joy, wonder, mystery
“A problem once solved ceases to be a problem; but the penetration of a mystery does not make it any less mysterious."
Stephen Batchelor, Living with the Devil
We talk so much about achievement. About goals. Setting them. Having them. Writing them down. Listing them out. Envisioning them on a board. Picturing them fulfilled. About reaching them. About getting somewhere, becoming something. About what it takes to get there. But, what happens the morning after. The next day. After the parade. After the celebration. After they sweep the confetti away. When the lights go down and everybody leaves. When you don't have to go home, but you can't stay. What happens when the big moment fades? When there's still a life to live? Still time to fill? Still the laundry? On that we fall silent. On that we have almost nothing to say.
So much of our disappointment and disillusionment we author ourselves. Nothing is ever as good as we imagined it. Nothing looks like it does in the picture. Everything is false advertisement. If only we knew then what we know now. If only we could believe now what we did then. Before and after. Before we knew that gold medals are 92.5% silver. After we realized the key to the city unlocks nothing.
What would it look like to hold space between remembrance and expectation, between memory and anticipation? Nostalgia and prediction. After the before, but before the after. Between hope and hopelessness. Between less and more? To expect less hopefully. To hope more unexpectedly. A second naivete. A re-enchantment after the loss of innocence. An embrace of the paradox without becoming cynical.
Maybe we don't need the trophies or their cases. The tally sheets of our achievements. The lists of our accolades or goals. Maybe it's never been greatness we were after. Maybe it's never been what we need. Maybe we just need rhythm and repetition. A basic standard of enoughness. A baseline of contentment. Joy. Wonder. Mystery. A million small joys and little wonders, chronicled in the daily mystery of our time here.
Your writing really scratched an itch for me. It's so easy to imagine how good it'll feel when we achieve our goals, but so hard to ever feel it. I used to get that a lot with writing when I was younger. I remember finishing my first "book" and thinking it was going to unlock some sort incomprehensible happiness that I'd never felt before... but then I just finished... and everything was the same. I think I've learnt since then to attune my focus so I appreciate the moments of "in between" and not just the moment where I cross the goal off my list
The real point of goals isn’t necessarily achieving them, but the fulfillment from chasing them—that’s why after people achieve something, they just make another goal to work towards.
Some astute wisdom here concisely expressed, Duane! Nice work!