I've been here before; this is becoming an important facet of my life, the search for consistently repeatable moments of joy. This involves a series of steps that can lead to the most sublime of feelings - feelings that make you understand the purpose of being alive and conscious. Moments of intense joy that burn into your memory and resurface, unbidden, to brighten your life and bring meaning to existence.
Can moments of joy be predictable? Can you plan for them?
People tend to over-plan happy events, be it their wedding or a short holiday, doing what they can to remove the random, making said events formulaic ("we must now do the group photo"/"we can't not visit the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe").
As with so much in life, there must be a balance between planning and spontaneity. "Failing to plan is planning to fail," but then "Failing to adapt to random happenings is potentially losing out on moments of joy".
As regular readers will have noticed, I have come to find repeatable moments of joy sparked by walks around sunset. Assuming a clear or clear-ish sky; there's far less joy under a cloudy sky from which rain or drizzle issues. And so it was yesterday and today - some local motorbike rides under clear, early-autumn skies, flashbacks to familiar 1950s USA around Staniszewice and returning through Jakubowizna. As afternoon passed towards early evening, I checked the time of sunset for Chynów, and set off on foot for my vantage point. Today I took with me a chilled bottle of Perun brewery's Topór Peruna (8.1% Polish IPA) for the walk. Important to get the right amount of feldalkohol - four units or thereabouts is optimal.
And today hit the spot. In particular, my dusk walks around Jakubowizna and Chynów bring back my summer holiday in 1975, in Stella-Plage, on the northern French coast. To quote George Michael, "all that's missing is the sea," as Moni observed on her most recent visit. The sandy soil, the warmth of the day evaporating into the night. The scent of the air, the quality of the light. I'd long associated that particular holiday with Peak Teenage Stupidity, but actually, I'd taken away vastly more - qualia memories from 45 years ago and a thousand miles away, are triggered again. Away from the coast, my walks at dawn and dusk through rural France, the chemins vicinaux between Stella-Plage, Trepied and Cucq, come back loud and clear. The joy was there, old joy rediscovered - joy I hadn't properly appreciated at the time.
Below: the DK50 at dusk. This is Warsaw's southern bypass, the east-west transit route. Just a single lane in each direction. Chynów and Jakubowizna to the left, Wola Pieczyska and Sułkowice to the right.The day is completed with views such as this.
The problem that many materialists have is believing that money buys happiness. It does not. But it does buy options. Options that poor people don't have; the more money on your account, the more choice you have - but then what you make of it remains a matter for conscious decision. Seek yet more things? Or focus on capturing those moments of joy?
UPDATE: Sunday 20 September - a morning (not too early!) walk, and I catch this klimat: Foreclosed, 1935.
This time last year:
Spectacularly glorious day, Ealing
This time four years ago:
Evolution, the future and us
This time six years ago:
Relief as Scots vote to remain in UK
This time seven years ago:
The S2 opens all the way to Puławska
This time eight years ago:
Thundering ghost from out of the mist
This time nine years ago:
Push-pull for Mazowsze
This time ten years ago:
Okęcie runway repairs are complete
This time 12 years ago:
I know that painting from somewhere...
This time 13 years ago:
The March of Progress, ul. Postępu
Repeatable moments of joy:
ReplyDeleteOn the doctor’s orders, my parents took me to the Polish seaside in 1972, one of only two holidays with my parents in all my life. One memory crowds out others. In the guesthouse we stayed in, they filled a bath tub hip high with warm water, careful not to use too much hot water or the owner of the house would be cross. The warm water rising in the bath tub was such an intense moment of joy that I have made a point of never going without a hot bath in the evening in my adult life and savouring the moment of the bath filling up. That’s because for the first ten years of my life I lived on a farm without running water, let alone hot water.
Unlike you, I savour mornings. The scene: early 70s, farm yard (see above), cow shed wall warming up as the sun rises, lethargic flies on the wall, chickens foraging in the yard, swallows diving in and out of the cow shed through the open door, muck heap just yards across from the entrance to the cow shed, me pressed against the wall and curled up against the chill outside this small comfort zone, catching the morning sun warmth.
There other such moments but these two, or one as they have a lot in common, I have distilled to the point that I know what to look for to whip myself into that special mood.
@Jacek Koba
ReplyDeleteSuch memories are what truly make up the individual; being able to recognise them and distill them is a crucial part of what it is to be human.
Mornings? I have nothing against them other than they come to early. I am an owl and stay up too late to enjoy sunrise and the magic of dawn.
Perhaps the Spanish have the right idea - shift the clock right over (sunrise in Seville right now is at 08:10, and have a siesta!