Sooner or later, we make everything into a commodity, even ourselves. The most beautiful thing is turned into a product. What was once an expression, is now sales and marketing. Why are we doing this?
We want others to see the image that we have in mind for ourselves, born of comparison. We fear our own insignificance and, for our survival, use beauty to fulfil the desire to be seen. But like a flower under pressure, it dies of it.
Gifts used as some kind of ‘competitive advantage’ lose all their magic, wear themselves out quickly, and we are left with the will to flourish, but not the energy and creativity that’s needed for it. It is a pain then. The joy has gone!
Going to the root of this, can we end comparing ourselves, which breeds fear and desire? We compare, consciously and unconsciously, by thinking, do we not? When we think about flourishing, the whole thing becomes this pain we know.
Is it possible only to listen to our thoughts? That is, to be so completely still that we can hear every thought passing through. Simply listening to what comes and goes, without any kind of reaction, which would be born of thought again. And, if there is a reaction, to watch that again. Not missing or denying a thing.
We burn thoughts, and thus comparisons, by our sheer attention. We’re out of time then, quite literally. Fully immersed in flourishing, we see each thing afresh. Meeting creation as it goes by itself. Something else is taking place.
Out of this silence the unknown is flourishing again.
Beauty is back on. And it was there all along.
