Happy New Spin to You!

A year – astronomically – is a spin of a celestial object around a center of gravity.  In our – Earthly – case, a year is, of course, a spin around the Sun.

As we yearn for stability and balance in our lives, we are zipping around the Sun at an orbital speed of 30 kilometers per second (that’s 108,000 kilometers per hour) – and not down some well-paved straight line, but on a perpetual curve, without any chance of ever getting off this mind-boggling ride!

Ponder this as well: a straight line is but a geometrical abstraction.  We live in the world of tremendous centripetal/ego-centric forces and inevitable curvatures. 

There is no good/bad, right/wrong grid: so, we always have and we always will keep crossing these overly simplistic imaginary ethical/moral meridians and latitudes – no, not because we are bad or flawed, but because we are doing our moment-to-moment perfectly imperfect best amidst a bewildering set of constantly changing psycho-physical variables.

And yet – amidst all this built-in instability – we have found ways of steadying ourselves, of stilling our minds.  So, as you embark on yet another spin around the Sun, pause to celebrate all your coping creativity that allowed you to stay true to your own existential orbit during this past year… and allow yourself to accept all and any of your future coping efforts as well.

Happy New Spin to you, Celestial Coper!

Similarity Isn't Sameness

When you compare yourself to somebody else, you are comparing you to not-you.  But uniqueness is beyond comparison.  Sure, you and so-and-so might be very similar, but similarity isn’t sameness.  For you to score like they do (whoever they might be), look like they do, earn like they do, talk like they do – to be like they are – you’d have to not be you.  But you are you: not worse, not better, just different.  To function as a society, and to function in a society, we have to play this game of comparisons.  This game is useful but fundamentally absurd.  After all, how do you compare apples to oranges?  Is an apple better than an orange?  It depends on the mouth, i.e. on somebody’s subjective taste.  Is an apple better than an orange in any objective sense?  Of course, not.  It’s just different.  When we say “it is what it is” we are also saying that “it” (whatever that “it” might be) is unique, i.e. different from anything else.  Is so-and-so better than you?  That depends on a subjective point of view.  No matter how similar the two of you might be, you aren’t the same and the difference between the two of you is what accounts for all the differences between the two of you.  Embrace your uniqueness!  Whoever or whatever you are, celebrate the uniqueness of your existence.  It too is part of the ordinary perfection of all that is!