May 22
Everywhere and at all times it is in your power to greet the present event reverently.
Meditations VII.54 (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Everywhere and at all times it is in your power to greet the present event reverently.
A greeting comes before judgement. When someone is standing at your door, you say “Hello” before you know whether they want to sell you something or are bringing bad news. At first, all you are doing is acknowledging that they are there.
With events you usually do it the other way round. Hardly has something happened than you have already filed it away: as a disruption, as a stroke of luck, as exactly what you needed. The judgement comes so quickly that it feels like perception. Yet at that moment you know little. The event has only just begun.
It gets difficult where acknowledgement looks like consent. When you acknowledge that a loss has occurred, it can sound as though you have already resigned yourself to it. But you can greet something and still not want it. You can even argue against it, only against the thing itself and not against the picture you made of it in the first second.
Some things remain unwelcome even after weeks. By now, though, you know who it actually was that rang the bell.
