One day at a time

 One day at a time is not only good advice when it comes to fighting an addiction, it is also a wise recipe for living your life for it helps to bring the noise in your head to an occasional standstill

In practical terms it means to take your time, to not rush things, to regularly pause ... and to just look, listen, and feel.

Sargans, Switzerland, 1 July 2023

I'm writing this on a day for which I had plans – I wanted to take the train and gor for a walk in one of the nearby valleys. The weather however was stormy and so I decided to drop this idea. So what would I do instead on this Saturday?

I continued with a book that I was supposed to review – interviews with nobel laureates of literature. Many of the questions revolved around their work and did not particularly interest me. Once in a while, a laureate said something that made me pause. Garcia Marquez, for instance, said that he learned from Faulkner and Hemingway the technique of the inner monologue. Contrary to my ususal impulse which is to go on reading, I stayed with that thought for quite a while. Likewise with Doris Lessing's remark about her father who after World War I found it impossible to settle again in small, well-ordered  Britain.

To stay with a thought and the pictures in my head that it creates is quite contrary to my nature that is subjected to my restless brain that is constantly pressing forward. This Saturday afternoon however I did not give in to my brain's demands. Instead I opted for one thought at a time.