Travelling into London Holborn recently, I got on the train at Newbury Park and saw this gentleman stretched out on his back across 4 seats: hoodie up, arms across his chest, and, fast asleep. I watched him and wondered what his story was…is. I watched him each time the train stopped at a station and he didn’t stir. I wondered how he would know when he arrived at his destination…whether he even had a destination …whether it mattered to him at all one way or other.
I wondered about so many things including how he’d react if I woke him up to ask him these questions. As I had a destination to get to for a particular time, I didn’t want to risk waking him up and not being able to give him sufficient time for a conversation, if he wanted one.
It got me musing though, about my own life, the many years where, looking back, it was as though I was in deep slumber, sleepwalking through the journey of life.
There is a place for sleepwalking through life, I think, indeed there is a time for it. For me, I believe it was a survival strategy. But then the time came when I gradually began to wake up and smell the potato snacks of reality that another passenger had been crunching on all through my Central Line journey into London…
Waking up and taking an active part in one’s own life can be quite challenging …and infinitely rewarding. My aim is to continue to grow in wakefulness, to continue to act as a creator or at least a co-creator in my life and experiences. And to take every opportunity to tickle and prickle out of slumber land any one whose path crosses mine in this journey of life… (with their permission of course!)
Are you up for wakefulness today?
