Wednesday 13 December 2023

Where is happiness?

 I've just washed the dishes while cooking some lamb chop to slice up for a school lunch. Threw the dog a half eaten kransky from the fridge so I could toss out four day old salad remains and clean the container. The dog gave me that look that says "this food cold". I told him to wait for it to warm up so he took it outside to play with it. Drank half my second coffee of three heaped teaspoons of instant coffee in a half filled cup of boiling water.

I'm old suddenly. I did not see it coming. Not the reality. The first person experience. It was always just something imagined. I have a bit of a toothache. I always put it off because of money but eventually it goes where the others have gone before it. Soon maybe I'll have to live on mush or get false teeth. As i contemplate the next task for making the school lunch I realise that being in the now is what happiness is really all about.

It dawned on me that I was enjoying the task of making the school lunch. The Zen of it. The full mindfulness of the moment with balancing time between cooking, cleaning, preparing, talking to the dog and all without really thinking about the myriad things there are to be distracted by. Right now there are so many millions of people suffering. The world's climate might make it worse. World hatred and fear grows. My body is failing. I have to have some major surgery. The family has problems with children's family breakup. The boy is waking ready to watch YouTube before school. I return to making his lunch.

Lunch made so back to watching the world through my feeds. News and social media feeds. Right now it's about Israel. It has so far killed about twenty thousand people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

Suffering.

I made breakfast and washed the dishes while I talked to the dog and I was happy.