We are standing on the edge

One of the things I re-discovered during my last month at Wantage was taking pleasure in the simple things in life. I’d take long walks and feel the sun on my face and think I’m alive and this is amazing! I caught a few dawns as well. It’s a beautiful thing to see. Suddenly it feels that with all the exam stress out of the way, you’re having a proper ‘road to Damascus’ epiphany and you are suddenly seeing the world in a new light in all its glory and putting yourself in it. It feels like the most mundane things around you are a lot more than you had thought them to be. I hadn’t for example really been listening to the bird that sings outside my window at 3.30 am every morning.

That kind of leads me to this tale because I was thinking of it on one such walk. One of my absolute favorite (supposedly true) stories is about an encounter between Diogenes the Cynic philosopher of Ancient Greece and Alexander the Great. Diogenes was a disciple of Plato but made some adjustments to the great man’s teachings believing that the path to a good life was completely shunning material things and living in a state that today would technically be refered to as a ‘bum’. Consequently he lived most of his life in a disused bathtub or in a barrel which is where he was when Alexander the Great stopped by while taking a break from conquering most of the known world. Is there anything at all in this world you desire? Alexander asked him.
“Yes” says Diogenes “Stand to one side- you are blocking the sun”