Sometimes, in the middle of going about what you thought was your business, your life…, you are caught unawares, by surprise… by events, by people, by plain old destiny, or, if it turns out to be a positive thing, by what I like to look upon as synchronisms.
In rare cases these occurrences may be life changing, depending on what they are, on whom you are, and how you react.
More often than not, though, they may initially lift you off your feet and rattle you, as if you were a rag doll, without the ability to act or react. But once you have caught your breath, realigned your tie (if you’re a man, something of your choice if you’re a woman), brushed your hair (if you have some) into place and got your heart and head around them, so to speak, you can move on, shaken and stirred. Sometimes richer, sometimes still wide eyed and surprised, but always all the more wiser.
The most baffling phenomena are often related to people. If they are strangers, and you have no inkling as to their innate characteristics, the shock may be great. But the impact on you, your feelings and your life, are usually neither great nor lasting, due to their peripheral relation and importance to you.
If, on the other hand, the person in question is someone you thought you knew, had more or less figured out, mapped and categorized, the aftershocks of the quake, the aftermaths of the revelations, are more disturbing, more influencal.
Frequently, it turns out, there is more to a person than meets the eye; little by little, or sometimes quite suddenly, you realize there is much more “under the skin” of that human being than you had ever imagined.
You feel taken off guard, by words or actions, but even more so by the reverberation they evoke within you, of feelings and thoughts, either long forgotten or suppressed, or never really fully experienced. Welcome or unwanted, but indisputably a revelation and an awakening.
After such an experience, one may wish to go back to former ignorance, previous uncorrupted innocence of not knowing, not experiencing, not, in some case, indulging. It is all irrefutable. But how we choose to go on, when it comes to both feelings and dealings is not.
Sometimes the most unexpected, intense and mind unsettling experiences may lead to added insight, tolerance, closeness, alertness, motivation. Causing you to treasure and pursue new or awakened aspects of your life, parallel with an increased appreciation of what you already have. Optimally, if wisely contemplated and administered, this will enhance not only your own quality and scope of life, but also that of people around you.
negativity
One of the reasons I enjoy travelling, is getting away from all the clutter. Even though I am a minimalist at heart, in an active family of five, things tend to accumulate over the years. The fact that I have a “one thing in, one or more things out” policy, doesn’t seem to have any effect on the situation at hand.
Today I had a plan. Or a to-do-list. I often make lists. Usually, just before I go to bed I jot down things that reealy need to be done and things I’d like to have accomplished, but don’t grow stale if they wait another day. More often than not, therefore, the list comprises things that didn’t get done the previous day. It is strange, though, how things work, or don’t work out.
Some days I have lists stretching from now to eternity, and I know I have a snowball in Hell’s chance of having it all dealt with by the end of the day. And then, miraculously, everything gets ticked off, one by one. People in public offices pick up their phone after one ring. That special item I need to get hold of, preferably before yesterday, is in stock, at the first store I call. The presumed complicated, and therefore dreaded, text I need to finish just pop out of my head and hits the paper before I even have time to think. And before I am able stop, I am already well into a new one. The challenging meeting scheduled to last two hours, covers its agenda in 30 minutes. The always reoccurring dilemma, what to have for dinner-riddle, solves itself when I craftily disguise yesterday’s leftovers with a garnish of vegetables, garlic, red pepper and ginger. A scam that also saves me a shopping trip! And then, voila, everything is done, ship shape, dealt with. 
Moreover we have over the generations learned and had the possibility to build houses and prepare ourselves to literally weather out many a storm. So when “Berit”, a hurricane in places “providing” winds of 35 m/s and waves up to 36 meters high, just paid us a visit, the damage was huge, but not qualifying as a national disaster.
The most scary storms are usually the ones that strike without warning. Like the moody alpine winds, out of the blue sweeping down from the mountains, onto the unsuspecting blue calm of the Tuner See, in which the peaks themselves only seconds before reflected their majestic selves. Capsizing boats, throwing people overboard. 