Saturdays I generally find myself washing the bike and doing any required maintenance, prior to Sunday’s big ride.
I don’t know why, but I’ve got into the habit of listening to New Order while I do so. It is my bike-maintenance music.
Minds, eh? 🤷🏻‍♂️
Anyway, there’s a track called Restless, and I think it’s just the perfect word for describing the mind.
Because it never rests, does it? You can be having a perfectly lovely, productive, chilled, enjoyable moment, just living your life, and the mind’s all like,
📦🗣️: Whoa, hang on there now, fellah! This could definitely be better. Surely?
And off it goes.
It just won’t rest.
That’s what the song is all about:
RESTLESS
What can you buy that lifts a heavy heart up to the sky?
What makes your day?
What miracle of life has come to stay?
I want a nice car. A girlfriend who’s as pretty as a star.
I want respect. As much—as much!—as I can get.
But how much do you need?
How much, how much do you need?
Restless. I feel so restless.
It's a great song, you can have a listen to it here:
So, what’s the answer to this eternal restlessness?
- Give it what it wants? (I think you’ll find, it’ll only ever want more. It’s restless, see?)
- Try and get it to shut up? (Ha! Good luck with that. Its nature is restlessness, so fat chance!)
No, the answer is to see that it is simply of no concern to You. The only thing that’s ever concerned about the needy bleatings of a mind… is a mind itself.
(Minds are pretty dim like that - they can’t see that they're the source of their own restlessness 🙄)
You, on the other hand, are not restless.
(Note that in the lyric here, he doesn’t say “I am so restless” – it’s just an experience he’s having.)
Your TRUE NATURE is peace. Presence.
Lovely, productive, chilled and enjoyable – that’s You, that is. You can’t escape that.
And the way out? Is to quit the game.
We witness the restlessness of the mind, shrug our shoulders, and get on with the real job of living a life of inner peace.
Enjoy your Saturday!
đź’ź
Giles
p.s. You can listen to the whole album for free on YouTube here:
Visit New Order's YouTube Channel to listen to Music Complete