“The great beauty of life is its mystery, the inability to know what course our life will take, and diligently work to transmute into our final form based upon a lifetime of constant discovery and enterprising effort. Accepting the unknown and unknowable eliminates regret.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Mysteries of life are to be embraced. I don’t have to like them, but I often find myself with very little choice but to follow the path in front of me. Most of the time I have no clue where leads to, and that is exactly the way I like it. It is incredibly boring to live such a predictable life and be surrounded by predictable people. Mystery and uncertainty are my life elixirs- they mould me into the frog adventurer that I am, comfortable in water and on land.
There is no point in dwelling in the past. It can’t be changed anyway, so might as well move on, learn to expect the unexpected, and slow down to soak in the details with serenity and mindfulness. The fact that we are not equipped with magic wands and crystal balls to predict the future is brilliant. Our muggle inability to be perfectly imperfect is what keeps us going, curious about what is around the next corner, or what lays hidden amongst the trees.
The realisation I stumbled upon during the holidays was that winter per se is a necessary evil, and with this I don’t mean the weather. Emotional winters filled with darkness and despair, bone-chilling emptiness and blinding disappointment are part of a cobblestone path towards renewal, letting go of what has deteriorated and broken. I have no power over the weather, and even less over the changing seasons, but I am in full control of my attitude to ride out my winters and charge towards a spring of my own making. As a dear friend and fellow photographer recently reminded me, we need to kick ourselves in the butt from time to time and be bad-ass monkeys on the go – winter is temporary, so get out and do what you love and brings you joy. Thank you HL, I need that.
FrogDiva Thoughts 