Sweat The Small Stuff

When my nephew was dying of cancer before he got to forty but having lived a life of some variety, was told by his nurse in the hospice ward when his morphined fingers couldn't open an ice cream cup, "Don't sweat the small stuff". He laughed. And that works for someone who has the huge matter of dying at hand. I say, Sweat The Small Stuff. The Small Stuff is usually the origins of the big issues. What is the Small Stuff? It's small, seemingly insignificant things that don't cost coinage or ask for far away places. When you watch a spider building a web, you're seeing the "small stuff" that is so gigantically important that no one notices. If all spiders stopped making webs what would the ripple down effect be? If there were no spiders, what might happen? All natural things are only part of something much larger and essential to all of the other ones. Man appears to think he has control of all of it, but we are learning that Man doesn't. Even though Man has a good grip on trying to. Natural forces disprove his dominance over Earth. A virus, for example, can take control of the entire globe. Natural "disasters" that are disasters to Man but normal in the natural world send Man into paroxysms of media yellings. Movements of a changing earth send Man into spending its resources from its over use of and destructive management of, some parts of the planet into building fortresses against others. It acts, thus, against itself.  But it's not all bad news. There are those who care about what happens, but aren't the kind who rant and shout, carrying signs and screaming at other Man. The ones I speak of are people who do Sweat The Small Stuff. They take time, and lots of it, to walk in parks, not to admire the arranged gardens with their weed killers and bug deterrents, but to look at the tiny insects that live there, the small animals on the ground and in the air that few notice.  Who stop and look and listen and feel without a gizmo stuck in their ear  having to know what their friends are doing every second of their lives and experiencing nothing but canned life. There are  people of the earth who care, truly, what happens on earth in a "cellular" way. They don't have to diet or gym or read  or watch or earn or learn or create. They know what to do and what not to do naturally, and they choose to live as close to the natural and small truths of life on this beautiful resourceful planet responsibly without making great commercial hype or media attention in the doing of it. They are people with no particular amount, if any, of money. The don't need to dress up in the latest  costume or run the fastest car or go to the best resorts or get their hair done. They can sit in their backyards, on their decks or window ledges in the middle of a large and busy city and still see and hear and feel the small things that matter: the cloud formations, the moon, the birds, the greenery, the sun, the rain, the wind.  They are the ones who, no matter where they are, stop to see an ant and its fellows carrying eggs from one safe place to another and through it, the small stuff, feel the movement of the universe. They are the ones who listen to song birds and their callings or watch the waves coming over the sand or hear
the rain fall or the wind in the trees. They sit for hours, just sitting and waiting for something small to happen and almost always find it and its importance. They see the moon still round and white and silent "moving westerly" in the morning sky where it seems to have lingered too long in its night. They see a bee doing its work on the blossom of a bean plant. They watch the baby breathe and see its eyes move and wonder what the dream is. All these and billions more treasures await those who are willing to  Sweat The Small Stuff.