Last I heard, there were tens of millions of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat Pray and Love in print. I for one will not argue with that particular use of ink by the barrel.
It took me through a dark tunnel recently, and while I did not immediately emerge into the light at the reading of it, it provided welcome flashes of artificial light, and some genuine holler-out-loud, make-them-think-you’re-crazy, moments into the bargain.
We hold fairly divergent views on things spiritual, Elizabeth and I, (just so you know) but I could not help but admire her courage and her insight. And as often is the case in these things, I found that there were also a swath of convergence and there was much to learn from her particular experience.
One thing that stayed with me and struck a chord was a particular sombre description of Bali.
She describes the expatriate society in Bali as very high calibre people whose lives once embodied great promise but who have “been so ill-treated and badly worn by life that they’ve dropped the whole struggle and decide to camp out in Bali indefinitely” so that what unites them now is the way that they have “completely and forever” abandoned ambition.
Sobering thought, this.
Figuratively-speaking, I always believed that, if and when I lost my groove, all I would need to do was to travel to Jamaica, where grooves go to repose I’m reliably informed, and get it back. If Stella could do it, so could I. It was as simple as that.
But now Elizabeth Gilbert has complicated things by introducing the notion of a Bali.
Jamaica is a temporary place where you go to recover your groove. Bali is a place where you go to give up because your groove left you and went to Jamaica and you have no intention of getting it back either because you can’t, or because you won’t.
Jamaica is where people go to recuperate. Bali is where they go to give up.
If I sighed and mumbled beneath my breath the thing that was resonating so deeply inside of me in that hour of darkness: “Life is hard”, walls of humanity would have absorbed it and tossed back crescendoeing echoes of it. “Life is hard, Life is hard, Life is hard.”
Because it can be. Hard.
Sometimes, we just want it to stop for a moment: we want to step away from the fray, to get away from it all. We want to scamper away to the private place and lick our wounds. We want freedom and the space to rail against the unfairness of it all. Sometimes, it’s what we need.
The trick is in knowing how long to allow ourselves to wallow and in having the discipline to tell ourselves: Enough.
By me, Enough is one of the most meaningful words in the English dictionary. It cuts off too little from too much, moderating between glut and dearth to restore balance to life as we know it. I like the word Enough. Enough is a word we should use more often.
Sometimes, we’re in our right to allow ourselves to wallow, but we must bracket that wallowing with a resounding Enough. We can allow ourselves to go to our emotional Jamaica, but not to detour to Bali, build a house and buy a cow.
Here’s to bypassing Bali and going to Jamaica. Figuratively-speaking only, of course. And not just because there’s the very real possibility of someday maybe perhaps bumping into Usain Bolt. Although of course that would be a bonus.It's my window, but I don't own the view.
«
Expand/Collapse
What An African Woman Thinks
-
ENOUGH: NAVIGATING PAST BALI TO JAMAICA (Or, the Souls Travels and Travails) Posted: November 24th, 2008, 1:50am EST