Chaostabilty

Life, it seems, is best lived at the fine line between chaos and stability ... the creative edge and maybe the eternal present moment ... balance essential as psyches teeter on the brink, momentarily resting in the place to be, sometimes frazzled in chaos, other-times bored in stability ... this observation retrieving memories of a brief enterprise with three directors and many associates, having fun challenging the inertia that is so often the public sector in this region and maybe in general, since bureaucracies tend to evolve to meet the needs of their staff above those of their customers and the key need for the staff who stick around and rise to their level of incompetence is security ... salaries, permanent contracts, paid sick leave, holidays and finally the hard earned pension ... the business cards had: Director of Chaos, Director of Progress and Director of Order, playing with the image of the three legged stool ... one of the drawbacks of this provocation was the resistance of the potential customers, the public sector staff rather than the end user, the public themselves, to anything likely to upset their security ... and whilst sympathetic individuals encouraged us, the layers of bureaucracy stifled most of the action, their power being of the negative type ... unable or unwilling to risk security for excitement the power of no held sway ... maintained by slowly decaying forms, organisations transparent and opaque. ..

Fine Autumn weather inspires a trip to the Land of Joy for the weekend ... joining a woodland working party trying to eradicate a particularly persistent invasive species of rhododendron to make space for native trees ... some interesting folks in the party and two days of hard physical work makes a nice break from the gentler regime in Stanhope ... getting a little deeper into the community at the Land of Joy, though not especially into the more esoteric forms of Tibetan Buddhism practised there ...

Just one week before the flight south to Faro, some sunbathing to top up the vitamin D between dental appointments, then maybe a walk to Santiago from Lisbon, Coimbra or Porto ... FB sends a reminder that two years ago the walk from Irun began ... Ivar's Camino Forum reports attacks on pilgrims and others in Santarem and other places, mostly south of Porto ... opening the question of whether reading such material is wise ... fear being the main obstacle to overcoming excessive attachment to stability ...

As for attachments, walking the Caminos may be one ... though the time will come soon enough when that is no longer possible ... meanwhile, the joys of putting one foot in front of the other all day for a month, the physical, mental and spiritual benefits continue to inspire escape from the simple security of Stanhope ...