Kay:

Hello, Questers. It’s Thursday, December 9th, and this is episode 484. We have such a cool quote for you today. I am so excited to share it with you. It is 10 beautiful words, brought to us by Jack Kerouac, who is an American writer and poet of French-Canadian ancestry, best known for the novel “On the Road.” But these 10 words are, “Be in love with your life, every detail of it.”

Shi:

Now, Jack Kerouac, an eccentric fellow, but responsible for pioneering the beat generation in the fifties, and really influencing a lot of pop culture and the hippie movement and so much that we know about free love and peace, and just a very influential individual for a lot of the things that many of us partake in and love now. So, happy to pay homage to someone like Jack Kerouac. And this quote here, as Kay mentioned, just these 10 little words, it’s really deep wisdom that I think many of us, including myself, are spending a lifetime embracing and perfecting.

Kay:

Well, I think what is so beautiful about this particular quote is that we can say, “Be in love with your life,” but when we add in every detail of it what Jack is saying is to be in love with your life even the parts of it that you don’t like.

Shi:

It’s like, my kids love to do the joke of “I don’t like this dinner, mom. I love it.” They’re big fans of doing that setup. So, last night as we were doing that over dinner, and then we were talking about this difference between like and love, because then in order to be funny, somebody said, “Oh, I don’t like you, mom, I love you.” Then it was like, “Well, you do also like me though.” Then we all laughed about it and I said, “Well, you don’t always like me.” “Well, yes we do.” And I said, “Well, that’s that difference. There’s that surface of preference. That’s the liking, that’s the preference aka the ego-mind. Then there’s that deeper, that knowing, that connection, that conviction of love which is an emotion that overrides the whims of preference in the here and now. It is a deep love and appreciation, just another dimension there.”

So, that’s what Jack is telling us, be in love with your life, not in like with your life, although, hopefully, you like it for the most part, every detail of it. Now there’s where that nuance comes into play. T,hat piece that I was saying, I know most of us are spending our lifetimes working on is really learning to love and like love. Sometimes you love it, but you don’t like it in that reverent way. Even the hard parts, even the boring parts, even the tragic parts, and knowing that that all is part of the hodgepodge of life and that you can’t get the liking parts without those hard parts too.

Kay:

Well, a tapestry would be boring if it was all made out of a singular color. So, that’s why life is given so much dimension and to be in love with your life, every single detail of it. In one of our absolute favorite books, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, he talks about how if you were to take a moment to actually take in the visual details that surround you, look at the pictures on your walls and look at the backgrounds of those pictures and take in the jewels that you’re wearing and look at the statues that you’ve placed around yourself, that it could take you an hour just to go through and mentally catalog all of your surroundings, all the details of your surroundings.

But your eyes can look at something and can just capture and understand what’s there. If you were to look at a tree and consider every single leaf it would take you hours to consider every leaf. But you can look at the tree and say it’s a beautiful tree with so many leaves on it because you can take so many details in at once. Now, I think that helps bring us into, Shi, what you’re talking about a little bit with the idea of that focus. If I know that I love life on a baseline level if I’m going to like life, what am I considering on a detailed level every single day in order to both like it and love it?

Shi:

Much like the tree that you just mentioned, sis. I think we’re much like that with our lives and sometimes we might be focused on one of the details that aren’t particularly like-ful or delightful or something that we would define to ourselves in a traditional way. I love that stick bug right there on my tree of life. But understanding that the stick bug is part of the circle of life that helps the tree and the environment and all of the process that goes around the beautiful nature balance that is maintaining and sustaining that tree in our life on this planet. Then we do say, we love the stick bug. So, sometimes if you’re looking at some parts of your life and not loving it, zoom it out. Zoom off that stick bug, whatever that is, because it’s going to exist whether you focus on it or not but zooming out and looking at the whole tree and realizing that there are other details that you do like. It’s still the same tree, the tree that you love, that life tree. We’re just going with the metaphor, but it helps us when we can understand that every detail of it is part of it. It’s intentional. It’s supposed to be there. It’s a thread in that fabric of that beautiful tapestry that Kay mentioned earlier. So, I think that that’s helpful sometimes when we get stuck on the stick bug.

Kay:

I think that remembering too that in an ecosystem like a tree — we’re going for it. Here’s the metaphor, we’re going for it.

Shi:

Roll up your sleeves, Kay.

Kay:

We are in. We are off the cliff with this tree metaphor, but the stick bug likely has a purpose on the tree. The stick bug goes, and it gnaws off the leaves that have the extra deadness on them that couldn’t shake off with the wind. So, even though the stick bug might be unseemly and might not make you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, it has a purpose there on the tree. So, I love Shi that you said sometimes when you’re not loving the detail you’re looking at, zoom out and find something else to look at because every detail counts in the working of your life. If you say, “Well, I love this part of my life, but then not this part of my life,” that’s not love. That’s not unconditional. How would you like to be loved like that? “Oh, I love you as long as you act within this certain set of rules that I have for you.” Nobody wants to be loved like that, so, don’t put your life in that box either. Consider that beautiful tree and as Jack Kerouac reminds us, “Be in love with your life, every detail of it.”

Shi:

Alright, that brings you to your quest today. It’s a Thoughtful Thursday. We each have the ability to shift our awareness to find the simple beauty in life. Bring your attention to at least five details or little things that make life beautiful. If you find yourself focusing on a stick bug, you can either change your focus or see the bigger picture and how it serves a purpose. Are you ready?

Kay:

Let’s quest!