"a place just right" rambling on and on

"Tis a gift to be simple
tis a gift to be free
tis a gift to come down ,where you ought to be

and when we find ourselves
in a place just right
it will be in the valley of love and delight."


My apologies to Shaker Elder Joseph  Brackett {1797-1882} for the errors in the lyric he wrote in 1848, because instead of Googling them as I should have done, I wrote them from memory. That tune was everywhere in the 70's.  Then I felt it was about finding that perfect place, and the joy one would find there.  Yes, one could find harmony, happiness and all that good stuff, so I set out to do that. 

Here I sit 40 plus years later tapping away at my computer keys and wondering about random stuff.  Decades of random stuff runs through the theatre of my mind as  my exhausted bones and I watch the sunset, and stammer my way through these words.  It is disturbing to me to hear comments like "People spend there whole lives looking for the happiness they had in child hood."  or  "People spend their whole lives looking for something that doesn't exist"   Probably the best version , Ok at least the one I like best is  from the Wizard of Oz  and it goes sorta like this "If I ever go looking for my heart's desire, I won't look any farther than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it at all."  Wow, does that sound a lot like we  should all "Bloom where we are planted." I think that some of the comments are based, erroneously, on the almost ancient putdown, "Be content." I saying that we should never change, relocate, whatever.  No, not at all.  If you don't agree with me about this, well that's Ok, also.  

Happy and content are often used as synonyms, but in fact they are not.  Being happy is a heady feeling, giddiness, occasional irrational and impulsive behavior.  One might find it hard to live at this excited level for very long.  Content, that ancient put down which equated with "shut up and eat your gruel" is much closer to the course of a peaceful life without want, and a sense of fulfillment, a state of mind where one is in touch with their surroundings.  Feeling content is not a half measure of happiness, it is a full measure of feeling good and being present in the moment.

The eccentrically fabulous crone Lady Elaine Fairchild( created by MisterRodgers} once created a place called "The Always Happy Dance Studio"  upon experience and reflection discover that there were problems with the concept of  being "always happy"  changed the named to  "The Sometimes Happy Dance Studio."
{MisterRodgers, had a way with simple truths, that I feel profoundly effected those of use who watched him. Even if we were watching with our kids.}

Somewhere along the course of time, after humans were thrilled to have a warm fire, and a few scraps of food at night, and to have not been eaten by a predator, or had a loved one eaten by a predator recently, they started acquiring possessions.    Arrowheads, spears, sleeping mats, hollowed out bits of wood aka bowls all things that made their lives easier, and I should think happier.  And so. here started the idea that more possessions equaled more happiness.  Skipping ahead a few millennia, there was enough time and enough material culture that humans could want things, not because they were necessities of life, but just things to own.  So I guess in that way we are programmed to want possessions, to feel that the more we have the happier we well be.   Though, once the basic needs of food, comfortable shelter are met the is little evidence that more equals happier.   Something not lost on the people who created advertising...'nuff said on that one.

So how about that childhood happiness, true there were brilliant moments of happiness in childhood, and there were also some pretty dark and fearful ones, uncertain ones and every shade in between.  The thing that truly is unique to childhood in my mind is that much of a day is spent in discovery, everything is new, and we humans do love new things.  But we also love the reassuring things like Grandmas's cookies.