Kuiering v Pricing

Stillness can come not through the absence of thought, but through a point of focused engagement. 

I am at my happiest when I am absorbed in a deep and meaningful conversation with someone. My favourite word is Kuier. It doesn’t have a direct translation, but I interpret it as a warm spending of time. There is catch-up. There is content. There may be wine. 

Yet the point of focus is really an appreciation of the other human being rather than being defined by another goal. An attempt to see each other. Like the wonderful greeting... Sawubona... I see you. 

I get into a state of flow by diving into learning things. When I feel a sense of meaning soaking in as I chip away at complexity. Flashes of insight before I get swallowed once again by confusion and doubt. Wondering in the grass rather than lost. Stumbling. Grappling. Connecting. 

Everyone finds flow in a different place. Which is why relationships are one of the essential basics to come back to. To invest in. To make yourself available to people. Partly so that when you need them there is pre-loaded reciprocity. We can tell if someone is interested in us simply because they want something now. 

Part of Kuiering is a lack of urgency. Part of pricing is manufactured discontent and immediacy. Kuiering is comfortable where it is. Pricing creates a feeling of wanting to be somewhere else. Kuiering releases expectation. It notices. Pricing creates expectation. It contrasts. Kuiering needs a person. Pricing needs a problem. 

I am lucky to have a wide circle of friends. I find each of them is able to see me in a slightly different way. I understand, and see, and kuier with, myself better through those relationships.

No better place to be

Near and Now

There is a tale of Alexander the Great coming across a yogi as he was venturing and conquering east. The yogi was sitting on a rock. Who has lived the good life? Look at all the things Alexander has done! Bertrand Russell’s book “In Praise of Idleness” opens up our weird relationship with the conspicuous. Our preference for fake work over space and reflection. 

We are not well trained to kuier. To spend and savour time with each other. When kuiering with someone, you turn off the measurement. Perhaps you are laughing with someone to the point it is contagious. Where the laughter goes beyond the joke, and you have a moment where you look at the person and think, “I am so glad you exist”. 

A connection that has nothing to do with weighing and measuring. You just see the other person, and get a sense that they are a part of who you are. Not the part of you that passes. The part you really connect with. 

The glorious nature of being human, is that when you are that connected, you can always feel that person's presence. Even if they physically die, they are a part of your story. You can close your eyes, and they are still there. Bending space and time. A close family friend described this beautifully in a recent virtual memorial after the unexpected passing of his wife due to Covid. The sense of her being near and now.

Map of Alexander's Empire and Route

Michael

He was just tired. He had tried. He didn’t feel like trying anymore. It didn’t to seem to make a difference. Life seemed to be living him rather than him living life. Every decision he made seemed to result in a bunch of other things going wrong. So what was the point? 

Michael closed his eyes and sank into the couch. He took a breath. Counted. Tried to make the inhalation and exhalation match in length. Tried to slow it down. Then remembered his friend telling him not try so much. Not to use the word try.

Trying. Tried. Tired.

Job. Kids. Stuff. Michael felt he had never really taken a decision despite angsting over almost every step until his feet had been forced forward.