Not all who wander are lost

Tolkien said that “not all who wander are lost” and T S Eliot “we shall not cease from exploring and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where started and to know the place for the first time”.

Non-linearity

One interesting signifier of the journey into the second half of life has been my experience of non-linearity. I wonder if – at the risk of over-simplification – the head/mind/ego tend to be more linear and the body/soul/heart more discursive, less directive or directed. I am held in the paradox of living with some degree of intentionality and agency whilst also experiencing the indirectness of life, the reordering of awareness. Thus (again Eliot), “love of a country begins as an attachment to our own field of action and comes to find that action of little importance”.

Gus MacLeod

(Both Eliot quotations are from ‘The four quartets’)