So finally, I have come to writing another blog. This has not been due to laziness or ‘not having the time’; it’s based purely on the fact that I had nothing that I wanted to write about.
Of course there were many subjects I could write about, but not too many I really wanted to write about. For any writer, be it novelist, columnist, blogger, poet, there is a fine, fine line that exists between the possibilities of what can be written and what has to be written. The line of which tends to haze and blur from time to time. I believe that it is important to write when you should.
Like the old saying: “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything.”
I suppose this applies to the written word as well.
Now if only Stephenie Meyer could grasp this concept. Just kidding.
As of late my brain has been racked with different emotions, thoughts, plans, theories, stories and memories – and for anyone that has a life that doesn’t seem to pause at any given stage, this can be quite alarming. Some thoughts render you motionless for a few minutes/hours/days, others are fleeting and easily dismissed.
According to research, people who are going through times of emotional distress and uncertainty can often experience a yearning for ‘a higher power’.
In my case, I became intrigued with the notion of astrology. Now, don’t get me wrong or misunderstand my dilemma. I do not believe that our lives are controlled by the planets, the position of the stars or the energies from our solar system. I believe that our star signs can say a lot about who we are, what we believe and how we experience the world.
Yeah, I can buy into that.
I’m a proud Aquarian and according to my star sign profile: “Aquarians are born looking for ideologies to which they can stubbornly cling.”
So if I understand this correctly, Aquarians cling to the ideals they have created for themselves or that have been created for them. They create idealized worlds, ideas and stories and refuse to believe that there is any difference between the world that they have created and the world outside.
This got me thinking – and like some strange alternative visual artist – I came up with the idea that we all are walking around with a snow globe around our heads.
Strange, isn’t it?
Snowglobes have been fascinating me for a long, long time. People are intrigued by them; people adore them, marvel at their beauty and are mesmerized by the little flakes of snow that gently waft down when they are shaken.
What is it about them that spark such interest, such adoration? What makes people tip them over? Just to see the snow gently falling?
My theories brought me back to a conclusion which entails two different ideas, and if you’ll allow me, I shall explain them to you.
Firstly, the idea that everything in a snowglobe is beautiful and idealized and perfect.
If you have a snowglobe with the Eiffel Tower on the inside, there is no indication of the rusty steel structure; one only sees the shiny, silver tower pointing to the heavens.
In the city of New York, the Bronx is nowhere to be seen, but the skyscrapers are covered in yellow lights, the city’s smog is replaced with clear water; and snow (or glitter for that matter) is softly caressing the top of the city’s skyline.
Do we love these little ornaments so much because they represent an idealized world where the bad is nowhere to be seen, and the good is lit up, shiny, glittery and beautiful?
This is half of the reason that I said that I think we walk around with snowglobes around our heads.
Throughout my life, I have created my own snowglobe-world that I carry around with me and that influences the way I see the world. My Aquarian ideologies, one can say.
I suspect I’m not the only one.
The second half of my theory rests upon the idea that we all love seeing snow falling.
Now, I don’t mean this in a literal sense (I mean, obviously), I want to go back a few paragraphs to where I asked the questions: “What makes people tip them over? Just to see the snow gently falling?”.
My theory on this is that the snow represents a sense of continuity, a sense of safety. Because we know that when it is tipped over and chaos ensues (as is often the case in life), it will eventually come down again to reveal all that is good and pretty and ideal.
No-one ever wonders whether the snow is going to continue dangling mid air – we KNOW that it will have to come down sooner or later.
For me, that is what the snowglobe around my own head represents. The idea that it’s alright if things get a little foggy and cloudy from time to time – as long as it settles down after a bit.
That, for me, in my own ideology, is the way the world works.
Except, it doesn’t, does it?
The world doesn’t always settle down after it’s been tipped over. The snow sometimes continually falls and swirls around in our headspace.
Sometimes the snowglobe tips and never comes back around again.
Invariably, this happens.
For someone like myself, an ideologist, the un-ideal world is a scary place. An out of rhythm, out of sync world. A world where perfect families tear in two, where perfect jobs became boring and mundane, where people whom you love don’t love you back.
And sometimes, it gets hard. It gets hard to understand how this world could possibly function alongside the world you have created.
It gets hard to understand that everything you have always thought to be true was a lie, everything you wanted to be true; never was.
And it’s then that your eyes are opened to how life really is, how things really work. Things are never perfect, but then again – neither are we. Things are not ideal, but they never can be, because we are not.
And it’s this – this imperfection – that, in its own way - is kind of beautiful.
There is a sense of mystery that surrounds it.
Suddenly you start seeing that what you have created is nothing compared to what is real.
And it only takes one crack in the glass for the water to start leaking.
To live a life without my ideals and ideologies. A life where disasters happen, and don’t just happen to other people, but to me. This is the conclusion I have come to.
A life where it’s alright if the snow never settles, because you can’t change it.
A life without the world inside my snowglobe. A life without the snow in my snowglobe.
And as I’m sitting here writing this, I hold up my half a glass of Merlot and toast:
To you the reader, to no ideals, to no expectations and, lastly, to smashing snowglobes.
