Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Dr. Darrell White's Personal Blog

Cape Cod

Sunday musings 9/23/18

Sunday musings…

1) Autumn. Yep. Here it is. First day of Fall and it’s 55 degrees outside at Casa Blanco.

2) Movie. Mark Wahlberg perfectly captures the intensity and the desperation I would feel if one of my children went missing. The Lovely Bones is gut wrenching.

3) Chardonnay. Do you partake of the grape? My darling Beth has become physically intolerant of red wine (though she will choose to suffer for a special Zinfandel) and so we have been on a white wine quest for the last couple of years. Our first such journey was the classic rite of passage new wine drinkers all embrace as beginners before they are inevitably swept up in the “only red wine is worthy” stage. This has been fun because we’ve given ourselves permission to just enjoy whatever we find for whatever we spend.

Look for Goldschmidt “Singing Tree” from Cali. You’re welcome.

4) Non-Zero. In my travels, and those of my oldest friends and acquaintances, I have come across scores of people who are truly happy. Capable of feeling and giving in to joy. It’s such a special thing to see, and even better to in some way feel a part of that joy, wherever it may be from and whatever may have brought it to life. It’s out there, you know. Sometimes it’s subtle, as gentle and quiet as the proverbial footstep of a butterfly landing on a leaf. Other times it is raucous and riotous and simply blasts through your space like a runaway train.

That’s kinda cool.

Sadly, there are others out there who resent the joy in others. Whether they are themselves happy or not so much, the happiness of another feels to them like losing. It’s more than envy in the unhappy. For these folks it’s as if there is a finite about of happiness and joy in the world; no matter how much of either they may have at any one time they cannot see another’s joy without feeling as if it is somehow draining the reservoir from which they may drink some time in the future. Weird, huh? They sometimes seem more fixated on the blessings of others than on their own, so much so that their own joy slowly seeps away.

Happiness and joy are not limited resources. Quite the contrary. My happiness, my joy is not predicated on your unhappiness or your sorrow, and vice versa. Heavens, if one person’s happiness could come only from another’s despair we’d have long ago slipped into a rather dismal anarchy. No, joy is the ultimate non-zero sum measure. More than that, joy is an exponential multiplier. When you find or see joy in someone else and that vision makes you happy, the mount of happy you get is a full order of magnitude greater than it should be. If that joy and happiness should come to someone who has lately had little of either, well, that’s just that much better.

Life is pretty good around Casa blanco right now, and as much as I’d like to think that means it will always be thus that’s not how life works. Regardless, if I should stumble upon you in the midst of something joyous you can be sure that no matter what happens to be going on in my little world I’m surely not going to resent you or your joy. Quite the opposite.

Whether the skies be cloudy or eggshell blue, a glimpse of the sun always warms.

I’ll see you next week…

–bingo

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