Editors’ Letter | Winter 2024/5


Gifts of the season, those that may be invisible to the eye.

City Style and Living Winter 2024/2025 Editors letter gifts of the season

/ Courtesy Press Loft

None of us really has anything. Nothing at all. For the blink of an eye, we rent a bit of water, some air, even this body. We are all just temporary tenants of this earth, this most sorrowful star. It is preposterously funny, when we really step back and observe ourselves, how seriously we take things. We really believe that we own things, we have things, we have control, we possess. We struggle and strain, labour and toil just to have things. Then, in a moment, when, by some (mis)fortune, they are taken away we are saddened, when, in truth, we have nothing. Conversely, and at the same time, we have everything. The paradox is startling.

We also spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make things go our way. We try by every means necessary to control our circumstances, to shape our experiences through sheer force of will. And, here again, it is just a little nudge here or there by some universal forces that I am too naïve to name, and everything falls to pieces.

I am more and more convinced that the only thing that we even have control over is our attitude toward things. That, I believe is the beginning and end of our will. That’s it, that’s the only thing we’ve got. Where the mind begins and the will ends, I am not sure. I just know that a clean, pure, peaceful mind can bear so much.
So, in this season of giving, I’ve resolved to give more. No, not things, not experiences, not even service. I will give those things that I know I have in spades. I resolve to give a smile to the doubter, a hug to the wearied, to uplift the downtrodden.

And then, I resolve to do the hardest work of all. I resolve to give myself contentment. I resolve to make joy my discipline. I resolve to enjoy things, everything, what I perceive as good and bad.

And finally, I shall remind myself of how much I have to be grateful for, to cherish and love. When I rise each morning, I will know that it is the best day of my life. My mantra shall be: You don’t have to have much, to have everything.


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