On New Year’s Eve, 2016, my partner and I found ourselves swept along with a tide of joyous humanity, surging up the steps of a local Shinto shrine to pay our respects and ask for blessings in the coming year. What felt like the entire population of Nagasaki seemed to have gathered in one place at the same time, spilling down the shrine steps and flooding the nearby streets and alleyways, boisterous and jubilant but always orderly and unceasingly polite.
As I stared around me at the quickly-growing crowd of fellow revellers, I was struck by just how many people there are in this colourful old world, and how small a part of the great big sea of humanity any one person really plays. Far from being depressing, this reminder of my own insignificance was strangely comforting. Every person in that sea of citizens, I realised, was a person just like me, muddling through life the best way they could, complete with their own strengths and weaknesses, hopes and dreams, stresses, successes and failures. It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in ourselves, to see our problems as unique or incredible, and to think of ourselves as islands, cut off from the rest of the world. The reality is that we’re all in this together. This doesn’t in any way negate our problems or invalidate our feelings, but it can perhaps help us feel a little less alone as we struggle through them.
A sea of people,
Living life the best they can,
Muddling along.
Let’s all just muddle along through life the best we can, together.
Thank you. I needed this. xx
I’m so glad, thank you!
Very inspiring, Jane. One should have lovely epiphanies at shrines. Perhaps today, I will create a shrine in my house. And plan a visit to a shrine as well. Have a wonderful week.
Thank you for this post! Here’s to muddling… and to remembering to find the beauty wherever we are! xo
A molecule of H20 is not wet until it is joined with other water molecules. We don’t really become human unless we are joined to others. Let’s muddle in wetness!
What an awesome analogy, I love it! So very true.
This is so calming, Jane. I’m grateful that you shared your experience, and then wrote.
Remember the ad for V-8 where a person would hit their head and said, “I coulda had a V-8”! Your post reminds me of that. We know this…it’s a universal truth but we forget and begin to find ourselves more important than we should. I do love how Asian culture is different in the way it sees humanity in some ways (not all). Thanks for the feeling of peace you share with us all muddling together. It’s nice….kinda like a virtual snuggle.
Thank you for sharing your experience and your poem. Yes, we are all just muddling along together the best we can. And we have much more in common that we sometimes remember.
Being together is important. With that, we see ourselves in so many others. We are not alone, muddling along.
I so enjoyed your Japanese travels, Jane!
I agree! It is all too easy to separate, but we must recognize the thread that binds us to each other. We are all in this together…beautifully spoken, Jane.
Thank you!
I muddle a lot.
As long as I don’t puddle, I’m good!
Great poem, this…though seems a little sad, to me.
So happy to be a part of this churning, muddling, sea of humanity!
Me too! We’re all in this together!