Etymology
Advent; arrival, coming into being, new stuff
adventure; exciting experiences and enterprises.
It might be that this advent what you would most welcome is for a mysterious but benign disease to strike everyone but you safely unconscious over the Christmas period so you could spend a few days sleeping, eating and bimbling about without interference or persecution. Rest, peace and quiet etc might be just what the chiropodist ordered but what happens when it becomes our default ambition?
Entomology
Insects undergo metamorphosis. For some (Hemimetabola) this means a series of skin moults (ecdyses) for others (Holometabola) a period of radical transformation is necessary for them to reach adulthood (see below sketch from children’s school assembly). The deal is; no adventure, no development and maturity.
Insect Larvae sketch
2 caterpillars (humans in sleeping bags) sat on a leaf. Geraldine is a cheerful friendly, accepting caterpillar Clive is a worrier …
Geraldine Here, Clive! What’s that you’re eating?
Clive Oh hi, Geraldine, cabbage!
Geraldine But you were eating that yesterday and the day before!
Clive Yes isn’t it wonderful! I love cabbage. Cabbage, cabbage everyday cabbage!
Geraldine Don’t you fancy a change every now and then?
Clive Don’t say that word! You know how much it scares me.
Geraldine “Change”? Oh, yeah sorry, Kevin said that to you yesterday and you got right upset…. Where is Kevin? He was here earlier.
Clive I don’t know I stopped listening to him after he said the C word.
Geraldine In fact, where has everybody gone? There used to be loads of us on this cabbage and now it’s just me and you. Weird.
Clive I don’t know but I don’t want to think about it. I just want to stay here with all the cabbage a caterpillar can eat.
Geraldine I had that dream again yesterday – you know the one where I can fly and I drink from flowers and I’ve got huge flappy wings.
Clive It must have been those nasturtiums you nibbled. Sounds like a perfectly beastly dream.
Geraldine I don’t know, I found it exciting. Scary but exciting!
Clive Geraldine! Stop being ridiculous. We’re caterpillars and caterpillars can’t fly!
Geraldine Hmm, yeah well you’re probably right wriggles off and disappears from view
Clive Of course I’m right. The way to happiness is for us to stick with what we know. It couldn’t get any better than this could it – cabbage for breakfast, cabbage for lunch, cabbage for dinner cabbage for supper and all the cabbage a caterpillar can eat between meals? If God had designed us to become different, well all that pain and inconvenience would come naturally wouldn’t it Geraldine? … Geraldine? … Geraldine!
There are times when arrested development makes sense. Naturally some amphibians may delay becoming adults because of environmental constraints. Some can even reproduce without becoming properly adult. This is called neotony. We’ve bred a degree of it into wolves and we call them dogs - it’s more convenient for us if our house animals don’t fully mature into animals that eat us.
By trying to avoid adventure we can avoid most pain, confusion, discomfort, fear… We also avoid growth, development, maturity… How much sense is there in our own arrested development?
You might think that you’ve got enough adventure – what with the job, family, decorating and plutonium leak. Are you growing as a result of these adventures? Are you enjoying the results? If not, the chances are you could use some time to think about them and spot the decisions you could make in order to get a better grip. That was what advent was designed for. It’s also the purpose of life coaching.
Choose your adventures. Grow through them. Know freedom, juicy freedom.
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