No man is an island but you can live on one of 500 in Scotland. Living on Fair Isle can awaken you from the slumber of almost living. It's a hard life here in many way, and the only easy day was yesterday.
It is mostly about the weather. Normally, we live in a sheltered, delicate world, and we believe we are living. Then we come here to the Sub Arctic and this conterfeit life is exposed and the default way of doing things and being don't quit sync up.
We are exposed to the elemnts, the raw savage beauty Ah Yes-but it can kill you. There is danger everywhere, from the cliff edges that crumble to the gale force winds, and rain that come uninvited but expected. Most of us spend our lives hibernating in cities rural and urban. Can't do that here exactly in the same way.
Boredom is a kind of anorexia of the soul- so what is the remedy here. Part DOING and Part BEING but mostly being.
The symptoms of restlessness visit us all; this kind of pathological desire for productivity. Busyness is a decision here- and I cut the grass, paint the house, fix the fences.... despite our home, our garden, our beautiful life, we are aware of being in a beautiful prison, from which we can only escape by travel, and the expectation that this is only a contract. After all, my two mantras: Nothing lasts forever, and Don't worry. It will change, come to mind.
You can walk the PAINTED LINE as Al Pachino, my favorite actor, once described how it is going through the motions rather than taking risks. Babbit, the man who never did a thing he wanted in all his life wass the man who never followed his bliss as Joseph Cambell reminds us.
You can also have the privlege of being yourself and doing what is heart felt as right and the true north for your inner GPS and intution. Our solution these days is to pray, for our next best thing. To go where we can serve best. We got here that way. So far so good.
Motion Creates Emotion
There is life saving power in movement- in simple walks, in breath. And Yes, even the extreme cold water immersions I take to give these easy activites a bit of shock and awe.As I swim in the icy Arctic waters, I wash away all the extravagences of so-called civilization, which includes the incapacity to be happy under any circumstance.
I have seen vacation photos that commodify the two-week getaways.. In fact, I am guilty of taking such photos. The pictures I take here are effortless simplicity- This place is eternal, it overwhelms you, it is complete. J.ust Point and shoot. The scenes are painted in natural light, and it always changes
