One Lucky Soul: OLS Reflections 82

OLS Reflections 82 by Omar Cherif, One Lucky Soul

• Getting married for the wrong reasons is often rectified by getting divorced for the right ones.

• Being a decent and sensitive human being who aspires to do the right things in life has nothing to do with nationality, ethnicity, religion, skin colour, or creed. It mainly depends on the level of empathy and compassion you possess; how you treat others, including old people, children, and animals, also the weak, the vulnerable, and the less fortunate. To be kind and gracious in one’s interactions and relations without expecting anything in return — be it a divine reward or otherwise — and without fearing retribution of any sort. For it’s not our beliefs that actually matter, it’s our behaviour. Love is all there is.

• Drumming for me is not mere fun. It is a cathartic, therapeutic, meditative practice, even spiritual. Without playing at least once a week, usually on the beach, my thoughts become discombobulated — full of words and concepts and analysis, a lot of nonsense, too. Music then comes to the help by lighting up the neurones of the brain which start firing up as soon as I decide to go drumming. And natural highs don’t have lows. Rather than thoughts, drumming is how I connect with my emotions, process and regulate them. I also get to commune with Mother Nature and its great outdoors. Like poetry in motion, the system is then alchemically recalibrated… until the next jam.

• Seeing yourself as half a person who can only become whole through being completed by another half is a waste of essence and potential. It is the greatest of illusions as it is an inevitable way to spend your entire life feeling incomplete and insecure. Someone fixated on being completed by a partner already feels incomplete. Even in a relationship, they would still feel they’re not good enough. The reality is, none of us is truly or essentially incomplete. Rather, we are works of art in progress — constantly evolving. If you must seek, look for another awakened whole so that you may amplify your wholeness together.

• Nature is Alive

There is something ethereally soothing about the sight and sound of rolling waves. Like poetry in motion, they seem to have some sort of magical ability to wash away our worldly troubles — as tears cleanse the soul. It is like the Earth is breathing: Inhale, Exhale. Add a luminous sunrise to the scenery and you’re set for one rejuvenating show.

Perhaps because bodies of water have existed on this Pale Blue Dot for millions and millions of years, they simply expose most of the worries and inner conflicts as petty and inconsequential. While soon the troubles will likely be forgotten or may cease to exist altogether — in our minds — the same water will keep flowing, probably for many more millions of years ahead.

The sheer magnificence of nature lies not in sole aesthetics. But also in its bewitching ability to alter your perception as well as consciousness simply by immersing yourself in it, which leads to an awe-inspiring sense of dissolution and oneness and interconnectedness between you — the consciousness of mankind — and her. The more we commune with nature, the more its transcendental serenity and wildness flow into us, permeating our every nerve ending. For we ARE it. I leave you with the sobering words of Thoreau: “We can never have enough of nature.”

• Keeping alive the inner child

Untamed and wild

Full of questions and wonder

Curiosity survives lightning and thunder.

• May you always value the simple little things in Life. For they make a big difference and hence are the most essential. Simplicity, in actuality, tends to be deeper than complexity. ‘Tis the reason why that which is simple often passes unperceived by the complex. If we look around us, we’ll find that the more one masters a certain domain the more simplification they will strive for.

• You are a sage and you are a lunatic. You are also the One capable of transcending this seeming duality just by observing the observer.

• Everyone has a story if we are willing to listen. Similarly, behind almost anything and everything there is some interesting story awaiting its storyteller.