Imagine you are walking in a field of green grass. The sun is setting. The sky is turning pink and red and orange and purple. In the distance you see the ruins of an old barn. It looks amazing. You can smell the grass and it’s so fresh and beautiful. You feel glad to be alive. It’s totally enjoyable. It’s a world free of cars and angry people. You’ve forgotten all your problems. You’re in the moment. Just enjoying. That feeling of peace and happiness is what a Philosophy of Enjoyment is all about. It’s about enjoying being alive, whoever you are, whatever the situation.
To enjoy is to embrace a place, an object, a person, something….anything…. with all of your senses. Awareness and receptiveness are the keys. Despite its harshness, the world is beautiful. Where else would you rather live? With determination and a few tricks in how you perceive the world and other people, you can enjoy beautiful moments of flow here and now.
An egret in action.
No matter what happens in life – good, bad or boring – with a Philosophy of Enjoyment you can say to yourself, “It was great! Totally enjoyable! Beautiful! Even when it was bad, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I die with no r-egrets.”
A doodle.
A Philosophy of Enjoyment isn’t serious. It’s light. It’s fun. It’s about enjoying without hurting anyone. In the battle of life, we win by enjoying in a way that’s natural and wholesome. “Wholesome” is an Old English word that means “healthy.” Someone who is wholesome is a decent, moral person, somebody who’s trustworthy and not living a secret life of crime. This is the magic of life.
To enjoy life is a challenge. It’s a call to enjoy not in an egotistical, “I’ll do what I want!” kind of way, but in a harmonized way. We enjoy being in harmony with nature and other people. We might feel separate from the world, but we’re not. This is not a survival of the fittest game. We’re flowers contributing enjoyment in a field. To enjoy living is why we’re here.
Enjoyment takes contemplation, intelligence, love, kindness, virtue, humility, humour and True Grit like the kind philosopher Albert Camus described, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
So sit back, listen and enjoy. A Philosophy of Enjoyment is not for academics who can knock the love out of being. This philosophy is for ordinary people in an ordinary world that goes round and round like a basketball orbiting a nuclear explosion.
Do you have the will to enjoy?
philosophy of ENJOYMENT 