An Intimate Life. A Practical Guide to Relating. TWO: The World.

How we relate, to ourselves, to the world, and to the people and creatures we share it with, informs how we adapt to life.

The better able we are to adapt to life, the better quality of life we generally end up having. Challenges are met, obstacles are overcome, and opportunities get recognised and taken.

The more our basic needs are met the more we can go about actualising our potential. Remembering that ‘actualising your potential’ could cover anything from creating a business empire, to building a house, to raising a family, to just sitting peacefully in an ancient forest.

The potential value of intimacy was covered in the introduction and can be found here.

With no further ado then, here are 12 ways to increase your intimacy with the world.

Have fun!

1. Somewhere New

This invitation is best taken when you don’t think too hard about it, although it’s not essential. The main point here is to get out – just go; walk, drive, cycle, pogo stick, peddle boat, whatever mode takes your fancy. Go somewhere you have never been. Stay there for a while. The point here is to experience somewhere new, to push the envelope of the known into the unknown. What you might also find worth considering are those places that you pass everyday but never stop. The lane, road, or path, or turning that you have never taken. Maybe it is a turning that you have noticed, maybe it is a turning that you will notice now you have read this invitation. Curious to see? I’ll leave it to you.

2. Notice What You Notice

In many ways this invitation is about noticing what you value. Notice what you notice can also be notice what you don’t notice too. There are places, things, colours, shapes, flavours, tones, motions, scents, angles, speeds, curves, gradients, and atmospheres we are drawn too. These things and the qualities they possess generally cause us pleasure – or are valuable to us in some way. The opposite is also be true. Those things that cause us pain or discomfort also stand out, generally as something to be avoided. Everything else has a tendency to merge into a neutral range of experience, because, put simply, those things are safe and dull enough to be ignored. Noticing what you notice gives you an opportunity to explore what you value, what is meaningful to you, and, what you are repelled or repulsed by. You don’t need to obsess about it, but you can devote a portion of time to noticing what you appreciation in your corner of world. Also, there is more to this because in doing so you will invariably end up spotting those things that normally slip pass your attention – these can be things that you take for granted, that you realise you would miss were they suddenly gone. Or they can be things you gain a sudden appreciation for, sometimes as if you are seeing them for the first time.

3. Fix Something

Repair something: Clear a path. Move a fallen tree. Replace something that is broken with something that isn’t. Glue two things together that have come apart. Repair a bench. Shovel snow. Fix a bridge, or a fence, or a roof. If any of that seems like too much just place one thing on top of another thing – just as long as it is an improvement. If you can do any of these things in a way that benefits someone else, do that. If you can do it without them knowing, even better.

4. Moonlight

Be in the moonlight. If you can, walk, run, or swim through it.

5. Sunlight

Find one place or thing and photograph it over the course of a day, or, at the same time everyday for a number of days, or weeks, or if you get really obsessed about these things over a number of years. Notice how it changes over time, even over the course of a single day. Notice how the light differs across the course of a year. See how the light of the sun can differs moment to moment – or where and when it remains the same. Watch the shadow of leaves dancing on the ground in a breeze. Time lapse a shadow over the course of a day.

6. Organise

Organise an environment. Take all of the things from one place that has become untidy and then place them back with more order. Maybe get rid of the bits you no longer need, use, or find beautiful or pleasing.

7. Beauty

Find something beautiful and appreciate it.

8. Darkness

Be somewhere dark. The darker the better. Be in the dark. What do you notice?

9. Explore

Explore somewhere you have always wanted to explore, or explore somewhere you think you know well. Walk down dead ends. Look up. Look down. Peer around corners. Walk along a wall. Climb up a fire escape, or a tree. Take your shoes off. Walk through a river. Go into shops that you have never been in. Explore the lobbies and the corridors of hotels where you are not a guest. Get lost in a woods you know you can find the edge of. Look under things. Be in the world in ways that show you a face of it you have not seen before.

10. Look for Edges

Notice the edges of things. Explore their limitations, how fixed are they, how permanent, how transient. How do the edges of things make the world what it is. Are there lots of things with many surfaces or is everything the same surface but just appears as different things.