The Miracle Layer That Sits Beneath Your Reality
This is what's keeping your childlike joy from you
Life can be pretty bloody mundane.
What is it? A series of boring tasks that you repeat daily in order to make a living. And you make a living for what? To get to the next day. To do the same boring tasks again?
Is this all just a sick and twisted hamster wheel where you run until your legs fall off?
Are you and I rats in a laboratory?
Rats with luxurious cages — decorated with family photos and comfortable furniture? Rats that play with their toys and talk with their friends?
Is all of it just a way to distract you from the suffering that is your little, creaky hamster wheel?
Maybe — or maybe, that isn’t it at all.
Maybe there’s something beneath the pessimistic view of the whole.
Maybe the world is overflowing with joy and positivity, and it’s our eyes that are the pessimists.
Maybe you’re living amongst miracles, just as the planets live amongst stars.
Traversing the Bosporus Strait
I was in the spectacular city of Istanbul in August.
One of the many fascinating things about this city is how the the Bosporus Strait splits Europe from Asia. The European side is filled with mosques, bazaars and simit stands. The Asian side is modern, hip and vibrant.
I like to think of them as the Old Testament and the New.
Why am I telling you about Istanbul?
I’ll get to that. But first, I’m going to ask you to imagine your average public transport journey. What do you do on a bus, train or ferry? Do you have earphones in, watch a video, or read something you find interesting?
That’s what I usually do.
But, as I traversed the Bosporus Strait this time, I decided to look out at the landscape as we glided through. I stared at the water for a while — I find it relaxing. As I looked out, and watched the water beneath me, I saw something.
A fin!
I followed it with my eyes carefully. I was right, a dolphin was right beside us on our ferry. I love dolphins and I couldn’t believe I was seeing a one fly through the water on my commute. I got Georgia’s attention because we’d been trying to find dolphins our whole holiday, and this is where we see one — on a water bus?
It got me thinking…
What if I’d never looked up?
What if I’d just sat on my phone and watched another NBA analysis? What if I’d scrolled on my silly little phone applications?
But more than that — what else are we missing?
The dolphin would’ve been swimming there whether I looked up or not. So by the sole decision to look out and appreciate nature, I got more than I bargained for. I saw something beneath the layer of my boring rat existence on that boat.
Are we walking through The Louvre on a daily basis with a blindfold on?
Life isn’t boring — how you see it, is
“If you did something like going to the supermarket and experienced it fully without the goggles of habit — you would go crazy with a pure sense of joy.”
— Anonymous French Professor
It’s the repeated activities that seem to blend into normality — and we mistake normality for unimpressive.
Those two things are not the same.
Let’s use the internet as an example. You use the internet all the time, it’s a part of life now. But it’s nothing short of extraordinary. There are giant cables that run under the ocean that carry packets of data — and from there there’s a series of networking infrastructure that transmits invisible waves of information… Or something like that.
Imagine if every time we saw a flower, used the internet, or stared up at the moon, we could fully appreciate them without these ‘goggles of habit’ impeding us.
Just because it’s frequent, doesn’t mean it isn’t extraordinary.
Alan Watts has a line in his short story ‘Murder in the Kitchen’ that I love:
“For the cook is, after all, a priest offering sacrifice, and the stove is an altar.”
Is cooking just a chore that you’re forced to complete?
Or is it an ancient and magical ritual where you take raw ingredients and prepare them by making incisions with a sharp piece of steel? You add spices, water, and your meat of choice. You stir this collection of colours, aromas and flavours, a concoction of nature’s produce, all while using a flame that you ignited by taking a finger-sized flamethrower to a gas source in the stove.
And the result is a delicious meal that gives you the nutrients to live. One that fuels your body and mind, your physical vessel, and even tastes so good you make that face.
If you break anything down like this, you can see just how miraculous it all really is.
A new life — a life overflowing with miracles everywhere
“…If you are willing to devote a little time every day you will find that miracles are not only possible, they are abundant. Miracles can happen every day, every hour, every minute of your life. At this moment, the seeds of a perfect destiny lie dormant within you. Release their potential and live a life more wondrous than any dream.”
— Deepak Chopra, The Spontaneous Fulfilment of Desire
You can walk with your hands in your pockets, head down, music blaring in your ears and you’ll get through life just fine.
But why settle for…that?
If you pay close attention to the world around you, that ‘just fine’ can turn into a world that’s so extraordinary it’s almost unbelievable.
The way the birds sing songs with each other in the light of dawn; the rich colours of the flowers on that old lady’s garden bed; and the warmth of the sun — a star 150 million kilometres away by the way — shining on your skin on a summer’s day.
Caterpillars entering cocoons and emerging as butterflies; the shape of the moon created by Earth’s shadow; the fact that we’re literally spinning on a floating rock in the middle of space at 1600km/hr.
I mean, come on.
Look closely, and everything’s a miracle. But if you don’t, you’ll see a bland world with nothing but pain and sorrow. You’ll see no colour.
Don’t get me wrong though — there is pain and sorrow— a lot of it. There’s black, white grey and blood red too.
But I believe you’re not only the people you surround yourself with, you’re the thoughts you choose to accept through the filter of your mind. Open your mind and see the world for what it is, and you’re suddenly your glass isn’t only half-full, it’s overflowing.
Oh, how lucky I am to see the gradient of pink through the sky as the sun sets and night falls, to see the little dogs running around the park playing with each other. To be alive in this specific point in time where humans roam the Earth. I have hot water and electricity at the touch of a button, and I can have food delivered to my doorstep.
And above all else, I have the consciousness to interpret it all through — the greatest miracle of it all.
How many more opportunities are there to observe beauty, and uncover the magic of the mundane?
Take off those godforsaken goggles of habit. Experience life like you did before the world imposed its will on you.
I think that we spend our childhood years trying to become an adult, but in fact the most worthy challenge for an adult is returning to our childlike state of wonder, excitement and joy.
So the choice is yours: to focus on the colour of the flower, or on the smell of the fertiliser.
Thanks for reading. I really do appreciate it.
It means a lot when I get messages, or even when it tells me how many people read these. It means my life lessons aren’t going to die with me or my bloodline.
I hope this helped you to get just a little bit closer to your childlike joy. Try to remind yourself how amazing this all is once in a while.
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Until next time.
Sincerely,
Eren
Beautiful!