Peter van Straten Art by Peter van Straten

The embrace

Every year I build on my understanding of my own irrelevance and insignificance. By now it has become something monumental. Also, like most people I rely far too heavily on work for my sense of self. In the past I struggled to be calm when not working, not missioning. But lately I’ve learned that I relax quite successfully when I treat relaxing itself as a mission! And this new-found peace, when combined with the exquisite catalyst of irrelevance can turn me into blissed-out human jelly in no time. I sit on a bench in a forest, and as I breath out I allow the profundity of my insignificance to overwhelm me, and I think, “this is just fine. I could sit, right here, forever.”