Staying Sane
... in the midst of ever-ramping insanity
Several years ago now (in the pre-Covid era), I said to my (long-since grown) daughters that the world seemed to be growing more insane by the day. Both nodded in agreement.
I added that I felt our challenge was to not add to the insanity.
Of course, I had no idea then how crazy things were going to become.
Ai-yi-yi!!
What I think now is, our main personal challenge is simply to remain sane ourselves. However insane things become around us.
This is not an insignificant challenge.
Ever since March 2020, the world has gone exponentially cuckoo. I am perhaps not alone in thinking over & over again that things surely can't get any worse.
And then ... they do!
They keep right on getting crazier!
I'd say insanity has gone exponential.
Feels like peak insanity.
Ai-yi-yi! (At the risk of repeating myself.)
So.
I'm not going to offer a list here of things I find insane about our world. I think we can all do that pretty easily for ourselves.
And heck.
Listing them would only make us all feel ... crazier!
When the whole point of this post is to enumerate a few things I do that I find help me maintain my own level of sanity … such as it is; heh heh 🙂🙂.
I truly have no inspiring things to say about making the world less cuckoo.
The best I can offer here, at this point in time, is a short list of things that I find sanity-creating.
Grounding, you might say.
For me.
Your list would no doubt be different.
Feel free to make a comment on the post about things you do to maintain your own sanity!
So. Perhaps like all of us, I have "good" days, & "bad" days.
Walking is one thing that can help make any day a good one! I've been addicted to walking for many years now. I like it so much, I have a section on my old site dedicated to quotations & posts about walking. If you're not a walker yourself already, please take a gander at it!
“Walking is a man's best medicine.” – Hippocrates
Find lots more here.
& btw, when I go for a walk, I leave my cell phone behind. Walking - for me anyway - is about solitude & silence. Phonecalls can wait!
Nature. Nature is grounding.
Looking at, being among, trees, definitely very much so! Noticing birds, squirrels, water, sky ... etc. etc. & no, I don't live out in the country where there's a ton of gorgeous scenery right outside my door. I live in Toronto - a big, busy, noisy city. I am blessed to live near the lake, so I walk by it often. But Nature is everywhere we go. Every city has parks. And trees. A ravine, maybe.
“After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on – have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear – what remains? Nature remains.” – Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)
Also btw, my watch died a while back. Too expensive to fix - so now I just pay a lot less attention to the time. Makes life a bit more relaxing...
Hmmmmm.
Keeping up mundane regular habits helps me stay vaguely on an even keel.
Flossing my teeth
Doing a load of laundry
Making a batch of soup (I once long ago did some postings with soup recipes. They're all pretty easy & straightforward, since I'm not exactly the best or most creative cook on the planet. You might find a good one there! (Go to the Collections posting on my old site, & scroll down to S for Soup.)
Making decent meals for myself, in general
Washing a load of dishes
Cleaning my apartment
Note!
Walking & doing any of the things I just mentioned have an important thing in common. They keep me in the present moment. Staying as grounded in the present moment as I can helps me from flying off into worries about what's coming, or obsessing about any one of the hundreds of things one could easily obsess about. From the past. In the future.
Ah.
This!
And this quotation:
“I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us.” – Dorothy Dix
Other things:
Reading a good novel (read a bad one recently. Ugh! Plot holes you could drive a tractor trailer truck through. Joked to a friend later that novels that bad should be illegal!?)
Having a conversation with a friend or neighbour - even a stranger! (I'm a pretty friendly person & often have pleasant exchanges with people while out & about.)
Being with friends
Being with loved ones
Motherhood is very grounding … or can be
Listening to old Alan Watts lectures (of which a ton exist on YouTube!!)
I'm also a palliative care volunteer for Hospice Toronto; that too is grounding.
Things that don't add to my ability to stay sane?
Too much time on the Internet
Doom-scrolling - very seductive!! Sometimes very crazy-making
Engaging in dumb discussions/disagreements on social media (I'm good at scrolling past this kind of stuff. I mostly avoid twitter/x 'cos for me it's just too argumentative in tone)
Trying to convince people of things they have no intention of learning or being convinced about - though Lord knows it's mighty bloody frustrating when you try to inform people of important information that could protect their health/save their lives/their children's lives & they just plain don't want to know. (Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Drama! I do my best to avoid drama. It's just too bloody exhausting. (Of course it's much easier to avoid drama if one lives alone.)
Here's something else that helps.
I do my best not to beat myself up.
So maybe I eat too much chocolate.
Am sometimes self-indulgent.
Overly judgmental. Occasionally petty in my thoughts.
I'm merely human!
Trying to get by in a world gone/going utterly mad.
The last thing I need to be doing is beating myself up.
As I occasionally joke, I had to stop beating myself up ... 'cos I simply don't have the energy for it anymore!
On Surrender ... Making Waves ... & Slowing Down
I was a very busy (mostly environmental) activist for many years. Three decades, basically.
I'd research a topic, then write about it, & take action too. Lots & lots of activism.
And ... the activism spark has gone right out of me. Pfffffffft! Like the air out of a balloon.
I'm thrilled to know there are so many busy, active, heroic folks out there doing their damndest to "change the world." There are really a lot of them these days!! I am in awe. & gratitude.
But ........ I personally am more in surrender mode now.
I could say more about that ... but there's no real need.
I see this sign along the busy street I live on, here in the east end (Beaches) area of Toronto.
Make waves, it says.
Me? I'm more into riding the waves now.
I did my years of wave-making.
I'm following this advice now:
Because that's what I personally find I need to do, now
to simply
Stay sane.
At this point, I think my not adding to the world's insanity
& remaining at least vaguely on the proverbial "even keel" myself
may possibly be the best contribution I am able to make.
p.s. there are some pretty insightful quotations about insanity here. I’ve just added this gem to that collection, having run across it rather by fluke after posting this:
“Every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. We have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. We have never seen a totally sane human being.” – Robert Anton Wilson
p.p.s. a personal mantra I repeat to myself often? "I don't have to figure that out right now." It often helps me stop fussing about things. Overthinking. You know?
This is another good reminder:
“Be careful not to do something permanently stupid because you are temporarily angry, stressed, scared, tired or hungry.” – Karen Salmansohn
Okay. one more:
“Do you have the patience to wait ‘til your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving ‘til the right action arises by itself?” – Lao-tzu
And always … this:
& just for a laugh? This…
