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What if….

in that very slight thin space between sleep and waking this morning,  a very surprising question occurred.  

What if 

i spent the rest of the 365 days, which would mean 134 days, 

Experimenting with being

Purposeless. ?

Would there be a noticeable difference?   or,  is my constantly being driven to define my life by a sense of Purpose really,  an  Illusion…….?

 

INSERT

 

IMG_7107F

breakfast with the Big Boys

 

10:12 a.m.

from NM fish and game website    www.fws.gov/refuge/Bosque_del_Apache/wildlife/bands. html

Band Number 599-05468

"This band was worn for 36 and 1/2 years by a Rocky Mountain Sandhill crane.  It is one of the oldest RMSH's known.  The bird was banded with its broodmate on 29 June 1973 one mile north of Border, Wyoming on the Thomas Fork of the Bear River.

The distance as the crow flies from Border Wyoming to a staging in the San Luis Valley of Colorado and then down the Rio Grande to the Bosque del Apache is approximately 700 miles.  If you assume this crane returned close to its nesting grounds each spring and back to Bosque del Apache each winter, the band made the round trip 36 times as well as a final one way trip where it was recovered.  That is a total of 51,100 miles in a lifetime, or an equivalent of circling the earth more than twice."

 

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26 responses to “What if….”

  1. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    ….is your last question whether or not there is a purpose to life (if so I would say not, as you already know) but given the fact that we like to act rather than ‘do nothing’ we are driven to act, more or less depending on your personality.
    I was thinking about what you said the other day: about how you own less, but your ‘doing’ has replaced the ‘having’
    that struck a nerve; oh very much so: I do therefore I am (in stead of I own lots and therefore am, modern capitalism in a nutshell)
    back to your first thought of the day: doing nothing, or being without purpose: well could you? and (why) would you want to?

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  2. jude Avatar
    jude

    the ultimate and most rewarding what if. I think. which defines in a way, just going.

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  3. grace Avatar
    grace

    THIS IS A PERFECT RESPONSE.
    ….THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!…..I AM GOING OUTSIDE TO
    LOOK AT THE MORNING.

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  4. grace Avatar
    grace

    a real Eye Opener, as they say….
    i am looking around like i “just got here”….
    wow.

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  5. jude Avatar
    jude

    new eyes, wonderful, have a nice day….

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  6. debbie.weaver Avatar
    debbie.weaver

    Grace you seem to me writing from the other side of the world to be an extra ordinary person. Your comments constantly challenge my perceptions.
    Can we cope with just being, our lives have no purpose except to produce more life maybe it is purpose that makes our lives bearable.
    Or maybe just being means just being ourselves not not doing.

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  7. grace Avatar
    grace

    “doing nothing, or being without purpose: well could you?
    and (why)would you want to?”
    this is a very significant part of this Experiment.
    and i love that you stated it so succinctly.
    does being Purposeless necessarily imply doing nothing?
    What if being purposeless, i kept doing all kinds of things, but did not demand that they be Identified as puposeful. What if, for instance i just HAVE those Goats out there. and i take the best Care of them i possibly can and it goes well most of the time and sometimes it gets ify. and i love learning about and from them. What if i leave off all else; which means to me,(l) the Purpose of keeping them For My Daughter’s Dream, (2) them in turn being “productive”, earning their keep or (3) i become a Cheesemaker because i Should because i have 19
    Goats. What if i just Have them? and go and sew cloth
    or something.
    Do nothing?, no. i’m always doing something. always have. because i want to. like to. and a lot of the time, LOVE to. but what i am seeing, it seems for the first time, is that i always seem to need to LEGITIMIZE what i am doing by identifying it as being Purposeful. What if
    i just find myself doing “it” and feel no reason not to.
    What if i just do what i want to do? for no reason.
    Just the thought of this feels so very Light Hearted.

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  8. grace Avatar
    grace

    again, here are MORE really great thoughts. does
    Doing need to be tied to identified purpose.
    and again…we all are different and filter words/concepts
    differently, so…it’s important to factor that in….
    but i think that for me, there is this Glitch with
    needing Purpose for doing.
    maybe if i just let go of all that things might feel
    very Light and Expanded rather than constricted by my
    sense of Purpose….maybe a False Identification of purpose?
    other peoples sense of Purpose might not feel at all like
    a constriction. but right now, it does for me. and it
    doesn’t feel good. i want to experiment with this.
    thank you SO much for offering thoughts…they clarify…
    and if you have more…….
    xo

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  9. julie Avatar
    julie

    This morning, my morning here on the East Coast, I was having much the same thoughts about you…about wanting to share with you the possibility that what if the Purpose is simply to inhabit each day. However it goes. You always feel lightest in your pages here on the days that you skip along. Could that be ok?

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  10. grace Avatar
    grace

    well…again. more to consider for the Experiment. and just to
    say, i don’t mind having heavy pages…they are part of me and
    i make no effort to lighten them.
    and i love the term inhabit the day.
    inhabit the day.
    that’s beautiful….

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  11. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    re purpose & meaning & life & divine dissatisfaction… here’s a few fave quotes-
    “As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has—or ever will have—something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.”
    a quote from Mr Rogers
    Annie Dillard’s from her article “Write til you drop ‘
    “One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
    http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/28/specials/dillard-drop.html
    Christian Boltanski
    http://www.personalstructures.org/index.php?page=231&lang=en
    “I come to my studio every day at 10.30, and I stay and do nothing. I go to Paris sometimes. I have a few ideas. To be very pretentious, sometimes I believe it is mystical. Sometimes you find nothing, and then you find some-thing you love to do. Sometimes you make mistakes, but some-times it’s true. In two minutes, you understand what you must do for the next two years. Sometimes it’s in the studio, but other times it’s walking in the street or reading a magazine. It’s a good life, being an artist, because you do what you want”.
    the favourite poem
    The Summer Day
    Mary Oliver
    Who made the world?
    Who made the swan, and the black bear?
    Who made the grasshopper?
    This grasshopper, I mean-
    the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
    the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
    who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
    who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
    Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
    Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
    I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
    I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
    into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
    how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
    which is what I have been doing all day.
    Tell me, what else should I have done?
    Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
    Tell me, what is it you plan to do
    with your one wild and precious life?
    & in answer to that…
    “make good art” as Neil Gaiman said so well in his address to the graduating University of the Arts class of 2012
    http://vimeo.com/42372767
    and you do my friend you most certainly do !

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  12. Judith of N. California Avatar
    Judith of N. California

    Oh what yummy conversations…but the frosting on the cake is the photo of “the guys”…my, my, my, he’s such a little fella..thanks for letting us see how it’s going.

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  13. grace Avatar
    grace

    Mo…all the Heart you put into these responses…i love
    you for it.
    and i am holding Australia in my SPACE as fires begin…

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  14. grace Avatar
    grace

    he is not at all shy out there. it’s interesting, because
    Sunny Ray, who was the new one just last year this time,
    was so SHY. but not Nogal. he just IS.
    and i really want to spend TIME in there with them, to keep
    him so Soft a Buck. it’s worth it. after experiencing his
    father’s skittishness, that will only work against his behalf, i really want Nogal to hold on to that sweet
    disposition of wanting contact. it will make such a good
    difference in his Life.

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  15. Judith of N. California Avatar
    Judith of N. California

    yes, yes, yes

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  16. grace Avatar
    grace

    and yes.

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  17. Nance Avatar
    Nance

    And so grace, how does that fit in with not having purpose? I may just be dense but I don’t know how one could make, do, be, anything with out purpose. It is your purpose to keep Nogales soft, yes? How could you do it without purpose?

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  18. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    yes coming to terms with just being and not having to justify what you do do (or don’t) can bring huge relief…..went like that for me as well, I felt I had to be useful, what I did had to contribute to society or something along those lines, even making art had to have social significance, there was a lot of justifying in my head and then gradually I realized I don’t owe a debt to the world in this sense, I owe it to myself to live and do what I want to (as long as it doesn’t hurt others)

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  19. patricia Avatar
    patricia

    and i’ll add here–the thing about us–that we are human beings first. then perhaps human doings.

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  20. Nance Avatar
    Nance

    Maybe you mean larger purpose…? But I believe our larger purpose to just be. In this moment. Listening to what our still small voice tells us. To be who we are. It sounds simple but it’s not.

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  21. grace Avatar
    grace

    i guess by just having the question unanswered, ” Soft for what.”

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  22. grace Avatar
    grace

    no…larger purpose…i don’t ever Question. it’s
    the day to day purpose i am looking at

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  23. grace Avatar
    grace

    hmmmmm

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  24. Dee Avatar
    Dee

    Hi Grace!~! Been awhile. Hope you are well!
    I am with Nance here in that the purpose I would hope to have is to become more present… what do I do, how do I breathe, what can I forsake or grab onto in order to be more aware or more myself or more in tune with each moment — each moment and its obligations stretching forward and backward, its spontaneous gifts, its rigorous attention to detail or complete abandonment of attachment to outcome?
    what we decide to do with our ‘one wild and precious life’ seems to me to be about purpose.
    and then I wonder, is this just words? I feel that you are onto something, I just don’t know what yet.

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  25. grace Avatar
    grace

    i don’t know either

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  26. Dee Avatar
    Dee

    well, I’m sure it will unfold… what it is this is

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