Welcome

Welcome to Keep Calm and Relax.This website was inspired by the profound and insightful wisdom of courageous people throughout the ages. Historically events and circumstances that can cause us stress, have remained surprisingly unchanged. These words are my interpretation of how the inspirational philosophy of yesterday can be a positive influence on how we cope with tomorrow. I have woven my thoughts on coping with difficult times and how to survive them around the wise and wonderful words of great men and women.

Do get in touch if you agree or disagree with anything I have to say. I don't have answers just my thoughts and the thoughts of wise men and women that might just make you think differently.

Follow us with RSS

« "THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRY AND TRIUMPH IS A LITTLE UMPH" | Main | "THE MASS OF MEN LEAD LIVES OF QUIET DESPERATION" »
Wednesday
Nov162011

“AS FAR AS WE CAN DISCERN, THE SOLE PURPOSE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE IS TO KINDLE A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS OF MERE BEING”. 

Winters dark and gloomy mood is often a time when depression takes hold and even small efforts can seem too much.  It is often the irritating nature of day to day life that we are expected to deal with that can become overwhelming.

It is so much easier to escape under the bed clothes, to draw the curtains and not acknowledge the world outside, peering out from under the covers unable to see beyond the dark. Walter Bagehot wrote “All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape”.     

 Winter can seem like a train going through a long dark tunnel, you know there is light at the end and that the relentless movement of the train will eventually get you there but whilst you are on the train you just can’t see it, it is so much easier just to pull up misery around our ears like a quilt and wallow.

 Darkness is not always barren, nature chooses darkness as a safe place for new life to be conceived and carried. Shorter days can make life seem cosier and richer for being condensed, and like photographs many things develop in the dark. Mushrooms, cheese and good wine all mature in dark and gloomy places, and like spring bulbs once out in the light again they enrich our lives. Jean Genet wrote” A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness”.

 In a world where everything is negotiable, you can execute your escape plan and use the gloom to lay dormant and unproductive, waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. Or you can be glad that winter is a time when life is narrow and confined, giving us time to dream and plan.  Creating light in dark dusty corners will make life seem bigger, fuller and less gloomy.

 “Every life is narrow. Our only escape is not to run away, but to learn to love the people we are and the world in which we find ourselves”.    Mark Haddon

Title quote by Carl Jung

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>