The beauty of midpoints?

Midpoints are one of the hidden wonders of the world, you have to keep your eyes open for them because they are elusive and can pass before you realise you have had one, they do not announce themselves and they tend to hide in plain sight. They are the point where things suddenly becomes easier, where you reach the halfway point of the journey, the place that marks the transition from going there to back again. There are midway points in everyday, many miss that afternoon tea is in fact the celebration of the point where you have been awake for half the day. Midpoints can be found in the middle of a stride when your body is in balance between swinging to the left and right or when word count hits five hundred and you have done half your work for the day, which is one of my favourite midpoints.

There are many words for midpoints, they can even disguise themselves as destinations in their own right. There are plenty of people who seeks balance, it seems to be an aspirational place that so many people are trying to get to rather than just having the experience of passing through. It is not somewhere we get to, it is not a permanent steady-state, it is something you pass through and oscillate about. We are not static beings, the only constant is change, evolution and progress, we have stories with beginnings, middles and ends, our energy varies from high to low and timing is everything. Indeed time is the dominant theme of our lives, it is both inescapable and the driving force behind our lives, impermanence, dissatisfaction and non-self arises from its existence and is an inherent consequence of any universe whose characteristics include time and space.

We can only understand the world through the lens of its physical characteristics, we are creatures of space-time and as such we can only experience it from within it and it's parameters. It is the only tool in most of our boxes to do so, our senses are attuned to experience the changes that happen over time, if we heard every sound that we were ever going to hear in one moment, our ears drums would literally burst, it is time that makes a song beautiful, you cannot experience a crescendo without it. It is time that gives us the pleasure of experiencing midpoints, but is up to you to recognise them, pay them due attention and bring your awareness into the moment that they occur, as they are never quite as sweet when you only recognise them in retrospect. It is time that gives us the beauty of midpoints, impermanence is the salt that gives life it's sweetness.

Once you are aware of midpoints, they can be found in so many things, in the middle of a meal in between hunger and satisfaction, a morning walk can be made sweeter with a coffee, and even prolonged for hours if you linger in a pub and enjoy a Sunday roast. They are found in all the processes of life, the middle of your career where your knowledge and experience is in balance with your vigour and energy. It is at the point where you suddenly start understanding a subject, your progression in a skill changes from the learning phase into competence and you start to journey towards mastery. These are the sweetest of moments, but they pass so quickly and even unnoticed if you are not careful, just the awareness that they exist will help you note them, though it is even better just to experience without internal commentary, judgement or reaction.

The best way to do that is with careful training in observation, we are not given a natural ability to just experience things, it is a skill that we have to learn, just like writing, reading, improvising and mathematics. Which always sounds like a disappointment, but for me is one the most hopeful things in the world, because skills are always learnable, thanks to our friend time, to learn any skill requires just two things effort and time. We all start out as beginners you cannot do something, we all fail repeatedly, that is the very definition of learning, of course it helps to have the humbleness to embrace failure as part of the process, and a fair helping of determination to carry on, but any skill can be learnt and observation is such a key skill, they should be taught in schools rather than left as an optional extra for adults to indulge in.

And the quickest way to learn the skill of observation is through meditation, which also has the added benefits of teaching us concentration and leadership detachment, but at it's core, meditation is the act of observation. Whilst there are ten thousand different methods, what they have in common is that you choose an object and you observe it, you can be your breath, body, a mantra or even your consciousness, and once you are able to observe one thing, you can begin to observe everything, it is merely a matter of becoming more skilfully and elegant in your actions. You become skilful in the basics so that you can undertake more advanced observation in the long run.

Midpoints are one of the most satisfying things that you can experience by observation, but they are difficult to observe because the passing of time. You only get one chance to experience each individual midpoint, they are moments of immense richness, they should be worked towards and when they occur they should be savoured, like the taste of salt in a rich soup or the silence in the symphony. They can pass without you even noticing, it is only your awareness that will bring your ability to experience by observation to the correct moment in time. However once you are able to do this, it is a skill that pays back your efforts with exponential interest, it keeps on giving you more and more pleasure, it deepens your satisfaction with every aspect of life because you have a repeating skill to experience the joy that is available in so many activity that seem on their surface dull and uninteresting.

It is only by paying attention to our lives that we get to truly enjoy them, if your happiness is conditional on certain things happening, you could end up delaying your happiness for your entire life because a new condition will always arise as soon as you think you are past the finishing line. However, invariably if you refuse to accept conditions on being happy, if you choose to be happy regardless of your external world, if you accept the challenge of finding happiness in this moment, it is always there waiting for you to observe it, and remember to enjoy the midpoint of your journey towards your goals.