it took lots of time – it made me appreciate flat, dry pavements on a whole new level. I thought:

‘Once this snow and ice has cleared I’ll be able to move freely and without the fear of falling over. It’s going to make life so easy and I can get lots done and be happy. My eyes can see the world so clearly now.’

During these times when the routine is interrupted and we are forced into making different plans, or we just feel consciously aware of our fragile body, we become alive to the fact that the rest of the time, when things are great, we don’t notice.

This morning I have woken up feeling fine. I have no cold, my head feels alright and I’ve had a great night sleep. But that’s normal. I’m not happy about it. I don’t think about it…usually.

You often hear stories of deathbed regrets, that someone wished they had worked less, spent more time with their family/friends, lived a less selfish life etc. It’s amazing quite how often this is the case; that people look back with regrets about what they didn’t do/say to those important people in their lives, and that they wish they’d let themselves be happy.

So often it takes a major incident to wake us up and make us realise.

We can hear countless stories of the fact that at the end of the day most of what we do is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but often, until we experience an event that takes us to the edge we don’t live out this deep seated and impenetrable truth (of which we are well aware) and actually seek transformation.

We plough on with our ridiculous hours, neglecting those around us, convincing ourselves that we are doing the work in order to give our loved ones ‘the life they deserve’. But this is just an excuse. When things feel normal, when we are at our peak (health, finance, security etc), we just coast through life. We take our health and wellbeing, our current situation and environment for granted. We don’t live a life of gratitude for what we have until it’s gone.

It’s one of the great paradoxes of our society. We believe, because we have to, that we must act as working cogs in a grand machine so that we can be ‘free’ as individuals. We give up our time and thought (all the good quality hours), so that we have the ‘freedom’ (money) to supposedly make our own choices, live our own lives…and then inadvertently but quite predictably become more and more alone, and thus further and further away from the heart of humanity.

The true heart is that of oneness, togetherness and communion, but we clog up the arteries with the fat of an unnatural and completely manufactured substance: individualism. We all demand blood but the body doesn’t have the capacity – parts of it are dropping off because of blockages, and while the blood is prevalent and bountiful in other parts, it is only a matter of time before the body suffers from an attack (not from outside, but from within). The attack might be sparked by something on the outside but it’s what’s on the inside that makes the difference.

We work and work so that we can survive down the line when we are no longer fit to work (after we have worn ourselves down by all the work – retirement). Is this really what life is about? Is this why we are here now, in this blip of an abstract moment of forever, so that we can work ourselves back into the ground, shaft other people to ‘get what we want’, and then realise at the end of our brief time on stage that we fucked it up and got it all very wrong?

There are a great many people who have done it this way and we can learn from them – that’s the beauty of being human. We can observe those who have gone before and learn how not to waste our lives or how to do things better. Or maybe we are too busy to bother with all that.

So how are you feeling today? Is everything normal? Take a moment to be grateful for all the good stuff, and then think about the things that are inhibiting you. Is there something you can do to get rid of these things? Either way, when they are gone how will that make a difference to your priorities in life?

Here is a relevant parable, about a fisherman and an investment banker and the conflict at the very heart of our current reality:

An investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The investment banker complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The investment banker said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings and spend time with your family.”

The power of money is horrible. After having £100 essentially systematically stolen by Endsleigh Insurance yesterday I have tried to make a conscious decision to transcend that horrible feeling losing money puts in your stomach.

Money is a key player in almost every bad thing in this world. Yet we still insist on using it. Ever considered what an alternative might look like? Have a think. We’ll need one before too long anyway.

All Praise be to Money:

He is a negative spirit that often hangs over my day.

He subliminally dictates my actions. He strains my interactions with others and turns great situations into often-awkward encounters.

He watches me sleep and whispers a lullaby in my ear so that I wake up in a cold sweat ready to make irrational choices.

He drives us apart.

Sometimes he allows me a moment of peace, obligating me to relax and make changes. But once I’ve caught my breath and got used to my new situation he pulls in tight again.

He dresses like a saviour, but in actual fact enslaves me.

He never satisfies me.

He is the god of the one true religion, and I fear him. I fear losing him. I fear sharing him. I fear looking at my life and realising quite how much power he has over me and how little personal identity I possess.

I fear his wrath, so I go to the temple each day. There do I pray as I work, and I sacrifice myself so that I can win his favour and bathe in his blessings.

I put my head down and worship my lord with all that I am for I love the lord with all my heart, mind and strength and despise my neighbour like I despise myself.

Let us pray together:

Dear lord, I want more of you. Bless my family and me. Open my eyes to the sacrifices I can make to you and provide me with old, mundane and standardised opportunities to spread your word, so that I can experience the world in a non-unique way, die to my true self, work harder, and find more of you in everything I do. Close my eyes to the evils in this world.

For yours is the kingdom, and in you belie the power and the glory, for as long as I keep your spirit perpetuated, Amen.

Being a cynic doesn’t make you big or clever.

It’s easy to be a cynic.

Cynic is my default position. I have to battle it on a daily basis. Many days it beats me. Those days are also the days I fail to do anything productive. I just feel contempt towards the world.

I’m going to put my neck and say that I don’t think I’m alone in this.

Today I am painfully aware of this battle. I feel dispairing and low, and meet everything I see and read with the eyes of my inner cynic.

It is hard to overcome, but I am getting there. Writing this is at least one way of channelling him, although I know as soon as I stop typing he will tell me to delete it and go back to looking disparagingly upon my fellow human people instead.

One of the most important lessons I ever learned was from a lecturer at university. During the first seminar he was inquiring as to why we were taking his particular module (which was about development and Third World Politics). I remember saying that I was taking it so that I had an evidential foundation on which to base my cynicism.

On reflection it was a depressingly arrogant and self-righteous reason and I’m glad he picked me up on it. He said the last thing he wanted to do was encourage cynicism. Critics, yes. Skeptics, yes. Cynics, no.

He had no time for cynicism. Yes the majority of what we would be looking at would possibly (hopefully) make us angry and it would inevitably show the world to be a shit place (or at least what people are capable of doing to it/each other), but as sceptical critics we might develop some desire to change it. However, if we were to become cynics we would be worse than those who have made it this way in the first place.

It was thus his hope that I would be changed as the course went on. And this is a hope that I constantly remember today and have carried through life ever since.

When I feel cynical I remember his words. I remember that I have a choice in the way I respond to the shit that happens in the world.

It happens whether I’m around to know about it or not, but the fact that I AM means I have a chance to respond to it with a different heart.

If I let the cynic win then I’m essentially worthless.

The cynic is alone. He achieves nothing except despondency.

Right. I think I may have won the battle for today – if you are reading this it means that I have overcome my cynic with my critic and put him away in a dark box where he belongs.

Let the battle recommence, same time, same place, tomorrow.