Mistaking the Piss
Written by Rebecca Firegrave on Sunday the 16th of January 2011
I sat on my miserable commute out of the concrete jungle, minding my own business one evening after work when my daze into the abyss was disturbed by a disgruntled tourist claiming that 'it would never happen in Switzerland'. I looked up to investigate what possible excitement could entertain me on the tube, when a fellow passenger warned me to mind my feet. I looked down at the floor to find a liquid trickling down the carriage. I moved my feet to avoid it but then all the more quickly when I was told it was urine.
Different people had different reactions. Some squeaked and squealed others looked around in disgust but the culprit stood proudly in the corner with an upturned mouth.
Why would someone feel the need to commit an act, of what I view, vulgarity? From his reaction he was obviously pleased with his result, which angered me at first. Then when I noticed he was most probably homeless I realised that his creative urinating had the same value to him as my day at work had to me (and no I'm not referring to my pleasure measure of work), he was making his mark on the world.
Most of us try to make a positive, (some a negative) effect on the world, on the whole to add meaning and value to our lives. But if you follow the chaos theory, you'll agree with me when I say that grand gestures are not necessary to change a succession of a million events, just as a butterfly flapping its wings. In fact, sometimes it's the littlest things which bare the greatest consequences.
With a limited conscious capacity, not every action, particularly the small ones, can be carried out in awareness. But time slides by and it is often easy to wonder how we have winded up where we are. Focusing on the grand plan is all well and good. But you can only create that in the very moment you are in right now, whatever it's degree of significance.
So think big, think small but most importantly, think.