A Daily Dose of Sunshine: Delights of the Ordinary No. 20

Because, we might have some exotic ideas of what can make us happy. May be something that is rare, costly and is not a part of the ordinary potions of our lives.

When a ray of sunshine comes, open out, absorb it to the depths of your being. Never think that an hour earlier you were cold and that an hour later you will be cold again. Just enjoy. Latch on to the passing minute. Shut off the workings of memory and hope… Throw yourself into each moment as if it were the only one that really existed.

– Jacques Lusseyran in his book And There Be LightSubscribe

On a calm morning in May, somewhere in France, in a classroom quarrel, Jacques Lusseyran accidentally hits a desk corner. The blow’s massive enough to make him entirely blind. He is seven years old.

………..

It is now 1941. Jacques is seventeen. Adolf Hitler is invincible!

Dismayed by what Germany is doing, he forms a resistance group called the Volunteers of Liberty against Nazi Germany and started publishing newspapers that soon become the voice of the French freedom fighters.

It is 1943. Jacques is now taken into a concentration camp with 2000 other French prisoners. Kept in “a space four feet long and three feet wide, with walls like a medieval fortress, door three fingers thick with a peephole through which the jailers watch day and night, and a sealed window” he saw his cramped concentration prison camp as “a church underground” and carry on to rouse people to resist the wrong.

Jacques eventually was released at the end of WWII. Only thirty of them survived.

For this blind boy, the world was dim and dark but he was sure of the light he carried within. Enough to survive the unsurvivable. Later he wrote his memoir And There Was Light he said,

“Darkness, for me, was still light, but in a new form and a new rhythm. It was light at a slower pace.”

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And today again on our global front, world feels like a mess. The vibes of WWII loom likewise and when it is already difficult to dislodge ourselves from the entanglements of the idiosyncrasies of the mundane, we see the world changing rapidly with geo-political, social and financial repercussions.

So in our lives, perhaps we need to strike off the useless stuff that takes away our time, energy and attention from the inner light that softly kindles us up. To see ourselves soaking in our daily dose of sunshine and dare to imagine that you and me can have a different life… 

Hence, this week my letter to you may not be a long-drawn essay series to uncover some topics but to acknowledge that our world is devastatingly difficult – in most circumstances we have to grease our elbows, labouring to make sure we are continuing in our ordinaries. What remains extraordinary against such drab are those of us who have worked above their fallow grounds in their ordinary ways of life.

We are the Indoor Generation!

Those who have quickly adapted to home deliveries, phone bound news snippet, and high-rise glutted residences. We are devoid of sunlight, and more dependent on artificial lights, drawn curtains, spray bottle room fresheners, artificial plants that won’t demand attention, air filters, and closed windows. We are the indoor generation! And it would need a whole lot of shift to find the pleasures in the nature outdoors.

What life of our modern day has done to us is to make us less relevant to reality and more connected to the world of virtual reality. Deep fake and AI-generated true or false stories of wars and politics have far more reach than the simple sunshine of the mornings and the easy breeze of the day. Algorithms dictate our lives to the extent of what should we see, what we should buy and how we should live!

Why Small Pleasures of Sunshine Are Not a Big Deal For Us?

Because, we might have some exotic ideas of what can make us happy. May be something that is rare, costly and is not a part of the ordinary potions of our lives. We have some kind of ideological suspicion about the ordinary lives that it has to be bland, passable and dull, so the notion is that happiness can be found only in rarity, or in something expensive, famous or large-scale. ‘Caviar sounds a whole lot more attractive than farm-fetched chicken eggs on our table.’

A restaurant dinner at which Lobster Thermidor is served sounds a good deal more impressive than a supper of a cheese sandwich at home; it feels more normal that the highlight of a weekend should be a hang-gliding lesson, rather than a few minutes spent looking at the cloudy sky;… And yet the paradoxical and cheering aspect of pleasure is how weird and promiscuous it proves to be. It doesn’t neatly collect in the most expensive boutiques. It can refuse to stick with us on fancy holidays. It is remarkably vulnerable to emotional trouble, sulks and casual bad moods. A fight that began with a small disagreement about how to pronounce a word can end up destroying every benefit of a five-star resort.

– The School of Life

A Daily Dose of Sunshine

Nicole Mead PhD, a researcher and her team ran a study with 122 participants ‘to complete an experience-sampling study over the course of six days.’ They found that a simple pleasure enables us to make advancements in our daily task, especially when life feels challenging and stressful. According to the researchers, the simple pleasures looked like, “Taking a walk in the sun, having a cup of tea with a close friend, or getting green lights all the way to work. What matters is that simple pleasures bring you joy and happiness, unlike temptations which bring torment and inner conflict.” This study found that on days when people enjoyed very few simple pleasures, the petty irritations of everyday life frustrated their goal progress. While on days when people lived a high number of small pleasures, they adhered to their plans and progressed in tasks they wanted to finish on that day.

“Experiencing simple pleasures can buffer the harmful effects of small annoyances for goal progress.”

So here I am with some rebellious anxiousness in my belly, I push to the edges of this changing world to consider myself a human being who can landscape a lot of things within and accept that we are a generation of imperfects, having fears and hardshell beliefs. In the unnatural virtual world of filters and 5G clarity, thank you for giving me permission to knock into your lives and hang around with you through Delights of The Ordinary so we may gape at the real actual world with some awe and wonder and try to seep some daily dose of sunshine.

Hence, in this russet-rustling autumn season when leaves dry up to shed, and trees sleep to rest, we still have a bountiful of sunshine from heaven. Until the winter hits your life, ‘get up early and go out to watch what makes a morning. The faint grey will give way as God pushes the sun towards the horizon, and there will be tints of hues of every shade, that will blend into one perfect light as the full-orbed sun bursts into view. As the light of the day moves forth majestically, flooding the earth and every lowly vale, listen to the music of the heaven’s choir as it sings the majesty of the heavens and the glory of the morning.’

I also hope to wonder from this place that we as a generation will have to make more efforts in the lives of our children to help them move beyond the AI-driven artefacts to more often interact with real people, real soil, real plants, real light and even real food. To let them resonate with art and history. Because reality is diminishing with such captivating artificial intelligence and the world somehow still remains our responsibility. And we ought to have small doses of sunshine so we can tell the sunny tales to our children and grandchildren, inspiring them to find sunshine and happiness wherever they can!

Early one morning, any morning, we can set out, with the least
possible baggage, and discover the world.

It is quite possible to refuse all the coercion, violence, property,
triviality, to simply walk away.

That something exists outside ourselves and our preoccupations,
so near, so readily available, is our greatest blessing.

– Thomas A. Clark

And now let’s set a tone to discover some awesome faves on the internet. As your weekly curator, each week I drop a few links for you to ponder on life. A restorative practice that opposes the fast dopamine effect of reels and videos. Let’s get started:

To joy scroll: Take a peek at some of the world’s most gorgeous libraries here. The craftsmanship and attention to detail is an unmatched and the esteem held to the craft of reading, writing and learning. These are century-old buildings yet are maintained like glories because they definitely consecrate something better within us. 

To cook: Try this easy but amaze-worthy coconut rice recipe for your slothful weekend luncheons as you give way to more sunshine. Enjoy!

To Listen Up: If you are fed up with straining your eyes, then close them once and listen to the silence. I have made every effort to do it. Yet, mostly we are all hustling and bustling to only hear noises around. Unhurried Everyday Thing is my playlist on Spotify which I have created for times like this. You put on your earpods and snuggle in with yourself – when in the subway or metro, or bus or a cab, or driving yourself, or when you are in your bed. That, retiring for the day is a worship to the creator and a way to thank Him for what the day has had.

To end:

A Thanksgiving Poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar

1872 –1906

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
   Our harvesting is gladly o’er
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
   Our bins are filled with goodly store.

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
   Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
   Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

Then lift we up our songs of praise
   To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
   Be thine the temple of each mind.

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
   Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
   We could not thank thee for them all.

Wishing you more gentle sunshine with its ample warmth and much golden-y shade.

– Anugrah

Delights of the Ordinary

Note: To you who have been my diligent reader, I am highly grateful for the time and room that you give me in your heart.

If you know even one person who will benefit from reading Delights of the Ordinary then feel free to share it with them.