I think it’s kind of ironic that it took moving to the desert for me to appreciate sunrises. Here, the very thing that makes this place so miserable to live in, stops me every time to bask in its beauty.
I can’t help but draw a comparison to the idea that there is good in everything, especially the bad. I used to tout this idea: that if you could find one good thing in the bad, then is anything truly bad? Perhaps a more elaborate example of making lemonade from lemons, but as helpful as idioms are for expanding access to wisdom, some things need to be desimplified for greater impact.
Even though I used to go prophetising ideas and idioms like this, at some point I stopped. Now, asking myself, “what “bad” things have I found the good in?” And off the dome, I don’t have any examples. Not because I don’t have any, even now as I write this, I’m on my way to the junkyard to get a part for my car so I can fix it. Something that would indeed be at least an annoyance to anyone else. But why not me?
I think that the idea of finding the good in the bad has been abandoned for something else. I still think it’s sound advice of course, especially to those who feel overwhelmed by “bad” things. But rather, I think I’ve replaced it with genuine indifference. Things just “are” there’s nothing more to an event. Of course this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect me, but rather I feel it more. Well, perhaps more isn’t the right term. It’s more like I let the feeling start and finish. I feel the annoyance and then let it go; in and then out like a breath.
So it’s not so much that I’m indifferent to the bad, but more open to them. What comes to mind is a river. Where once I used to hate the bad, I’d be pissed at it and the universe for giving it to me. The bad being water and my hatred for it were logs and branches stopping up the flow, causing the water to linger longer. Finding the good in the bad would be like accepting that the water erodes the banks. The water flows but there’s still friction, there still is the “bad”. With feeling it through, the water flows but the banks have been replaced with slick concrete channels. This has the least amount of lingering water and before you really see the water rising, it’s already passed and receded.
How can I relate this back to the sunrise? Well, I think that comes down to agency. I could have let the momentary joy that comes with viewing it, flow away, I stop and dunk my hand in the water to feel the flow and chill of it. Perhaps that’s the real lesson in all of this. Let emotions flow through you, but don’t forget to stop and feel the ones that matter to you. When you see joy coming, don’t let it pass without a hug.
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