The Simple Pleasures
Posted on June 6, 2010Sometimes simple does it. Sometimes it’s the simple things that are so successful. And such is the case with easy amusements, those casual sort of attractions that are so simple it’s surprising they are so entertaining, too – though not too surprising as you imagine the exhilaration of walking, as if suspended in mid-air, a thousand feet above street level, taking in a bird’s-eye view of a city like Sydney, Australia.
For such is the case with two of Zalman Silber’s creations, the Skywalk and The Edge. Though one is in the open air while the other is an enclosed affair, respectively, they both get your blood rushing with the kind of excitement that comes from looking at the floor and seeing a thousand feet beneath you.
One needn’t take in such tourist attractions like these Zalman Silber vehicles in order to enjoy some simple entertainment, of course. A walk through a nice big park can be just as enchanting. Remember that bored people are boring! They not only bore others but bore themselves. Indeed, the frame of mind that is bored is but a symptom of a deeper intellectual and even spiritual poverty, however momentary. Boredom is nothing but the failure of our imagination, or at least the temporary respite it takes, leaving us bereft of the awe which should properly accompany this journey of ours called life, a travel through many adventures of the soul.
And it is ironic, too, that for those with the richest inner lives easy amusements abound. You would think that intellectual sophistication and refined tastes should imply some rather complex interests, but true intelligence is able to enjoy entertainment both refined and earthly. And so it would seem that the true achievement is to cultivate one’s own mind, one’s own self, to be alive, truly alive.
For what is boredom but intellectual death? Yet the quiet mind is eternal, one that is not subject to noise and other distractions. It is an interesting matter and likely the most subtle one of all, this problem of the mind. We are so full of questions – or not. But neither implies real intelligence, which is still – which is.
And so it is that one may enjoy a simple day in the park, simply enjoying the sun and wind. Truly, when one empties the mind, as the Ch’an Buddhists teach, one can be at home anywhere. For what is boredom but a certain strangely passive restlessness, an irritating flame that does not consume nor subside?
Most people do not understand the timeless. In our quiet tired moments we receive small vague intimations of it, and some of us then search puzzlingly for more of it, but very few understand what it’s all about.
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