Saturday 21 September 2013

Coping with the Climate of Fortune.

It seems to me that the phrase ‘winds of fortune’ is well chosen, and goes deeper than a mere superficial metaphor. Fortune really is like the weather: some periods are wet and stormy, some are hot and sunny, some are calm and mellow, some are achingly frigid, and some are capricious, with passing storms or sunshine and showers.

The difference is that fortune has no regular seasons. A winter or summer of fortune can last a day or several years. For some people, it can even last a lifetime. Talk to those trapped in ghettos or other forms of poverty by a selfish system designed to favour the rich and privileged.

Several people I know are going through extended periods of circumstantial or psychological turbulence at the moment, and I’m being oft reminded that there are no air conditioning units or winter coats to protect us from the irregular vacillations of fortune. The only protection we have is in the mind, and some people stand extremes of heat and cold better than others. It appears that the simpler you’re made, the less you’re affected by those extremes. Complex beings of keen awareness and high sensitivity can be dragged into depression, or struck down by one form of death or another. Death can even be literal, as we know.

So where does this point go from here? It doesn’t; it stops at the edge of the continental shelf, because beyond it lies an abyss populated by countless practical, emotional, psychological and spiritual nuances. All I can suggest is that we be aware of the sensitive souls and be prepared to lend them a winter coat when they need it, if we’ve got one to spare.

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