To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
 
Back from my weekend trip to London!
 
It might sound odd to London fanatics but I noticed something different about my feelings with regard to London this time. I don’t think it’s just this time… every time I have been there I have almost started to have this feeling but guess I didn’t really think about it too much at those times or probably couldn’t quite put my finger on it… this time I was a bit shocked at the realisation… that I actually feel more comfortable and at one with myself in Lancaster rather than in London… at one level it’s not quite surprising because I am a creature of habit and tend to develop a love for the familiar… so Lancaster might be dearer to me purely for that reason which means that if I lived in London long enough I’ll probably grow used to it and love it as much as Lancaster… but on another level I am not quite sure it’s just a personal matter of habit and familiarity… I think it’s also something to do with the cities/towns themselves… London makes me feel insignificant or less of a person somehow …a bit lost in the sea of nameless faceless people… the rush and push of the tubes also makes me feel like a bystander watching the circus of life (not unlike in Mumbai)… the general character of people one comes across from the very prim and posh who seem to exist in an entirely different London to the very shabby and awkward making you wonder about the vagaries and disparities of life in general… also something of a niggling sense of anxiety as if one is missing out on something that the general crowd seems to be onto and one must make haste to get there, get somewhere… overall, I start craving for peace, calm, solitude, quiet, wholesomeness… I guess I crave for Lancaster….with its massive greens as far as the eye could see, simple people dotted here and there but none too many, quiet pace, intellectual stimulation if one needed them at the uni, a general sense of solitude and contemplation… a place where one could wander in the world of nature and in the world of the mind but more as a means to find oneself rather than lose oneself, if you know what I mean… a feeling of contentment that is difficult to extract from artificial surroundings no matter how dynamic and exciting…

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 4:07 pm 0 comments
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