Dear Diary,
You probably know that feeling. You stand whistling at minute seventy-two at the fish counter in one of the shopping centers (whose name we won’t mention here, but it starts with the letter “N”) waiting for the saleswoman to appear and every seven minutes prophylactically remind yourself in your mind what you came here for, where you came here and who you are in general. And then a certain lady creeps up to the display case, wrapped in a fox fur coat, in a fox gaze and in a fox perception of the world, and begins as if absent-mindedly, without much interest, examining the mackerels laid out on the shelf. Suddenly, as if on cue, the saleswoman appears behind the counter and first addresses the lady, since the distance to her was smaller. A person not planning after death to burn not only in the crematorium but also in hell would, of course, wave a hand toward the earlier-waiting customer and utter the simple “excuse me, but I was here before this fifty-year-old youngster”, whereas a spiritually defective personality begins spewing a marathon “give me four mackerels, seven smelts, two crucian carp, a plaice and that smiling pike head over there.” The idea being – if you managed to wait seventy-two minutes for the saleswoman, then you’ll manage to wait just as long while I, all cool as I am having appeared from nowhere just moments ago, buy out half the department.
And right at this point we encounter one of the greatest inner challenges and a control test of spiritual maturity. A rather strong energetic construct, a symbiosis of thought and emotion, is born within us. If that energetic construct instantly transforms into an external action, word or left hook, read no further – your level isn’t much higher than that of the aforementioned foxy lady’s gaze and soul. Much more often the inner whirlwind doesn’t erupt outward but spins and intensifies inside – thoughts and emotions activate glands, glands activate hormones, hormones activate even stronger thoughts and emotions, and so in a circle practically to infinity – “May a tram run you over, you btch! Wait, we don’t have trams… May that mayor, the btch, install trams in the city, and it runs you over! Wait, that mayor should be tried and shot first. Why hasn’t our law enforcement shot that mayor with his bloody little fingers yet? Where do I live? What do I pay taxes for? What do I live for after paying those taxes? Why am I so unhappy and who’s to blame?!” Congratulations. Here you are, just standing at the fish counter in one of the shopping centers whose name starting with “N” we keep secret, in three and a half minutes hooking onto a pointless random trifle you’ve wasted your entire daily allocation of inner energy – all that’s left is to buy that coveted smoked sea bass, slink home, collapse into bed and wait for tomorrow and the replenishment of inner strength it brings.
And although the second option is much better than the first – there probably wouldn’t even be wars in the world if it weren’t for idiots, instantly converting their inner cockroaches’ merry-go-round into words and actions – there’s also a third sequence of actions. That’s a certain alertness and ability in the very first second to notice an emotional storm rising inside and a ripened burst of inner negativity energy and simply with your attentiveness instantly block it. To notice how pleasant quietude returns to the inner space (Goodness, what a beautiful word! Thank you zodynas.lt for the suggested alternative to the word “calm”), how the accumulated negative energy transforms into simply energy without any flavoring and flows back into us, making us blissfully straighten up and in such, seemingly ungrateful circumstances feel a surge of additional strength, while all sorts of glands avoid the possibility of pointlessly squandering their purpose by producing unnecessary hormones and continue the useful activity of nurturing and healthifying the organism in every way.
In general, every thought is a small breeze in the head, a small movement of inner energy from one side to the other. And when you have many thoughts, the number of those breezes in the head becomes unbearable – opposing, intertwined, blowing left, right, up and down. Therefore the ability to calm them all, that inner quietude, that calm mentioned above, is an enormous gift both to yourself and to your health.
Have a quiet Saturday inside and an active one outside! :-)
