There is perhaps a favourable though unforeseen endorsement which attends the neurosis of obsessiveness; that is, the feeling that when things are good, they’re very good! Naturally a similar nap prevails when the feeling is that things are bad; namely, they’re very bad! Nonetheless when the prevailing circumstances are such that one is settled upon the more desirable alternative, the cheerfulness is unparalleled. These mercurial passions – when the palette of serendipity and casual coincidence align – render a remarkably pleasing episode. It is this “boomps-a-daisy” sentiment which brands my day today.
One wonders whether the fortuity is a mere accident as opposed to some purposeful or choreographed consequence. Howsoever it is defined the blunt truth is that happenstance is as much a delight – if not indeed more so – than scheduled entertainment. It is the entire absence of calculation which heightens the achievement. The mechanics and the result are more often than not mere accidents of success; and the depth of triumph is frequently little more than an everyday portmanteau. No doubt the blissfulness of the moment is somehow related to a good night’s sleep and the assuaging influence of an over-the-counter painkiller. Fresh air is as much about purification as adjustment.
The simplistic alternative to living is not only a matter of choice but also a product of logic and clarifying reason. Illumination of any description involves nothing more than removal of contaminants and display of fundamentals. I recognize that the reduction of enlightenment to elemental detail is not foreign to me. It is however not a guaranteed process. For example taking apart a device or instrument is no assurance of discovery. But there is hopefulness in knowing as well that the Age of Enlightenment was “heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent figures included Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith”. Recall if you will that it was Descartes who famously observed, “Cogito ergo sum” a venerable statement as plain as a pikestaff. Importantly the erudition arises not from unearthing a particular gem but rather the conviction that what one thinks is believable.