Photo: stock image of Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein: “There is no there.”
My husband and I like to visit the dump. More often than not we'll find something interesting in the free store. My favorite area is the bookshelf. I picked up a book with quotes one day. One quote caught my eye. It was by Gertrude Stein and said: "There is no there.”
Interesting, but what does it mean? After thinking about it some more I decided to delve a little deeper to find the meaning. I believe I got it. It's interesting how, at one time or another, a topic comes up and suddenly you hear or read about it everywhere until it fades away. One of these topics, after being dormant for a while, bubbled up in my barber shop one day, and three customers and I tuned in. All three, through different but similar experiences, had recently made a decision to live-in-the-now. That reminded me of Gertrude Stein's quote and what I had read about the meaning of "There is no there.” This is what I learned:
It is not easy to define happiness, but it is certain that happiness is the absence of worries. Just think of your happiest moments. Were you thinking with regrets about the past or worried about the future? Or did what was happening at the moment make you happy? Worries are created in our mind and hinder us from experiencing happiness. "I'll be happy once I have lost fifteen pounds.”
“I'll be happy once I have a better paying job.”
“I'll be happy once I have more money, or when I'm done with college, or once I'm in a healthy relationship.”
“Once I'm out of here, and get there, everything will fall into place," we think. But, "There is no there." It is here. The time is now. We hurry through the days like mad. We fret, work, and do what we think we should be doing to get there. Instead, we should enjoy the moment. We are human beings, after all. We are not human doings. We really need to be beings in the present and not worry about the future and about what we're supposed to be doing. All the worries of today might never happen, but the chance that they could happen causes us stress. We follow shadows when our mind is busy with negative thoughts. Life will pass us by and we won't even notice it. We miss the best moments of our life. So, if in our minds today, we think we have to be there first in order to be happy, we must take a deep breath and stop. Is living in-the-now the answer to happiness? It is most likely easier said than done, but I’m happier already, now that the quote "there is no there" is no longer is a mystery. Thanks Gertrude!
Astrid Zoer, author of The Ladybug Ring, and a psychic medium, works at Life-Path Readings, a private reading-room located at Hendrik's Barbershop on Fourth and Alexander.