Finding Beauty in the Ugly

I’m having kind of an ugly day so far.  Well, it’s really not that bad—but I just got back from the Doctor after having some fairly significant lower back pain checked out.  Most likely it’s an inflamed disc—pressing on a nerve which has resulted in my right leg going numb.  Fun times.  My back feels best when laying flat, so when I got home the first thing I did was just drop down in my yard—laying flat on my back.  The weather is nice today—so why not be uncomfortable outside?

Here’s where the beauty kicks in.  After about five minutes of staring up at the sky, watching the clouds—it hit me that I used to do this as a little boy. I’d do it for hours.  I used to find a big tree—lay myself flat and “cloud watch”.  My imagination would totally take over.  Every cloud I saw was either a dinosaur, a face, house, animal, car, you name it.  I would see these things in the clouds.  So as I was laying there flat out—with a bum back and numb leg, all I could do was remember how much I loved doing this as a kid.

And now that I’m back at the laptop (feeling a little better now with the help of a few meds)—it’s making me think about how this tiny lesson applies to life.  It’s always best find the beauty in ugly situations.  Or at least maybe for the little ones.  Some situations are of course hopeless—at least in the here and now.  But for those of us who are fortunate enough to be spared the worst the world has to offer—maybe it’s our responsibility to always see the beauty in our lesser times.

Or to not over analyze this too much—today I made a choice.  That choice brought back some wonderful childhood memories.  And although my body is feeling older—my mind is feeling young.

Comments

[mindblob]

David,
I do hope you'll soon feel better. Back pain is just awful. Just went through this for 3 days.

Little story for you : I once read that the day you stop seeing shapes in the clouds is the day you become an adult. The day I read this, I rushed outside and lifted my head up to watch the sky. With a lot of concentration, all I could see was... clouds. I was surprised and somehow, yes, disappointed.

A few days later I decided to lay on my back in my yard to see if clouds really changed or if I had changed. Instead of looking up right away, I first closed my eyes and remembered good memories of my childhood. Playing games with nothing but imaginary characters, building virtual worlds with pieces of wood or whatever objects I could find around. When I opened my eyes minutes later it took me a fraction of a second to see a huge horse head floating by at the edge of a big cloud. Giant smile on my face and deeeeeeeeep breath of fresh air.

I think that whoever really wants to see these "shapes" just can. It seems to be less a matter of concentration, than it is a matter of de-concentration. Giving time to you mind to leave the ground and join the clouds. A volatile mind is maybe a mind with more imagination than a super-focused "adult" mind.

I wish you to always see tigers, horses, and funny faces floating around. Well, as a matter of fact, I have no doubt about that!
: )

[Gavin Heaton]

I was standing out the front of my house the other day with my kids and we were watching out for the fairies and flowers that were appearing in the clouds.
Then there was a roaring sound, and we all turned around to see The Red Baron flying loop-the-loops. With the bright red colours and insignia it was almost dreamlike.
Imagination and reality collided as the plane looped up through the wings of a fairy ... and the fairy changed and became a little girl.
Hope you are feeling better soon!

[DA]

Thanks guys. I am feeling better now. It must be the fairies.

Or the Vicodin...

;)

[Peter Flaschner]

True story: the reason I'm a designer today is because I herniated a disc a couple of years ago. I wasn't able to do the job I had been doing, and was literally forced to reinvent myself.

I don't think I'd have had the courage to change my life if I hadn't been pushed into it by injury.

So back pain can be a huge, massive blessing.

It sure hurts though... ;)

[Danny]

Amen to childhood. If we could all reach back to those days and maintain what we know now, imagine what might happen.

[Mack Collier]

David sorry about the back, but at least you got to get back a bit of your childhood, in the end, wasn't that a good tradeoff?

Think I'll do some cloud-watching myself this afternoon...

[DA]

Peter, Thanks for sharing that with us. That's a pretty damn cool story.

Danny— yes amen. Childhood is underrated.

Mack, thanks. And I highly recommend the cloud watching. Go for it. You can download something on your slowband and kill the time watching the cloud shapes go by. :)

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