Pursuing Good is the Ecology of Me: it nurtures the soul and the body with good home-cooked food and helps flush out polluting toxins. We grab something that floats, then we lounge around in the water and enjoy the splashing as we gradually float away from the shore and its racket. The tide carries us a little further out but we aren’t worried. We have faith that all is well. We are calm, finally at peace and we think of Good. But what is it that exactly? Valid question.
An absolute truth (one Great Rule that holds true for all and forever) or a host of details (what suits me right now or what suits you?). It is not a credo or a philosophy but a daily exercise similar to Buddhist meditation (which according to Borges it simply practicing redemption), yoga, kung fu, making good wine, ikebana, love, lounging around in the sea recharging your batteries.
You may be disturbed by a thought and generally it will be a fearful one: and if a shark comes by? Bye-bye battery recharge. But trusting Good exists (and that we will thus have plenty of warning that a sea monster is in the offing) imbues you with extraordinary, magical powers. Such as ability for empathy and intuition that allows individuals with a particular talent or who have done a lot of practice, to transmit joy and also heal both themselves and others as well as intuit what is going to happen. You can see Good in others too. You just have to ask yourself are this person’s intentions Good? The answer will usually come on its own, straight from your gut. It may be a yes or a no but it will be instantly clear.
You have to practice these inner paths. How? Holidays are the perfect time. To be honest, you don’t have to do much. Just concentrate and tell yourself we are part of the Good. Perfect add-ons for this kind of meditation here on the Costa include a good local wine, a little corner of nature or, best of all, the top of a big smooth granite rock, a belly full of good Gallura ravioli and (why not?) a double barrelled shotgun as a shark-deterrent (also for their Good).
