REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

I lost another friend recently. Sad. Yet another year has passed, too. It has me thinking. What really is worth doing?

We act each day mostly to stem the tide of things about to go wrong. And there is no doubt in our minds as to what wrong would be. We don’t like loss, disappoint, or displeasing those who have become important to us. But sometimes, as we have time, at least some of us begin to aspire to something beyond the mere avoidance of things going wrong. We begin to aspire to accomplishing something that will have value to those around us, and maybe even to those who will come after us. A new insight, perhaps. A bit of discovery. A more useful or healthful order to things. Maybe even the creation of an experience or thing of beauty, or of wonder, or of deeply lasting amusement.

But I, at least, have never really been successful at imagining what might have value to others. I have tried numerous times, in many different ways, occasionally with some apparent success. And yet, the effort, the process, remains a mystery to me. Play is really the only constant within anything that has even come close to success for me. When I have time and am in the state of mind to play, I very often find that something rather interesting happens. Newness happens. Fresh, interesting, fascinating, provocative, amusing, seemingly insightful things happen. And, I don’t think it has anything special or particular to do with me, per se. It just has to do with me freeing my mind from concern and opening my senses to the quiet. The more open I am to the quiet, the more easily novel notions come to me, often couched within conversations, or maybe daydreams, running through my thoughts.

I don’t know what is worth doing. Helping to stave off wrong without causing even more wrong or hurt or problems may be the best we can ever do. But, clearing our minds of concern and opening our minds to the quiet and playing with what comes of doing that can also, sometimes at least, yield things that may very well have value to others, value that we, ourselves, may not even remotely understand.

Rather silly that things are so perplexing that way, don’t you think? If we are really honest with ourselves, that is.