Gratitude in not having the obligation to go out on a beautiful sunny day…

January 20, 2021, Quarantine Day 2: Tuesday afternoon, warm, sunny, blue skies, white clouds, gentle breeze.

Dear God,

Here I am, sitting beside the window, on the sofa square that I decided to move next to the window yesterday evening. I have a need to be able to sit right next to the window — I know that.

Ideally I would have the bed right up next to the window to wake up to the morning sun, the blue sky, the white clouds, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to move the large bed all by myself, or rather, I had doubts about whether or not the effort would have been worth it, so I decided only to move the sofa square here first, and here I am, testing my venture.

It is a sunny day again, just like the day before. The second day of my 14 day quarantine at home — in home — without anyone else. (Technically this is the 3rd day I have been home, counting my arrival on the first night, but the “official quarantine” starts on the next day of arrival, so here we are.)

I have never wondered if it still counts as “being home” if no one else is “here” at “home”, and your body is no doubt in your house, but your mind has not seemed to arrived yet — I never wondered — does it take “others” to pull you out from one country into another? And if my mind has not caught up yet with the physical location of my body, then where is it? Where am I?

I decide to wear a summer dress made by Dragon today. Even though it is January, it is summer by the window, sunny enough for me to put on my big blue straw hat, sunglasses, and even some sunscreen on my face as I indulge in the rays of warmth that had temporarily become foreign to my frost-kissed winter cheeks that only recently became used to the long-awaited snowfalls of central Germany.

I sit and stare out the window, down at the leaves on the branches of the trees that dance so gently and so fondly with the wind, just like I know so well from the back of my head. There is nothing I love to do more than watch, so quietly and so entirely aimlessly, at the branches of trees that dance in the wind. Spinning and twirling, breathing, as if that were the only “purpose” of their existence. Actually, it would seem, there is nothing else I would rather do at all —

Has my full-time career of “trying to figure out what I want to do with my life” just suddenly concluded with “nothing more than to watch, with absolutely no particular purpose at all, at the leaves dancing in the wind”?

Part of me still feels so constantly exhausted and burnt out that I seem not even to dare to sit up and open my eyes to the magical explosion of forgotten memories tucked away behind each tiny unsuspecting object that lies under the dust of each overlooked corner in the house.

It would seem, for so long, all I’ve really wanted is to not have to think about anything — nothing big, nothing small — just nothing at all —

God only knows how grateful I feel to “not have the obligation” to go outside on a beautiful sunny day.

God only knows how it takes the measures of a global pandemic to finally allow me the “right” to remain seated without the necessity of justifying every step that I take — or do not take, for that matter. God only knows the extreme measures it takes for my mind to finally allow itself to stop — or actually try to stop being a slave — of its own tyranny.

Sometimes I honestly cannot tell “pain” apart from “pleasure”.

When it is sunny, I do not know if I feel more joy or more stress from the “need to go out and take advantage” of the sun as much as possible. On many occasions, I even find myself — which has now actually become quite the habitual response — relieved — when it is rainy, when it is cloudy, when it is cold and “ugly” outside — some part of me feels so, so grateful when it is “ugly” outside so that my body — as well as my mind — will not “have to” be “coerced” into spending every last drop my of energy in “enjoying” the “precious sunshine” what my mind will never forgive me for “losing” out even the slightest drop of sunbeam…

“Enjoy”, “precious” — what are those words even encompassing?

It would not seem that the majority of people suffer from this kind of problem. It is probably apparent that I suffer from this kind of

strange suffering from the extreme need to get the absolute most pleasure out of anything as possible, so much so that the “seeking of that pleasure” ends of causing more pain than that “pleasure” could ever make up for.

It would not seem that the majority of people suffer from this kind of problem, because it would not seem that the majority of people have such a strong need and tendency to “over-achieve” as I do, would it?

Is “over-achievement” really just a manic form of extreme “greediness” in which I must “attain the absolute most” that I possibly could?

(At this point I remember that I am writing for the sake of “observing” and “analyzing” the “underlying causes” of my suffering, rather than “prescribing” how I should or should not be thinking, (i.e., pushing away thoughts, rather than changing the fundamental cause/source of them), so I will make a point in trying to find a cause for the above extreme peculiarities in perception, rather than merely dismissing them as inappropriate without understanding the underlying “reason”.)

So Dear God, where do my extreme necessities to “attain” actually stem from? What are its causes?

What is it that drives that absolute need to strip every possible instance of its potential for “enjoyment” — potential to bring me “pleasure”? What is it that I fear so much in “losing” if I do not go out every waking moment of a sunny day? Why?

What will happen if it is sunny, or it is a snowing winter wonderland out there, and I do not go outside, even if I very well could have?

Somehow would seem as though these problems all stem from a fundamental not-knowing of “what it is that I really want”?

Or perhaps, it is not that I do not know what I want, but that I am mistaken in what I believe can truly give me what I want.

What I believe is that I want happiness. I want the fulfillment that comes from enjoying what there is to “enjoy in life”.

Except, the mistake that I seem to be making is this: there are NOT “certain things” to enjoy in life and “certain things” to not. In fact, if there are “certain things to enjoy, then there could only be certain things to then dread — indeed,

If a sunny day is enjoyable, then a rainy day must be dreadful — is that really so?

Actually, it doesn’t even take the wisest sage to recognize the beauty in rainy days as well as sunny days, does it? Sunny days are “good” for certain things, and rainy days, for others.

Perhaps my problem lies in “comparison” — sunny days are “better” than rainy days — rainy days are not “bad”, but sunny days are “better”. Is this the “problem”, the “cause” of this “meaningless suffering”?

A “comparison” based on the wrong “reasoning” for underlying “goodness” — underlying “meaning”…?

What is the “meaning” that I have attributed to sunny and rainy and snowy days? Beauty?

What is the meaning I have attributed to “beauty”?

Does it not all come back to what I perceive as “valuable” and what not?

I have a feeling that I have started to go in circles all over again, each time just replacing the word “happiness” with “meaning”, with “beauty”, with “value”…

Is it not all the same then? Is not the underlying “systematic flaw in perception” always the same — to seek that which one attempts to seem from the outside, rather than from the inside?

Why, how, can it be so difficult to put into practice what seem so simple in theory?

Going back to the original trigger of this whole diving, the reason I obligate myself to go out on sunny days is that I believe that it is sunny days — or whatever thing that is external — that brings me “what it is that I want”, however I want to call it with its many names…

If instead, 1) what I were seeking were inside of me, and also — most crucially — that 2) I actually recognize this — then I would not “have to” go outside when it is sunny, not when it is snowy and “beautiful” would I?

If what I were seeking so desperately were inside me, and I actually recognized that, then what is outside could only ever be “beautiful” couldn’t it?

Dear God then, how do I actually “find” what is there already inside of me, even if I “know” that it is there? Why can’t I find what I seek even if I “know” where it is? Why can I still not let go of where I “believe” it is?

Is that an endeavor for another day? I suppose… if a puzzle were solved in one day, then it wouldn’t be so interesting, nor rewarding to solve it anymore would it?