A child, named Tommy, sits on a step. Tommy is three. He likes dinosaurs and apples, and he is just learning to tie his shoelaces. As he does so, his inexperienced fingers get caught up in the loops he is attempting to string. This is not going to plan. He realises he is struggling, that he cannot do something that he so wants to do.

A fog of frustration appears, furrowing his brow and scrunching his eyes. A glowing irritation gives way to a burning anger, sending up plumes of exasperation and dissatisfaction. These stupid shoelaces, and these stupid fingers, and stupid his mum, and these stupid shoes, and this stupid me.

Tommy. You poor, poor child. You watch on, as these words ring and echo across your mind. You can see that the shoelaces really do not matter. That it is so inconsequential, not only in the grand scheme of all things, but even within the minutiae of Tommy’s day. You want to pick him up, and give him a hug, and console him and tell him that everything is okay.

Like Tommy, we all struggle against the knots in the shoelaces tied by our rampant minds. One of the greatest blessings I have been given is a generally happy disposition. Optimistic, smiley, cheery, and looking at the world as refracted by a glass half full. But sometimes, often for no obvious reason, the glass inverts, and I am saddened.

***

Last week, I found myself in Baltimore, MD. Waking up a little jet-lagged and unexpectedly depressed, I went to the hotel gym and took a walk along the harbour front. Pathetic fallacy was ripe, and the morning was bleak. A sea of grey that washed from the sky, through the buildings, and into the ocean beside me.

I kicked imaginary tumbleweeds, and looked up to the skies for something, anything; any mood other than the dissatisfaction that coloured my present experience. Without warning, and with great aplomb, six policemen zipped past me on my inside right, riding low-slung Harleys bedecked with lights and whistles.

Behind them came a dude-ish type on a bicycle, who shouted to me over his shoulder, “There’s twenty-eight hundred runners coming up behind me.” This stampede was not of one form – not solely steam-rolling bison, or streaking cheetahs – but a Noah’s-Ark-collection of all shapes and sizes.

The front runners, all sporting Nike Air Zoom AlphaFly 3’s and high-performance Lycra, furtively glanced at those beside them. Those behind, in cotton t-shirts and shoes that don’t carry a £300 price tag, strained to keep sight of an imaginary time that was slipping away. Others, panting and gassing and sweating from pores that were themselves gasping for air.

On this Saturday morning, 2,800 people had dragged themselves out of bed and got themselves to the race’s starting point. In the days and weeks prior, they had each paid $70, and almost invariably spent much time training. They were now here, busting their guts out, and chasing down something entirely invisible.

Normally, I would have been sincerely delighting in their showing. Inspired, motivated, rejoicing in the stubbornness of the human spirit to push on in the face of senselessness. In staring nihilism in the eye, and instead choosing existentialism: recognising that this all may be pointless, but let us create new phenomena and defy limits and improve our experience for the sake of doing so.

Normally, this is exactly how I view the project of life. But on this day, my heart sunk further with an all-conquering sadness.

They all looked so stressed. So preoccupied, so frantic, and so confused. Clouded by the lactic acid in their legs and the tightness in their chests. But more so, by their obsessive, looping thoughts about their time, or their position, or some imagined feeling that they would reach on the other side of the finish line.

Then they could be happy: then they would be enough; then they could stop chasing and exerting and just enjoy being.I longed to stop each of them, and to hold them tight, and to tell them over and over and over that they were okay; that they were enough; that they didn’t have to feel the way I did. You poor, poor children.

***

Like water through a burst dam, more runners gushed past. Abruptly the sadness turned to hysterical laughter, at the silliness of it all. So tragically absurd it all suddenly seemed. My laughing was pronounced enough, that I had to walk away and shield my face from the runners.

Thinking back on my laughter, I am reminded of the observation made often by playwrights, philosophers and other observers, that life is a tragedy when viewed close-up but a comedy when seen from afar.

“Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humour itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no sorrow in heaven.” – Mark Twain

Twain’s insight nails much of this feeling, although pathetic is far too harsh a word. Something more like achingly confused, or perhaps maddeningly lacking perspective, is more accurate. We poor, poor children, soaked by such sorrow that we cannot help but laugh at ourselves. If heaven exists, or were it to, there indeed would be no humour of this variety there.

Transcending this duality of comedic tragedy is, to my mind, exactly what transcendence in a spiritual capacity means. Born from an internalisation of the twin Buddhist notions of emptiness and impermanence. That whatever you’re chasing will inevitably vanish. That whatever you believe you own is merely rented or borrowed. And that whatever you cherish, will someday succumb to the shifting sands of entropy.

I speak this not from a place of elevation. More often than not, when the words “You poor child” traverse my mind, they are said to myself after a period of suffering. Stress, panic, anxiety, fear, sadness, or unpleasant distraction. When wound around a spool of irritation, or scrunched up in the palm of needless anxiety, for minutes or hours at a time.

“You poor, poor child” are not words of chastising or condemnation. They are of compassion, and empathy. What a blighted and cruel condition being human is, when we lack the perspective to see out of it and past our Self. We grow older, and we armour ourselves with ideas and knowledge and experience. But at our core, there remains the same child that was always there. Confused, wanting of adulation and consolation, and wanting to be told that everything is okay.

***

You are doing so good. I mean this sincerely, and I mean this from the ground of my being. You are doing so so good. Life is hard, and life is exhausting.

We live in an exceptionalist society, wherein we reserve positive judgement for the most extraordinary acts. Feats of endurance, works of artistic brilliance. Phenomenal grades, or promotions and pay rises and titles and positions.

Such acts I applaud, and I remain a believer in the value of pushing ourselves further than previously thought possible. But such achievements are outlying events, and are entirely insignificant when compared to the infinite number of unrecognised victories.

Waking up in the morning. Getting out of bed. Brushing your teeth and taking a shower. Making breakfast, eating it, and getting yourself to work. Looking after your children, and finding a brave face which you unreservedly give to them. Socialising, and keeping up with friends, and checking in on your parents, and smiling as you do so. Going to bed, and finding the strength to know you’ll do it all over again.

Look for ways to be better in your relationships and your practices but be kind to yourself. Through meditation and compassionate practice, create more space for recognising in yourself and others how well you’re doing. When you cannot do your laces up, or others struggle to do theirs, recognise this, and hold each of us poor children in an embrace of love and understanding.

This is as it is. You are as you are. And you are so good at being you.