Mundane Monday Musings

~ tidalscribe.com

Do you ever wonder what really is real life. Assuming that we are real and not a computer dreaming, have we attained the human condition we should all aspire to if we live in peace, well fed with time to indulge in the arts and creativity? Or is real life a daily battle against the elements to grow enough food to survive, pitting your wits and using your strength to hunt and kill enough to feed your family. Even worse, is real life facing death at any moment as you are attacked and invaded and must defend yourself and your people?

Maybe our earliest ancestors led a peaceful life, with a human population so small nobody needed to fight over land. Life was in tune with nature and the seasons, social life was chatting about the mammoth hunt and telling tales around the fire as you ate mammoth steaks.

If you are bored living in the comfort zone you can leave it to trek to one of the poles or up Mount Everest. The bravest people are those who leave their own countries and take their medical and other skills to war zones. If they manage to return home safely how mundane must our ordinary lives seem.

If Aunty Joan complains she has to wait for her hospital appointment perhaps the adventurer will suggest she is lucky her hospital has not been destroyed by a missile attack. If the nephew complains he could not get his favourite cereal at the supermarket, they might point out he is lucky to have food at all. If the adventurer’s sister tells him her anxiety has been bad he might point out they don’t have time for anxiety in the Gaza Strip or Ukraine.

You don’t have to leave your own country or even your own home to be plunged out of your comfort zone. If you work for the emergency services you will certainly see real life. For ordinary members of the public storms, flash floods and wild fires can mean destruction of their home and security as well as all their possessions.

Some of our chat at home or over coffee with friends will be about the awful state of the world and local dramas on the news, but most of us still enjoy gossip about work and our neighbourhood that would mean nothing to anyone outside our little circles. Any trip to the shops or day out becomes a dramatic story.

In the comfort zone

It was so windy last night all the food bins were in the middle of the road.

My patio chairs blew onto the lawn!

I saw Kate on the bus on Tuesday.

Oh how is she?

Fine, got her appointment at last.

I thought I was never going to get here, the puddles, I tried to dodge them but still got my shoes wet.

Next door have got a leak…

That white car has been parked outside my house for three days now…

Have you started watching that new series?

Was that the bloke that was in that other series?

No, you’re thinking of that other chap who was on Strictly…

Are we hiding away from real life or keeping civilisation alive?

Have you ventured outside the comfort zone or suddenly found yourself in the danger zone?

The perfect peaceful zone…

43 thoughts on “Mundane Monday Musings”

    1. Ha ha, I think they got a bad press. We had an illustrated history book at junior school which I really liked and I can still see the dramatic picture of a Viking towering over a prostrate peasant woman plunging his sword into her chest!

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  5. Excellent ‘mundane’ musings for a Monday … a timely reminder that for most of us, the things that annoy or anger us are but mere drops in the bucket compared to what all too many are going through just in their effort to survive. Thank you for reminding us … we all need to step back and look at the bigger picture for a few minutes.

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  7. What a wonderful and wise meditation. I really enjoyed reading that.
    In answer to your question, I live my whole life outside my comfort zone as a permanent nomad with no fixed abode. Before that, I sought excitement at home and abroad – tiger cuddling, medieval combat, mountain biking, martial arts, skiing, white water rafting…
    I have always been a thrill seeker and think it must be a deep human need and in some way to compensate for the fact we in the West do live such sheltered lives. Perhaps we’re just programmed to anticipate that sabre toothed tiger or an incursion from a warring clan.
    I can’t imagine the poor people who are escaping from famine and war zones are trying to come to the UK for the bungee jumping.
    In the context of the world, so many of our problems in the West are so trivial. Travel has helped me to understand that. This year, we saw numerous Bulgarian villages where people still collect water from a well – and that’s in the EU! Mark and I played a road game, ‘Occupied or Derelict’. We drove through Bulgarian villages and decided which houses were occupied or derelict. To look at them, most looked derelict, half falling down, and with broken windows, holes in the roof. Yet the majority were occupied, evidenced by laundry outside, chickens in the yard or a satellite dish.
    We need to count our blessings!

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    1. Hello Jacqueline, thanks for contributing to the discussion, the first input from someone outside the comfort zone. I remember when we felt the earthquake in Perth, WA and when I had a Christmas job in Harrods and we were all evacuated after an IRA bomb went off inside the store, my first thoughts were ‘This is Real life!’ I might not have thought that if actual danger to me had been involved.

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  10. Greetings from Romania! I found myself in the danger, as a 21 years old student, during the Revolution. And I found myself helping a little, as much as I could, the Ukrainian refugees a year or two ago. These being the most extreme things.

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    2. Reading the Wrong Way it’s seems incredible now how many IRA bombs there were and the awful devastation. I had a Xmas job in Harrods 1974 and one Saturday I was last tea break at the top of the building. In the Ladies I heard a muffled thump and ( my son-in-law was amazed at this ) I thought it was ‘just another’ IRA bomb. I walked out to see all the escalators switched off and the whole place deserted except for a couple of security blokes telling me to get out! As we all evacuated the building we could see thick black smoke pouring out of the corner. Due to staff vigilance and good metal shutters, no one was hurt. It was surreal and exciting to be honest, but you can imagine my parents’ in Australia hearing on the news Harrods had been bombed, wondering why on earth I had left safe little Perth.

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  13. I took myself out of my “comfort zone” at the age of 16, leaving a badly dysfuntional and violent family home. I hitchhiked all over Canada and some into the States, seldom with any money in my pocket. I faced dearh in many various ways. And I survived to tell the tales. Real life can be nasty, but the more confidence you gain with each passing emergency, the stronger you become.
    I have never been a violent man, not even as a last resort — but I learned to talk my way out of violent situations. Now I’m an old man, fighting my own body which I mistreated badly as a youth, and this fight I cannot talk my way out of. But even this does not scare me.
    Living in South Gaza would scare me, or Ukraine, because you can’t see bombs coming till too late, but you can hear them coming, and know each thought might be your last. How anyone can use such weapons against any living beings I have no idea, inhumane is too weak a word. We need to find a way to peace — world peace! There is no other option, without it hunanity will not survive, no matter how many of us there are.

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    1. Thanks for joining in the conversation with your valuable contribution. Certainly you know life outside the comfort zone and it must be the hardest when you haven’t had a safe base to start from. Yes it is so easy for any group with power of some sort to wreak destruction on the innocent, such a terrible waste.

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  15. Pingback: Reblogged – Mundane Monday Musings – Karen J. Mossman

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