Unsayable

I’ve been meaning to write more about happiness, but the topic is elusive to say the least and it seems there has not been enough time. I wasn’t sure until yesterday what this meant (what interval of unbroken time would be enough?), but this morning, rising at 4.30 in the morning I know even more clearly, for in my dream I have been composing an intricate post, setting out everything, which in waking life I haven’t been able to do. The intricacy of my dream-post was to trace a pattern, first in vague outline, then after some examples and anecdotes return to the pattern and retrace it, till the whole became alive.

I’ve done nothing much for a while that warrants the term “wayfaring”. When I’ve gone on some errand to town, I’ve walked along the Ledborough Road, then through the new Eden Shopping Centre, for this is the straight-line route. I take everything in, for this is my nature, to observe and reflect, and so by the time I’ve reached the destination, and returned, I’ve encountered a hundred souls or more, and tasted the state of the world that way. This, more than the radio news, more than the Internet, defines the world: my world, which is the only part of it I’ll ever really know. I discover what’s happening the other side of my skin, conveyed to me by my senses. I see familiar faces along the Ledborough Road, for it’s a place with real street life, especially at certain points: the Polish grocery store, the Mo’Fro (More Afro!) hairdressers, the betting shop and other places of ethnic significance and proletarian hope. It’s a place of Africans, Asians, West Indians, Poles, the local English, drunks. But not till now do I see that I don’t need to go down Ledborough Road so often, even though I’ve said to myself each time, “This is my neighbourhood, I belong here, I love my life so I love this place”.

There are parallel routes I can take which add a few minutes to my journey. There’s the West Town Road (I use the word “town” to replace the town’s actual name) on which my previous flat was situated: it’s busy with cars but there are more trees, older houses, a better prospect for the wayfarer whose goal is to seize joy from the air of the present moment. Sometimes to avoid the more tedious part as you approach town I take a detour through the lower Pastures, where there’s a steep footpath snaking up and down the hillside, through the backs of houses and between them, which takes you to the supermarket, though I don’t go that way when taking my bag-on-wheels, because of the steps.

On the other side of the valley, there’s a hillside footpath through the woods and grassy clearings. In case of winter, or rain, you need walking boots. I could write much more about the varied routes to the town centre, where you’ll find the cupola with its centaur weathervane atop the Guildhall, rebuilt in 1821. You might say that this entire enclave in cyberspace, this Wayfarer’s Notes, is based on my walking routes, for that’s where the ideas come.

I pick up some comments from my previous post. (Please excuse me, A—, this is not to dispute with you, but to follow the inspiration of your words!) “Accepting things as they are or being contented with whatever circumstances one finds oneself in or can get into easily, is undoubtedly a path to great happiness.” “Contentment is the route to happiness for most persons. There could be some who enjoy discontentment.”

I see that I rarely take a route to happiness. Like everyone else, I follow a path to my current destination. When I consciously seek happiness, discontentment is my best and only guide. It tells me to eschew efficiency—that false friend!—and follow the route that appeals to my heart, no matter what twists and turns it takes, no matter what trial and error. No one can tell me: therefore, applying the same advice in reverse, I can tell no one. I’ve had enough of the Ledborough Road. I’m never in such a hurry that I need to go down it, unless it’s actually my destination. I seldom need to meet the souls who hang out along it, nor do they need to meet me.

Somehow, though I woke at 4.30, it’s 6.00 now. Where did the time go? I made myself a pot of tea, the old-fashioned way, and brought it up to my writing-desk, poured it out in the best china cup, corrected my home-made Word macro for producing the “em dash”—this thing—(instead of & # x 2 0 1 4 ;). Then, without regard for time, or indeed money, I savoured a tiny fragment of that which is unsayable: and also this, which has proved to be sayable.