Most of us live on the edge of passion - the edge of each moment's potential. When we are young we fight to be in the middle of the fray as we feel often when growing up that we were held away from the real excitement of life. The suburbs suggests the most banal of bucolic existences. The suburbs are designed to be lived in with little or no excitement or surprises. How this came to be a goal for people it is hard to say. Perhaps people get worn down by doing things so mundane and soul rendering that it is all a person can do after applying themselves to banality all day to just sink into a kind of resignation and call it, 'good enough'.
Hafiz seems to suggest that sitting in the heart of soul work in this life keeps one in the middle of a sustainable action and that the suburbs are not where we want to find ourselves if we want vitality and a satisfying life. The suburbs are where we go to be constantly busy and complain that we are in the suburbs. A cul-de-sac.
Thank you for listening.
https://pixabay.com/music/ambient-a-flavour-of-india-5810/
Music: The classic Pink Floyd song Comfortably Numb springs to mind when thinking about the suburbs of life and how a deep orientation to the mundane can rob a person of their connectedness, curiosity and lust for life. The song was inspired by a medical intervention performed on Roger Waters just prior to a performance where the drug he was given fought his ability to perform. Waters states, " ...That was the longest two hours of my life, trying to do a show when you can hardly lift your arm..." It can be a long and tedious life, too, stuck in the suburbs and unable find the energy to create anything.
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb
The original post in this series of poems by Hafiz (including an addendum regarding the authenticity of these poems) can be found here. Also, my thoughts on this series a year into these poems, HERE.
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz and translated by Daniel Ladinsky can be purchased here.
My book can be purchased HERE. E-book HERE. The Season Two blogcasts with audio excerpts from my book begin HERE: in Behind The Lines. This reading of the book excerpts in a mixed media format is Season Two of this blog. These recorded excerpts are outside the chronological order in which the book was written. Podcasts with audio only beginning with episode 22 can be found HERE.
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