Tranquility itself cannot be scheduled, but empty, quiet spaces can be reserved in ink. Such spaces ought to be defended, prioritized and guarded as vehemently as any commitment and obligation. Lest they be guarded, they will be lost; swallowed by the tyrannical magic of urgency. For the sum of the matter is this: there is not a place on the planet where stress finds cessation, but only the discovery that tranquility comes in the midst of chaos, not merely as the consequence of its demise. For indeed chaos, beautiful chaos, is the order of life itself. So chisel, carve, etch — make ritualistic bulwarks, high towers from which you can view the chaotic world from an Adirondack chair, sip on a piña colada, and revel in the enlightened awareness that tranquility runs concurrent to chaos, not linearly after it.

Found via Mr. Michie via:Ideas, Footnotes & Revelations by James Shelley on 7/26/11

(image by: Sandra Dieckmann)