Terrier Truth

I started writing this post a few days ago and wrote this:

I acknowledge that I have a 'fast energy' and an irritable and / yet tenacious tenancy.  All summed up quite well by the nickname terrier. I find it difficult to be slow, relaxed, gentle, graceful. And yet some part of me probably wants to be more like that. And an other part just can't stand it! [And] Because I am not really working at the pace required of most modern work places some part of me drives me on against the fear of slowing down and never being able to 'cut the mustard' again. Or maybe deep down I feel it's too late anyway; I've been away from it too long and can't work like I once could. Or maybe it's just frustration at not being involved in a demanding project and part of a team of professionals. Anyway, the feedback from people in the community here is often that I should be more soft and feminine. Now I know that even in the construction industry people have found me abrasive, but I just can't stand this so called feminine softness. And I can think of a few feminists who would take you to task over the whole thing anyway! But there is something here. How much of this is adapted, defensive, limited and limiting ego and how much is just the basic flavor of the undefended self? Hard to say.

But the muse was not with me and I couldn't find the pith of the post.

Earlier today at lunch and again whilst out for a walk with a friend the subject of my terrier nature came up again. I'd forgotten that I'd started a post on this and during this afternoon's walk took some pictures of a wonderful pink-red sunset. As I suspected the phone-camera could not quite capture the scene. I tried with three different settings:

Just which is the truest image?

And this question of seeing 'the truth' is a tricky one. It requires a great deal of wisdom. So, returning to that question How much of this is adapted, defensive, limited and limiting ego and how much is just the basic flavor of the undefended self? Again, Hard to say. On the one hand there is as they say, no smoke without fire and I acknowledge that the fast, driven, tetchy stuff is connected to contraction in the body-mind. And it is no doubt that contraction which is visible in my deportment, especially my gait. Yet on the other, there is the feedback 'oh but you are a mover and a shaker; you make things happen, you keep the show on the road'.

And it's all an aspect of 'the truth'. 

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act IIrish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 - 1900)

And yes, I do from time to time see gentle people who (still) have a liveliness to them and it is quite wonderful.