er býr hjarta nær
einn er hann sér um sefa
øng er sótt verri
hveim snotrum manni
en sér øngu at una
"The mind knows alone what is nearest the heart and sees where the soul is turned: no sickness seems to the wise so sore as in nought to know content." Hávamál v. 95
Leave it to the Norse to deliver the secret to inner peace in one simple sentence.
And it is that simple.
I've spent the "better" part of my life obsessing over things for which I had no real passion. Countless hours, days, weeks rather, wasted, ogling pictures and brochures of guitars, amplifiers, analog and digital effects, and all sorts of guitar related gear, without ever dedicating the time I would have needed to master the instrument. Even when I was singing for the French band Enforcer (not to be confused with the relatively new Swedish band with the same name), something I was quite passionate about, I was so driven to pour everything I could earn into a new guitar that I didn't even own a decent microphone.
A few years later, when I fell on seriously hard times and had to sell everything I owned so I could eat, I would dial countless company toll free numbers from the pay phone nearest to my government housing apartment and request free product brochures so I could feel as though I were still a guitar player. I told myself that those brochures helped keep me sane in that terrible time, but now I know that they were just a symptom of my disease. It's only when I took the time to sort through the real and the imaginary that I was able to rediscover my actual passions.
I was finally able to know myself.
Until I knew myself I was unable to form a proper mind-soul-body connection. I lived in a perpetual state of confusion that affected all of my core systems, preventing them from operating at their proper levels. I'm dealing with the after effects of that confusion now. My mental and physical health have greatly suffered, and, though I'm not aware of a proper assessment method for for determining the condition of my spiritual health, I venture to say that it has suffered greatly as well.
I was also unable to find anything that could provide me a sense of contentment because everything was so skewed by my pathetically fallacious self interpretation. How could I find the least bit of happiness in my relentless pursuit of what I now know was a lie?
Thankfully I'm wise enough to know that the objects of my obsessions were not the causes thereof. I'm not turning myself away from those things, rather from the mentality that caused me to become so grossly infatuated with them.
I can now actually enjoy playing guitar on occasion, and in those moments I do find genuine contentment.
Even as I write these words I'm aware that my primary topic is the object of a soon-to-be former obsession, but it is a rather exemplary microcosm of my constitution. Historically I haven't been able to find contentment in nearly anything, but I'm changing that. I'm choosing to appreciate things for what they are, not for what I perceived them to be in my state of confusion.
My mind is finally getting acquainted with my heart. That alone is reason to be content. Heck, it's a reason to celebrate!
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