An Anchor onto Reality

As I return from a brisk 3-hour ride on my bicycle my legs ache, I’m covered in a thin crust of sweat, and my stomach barks at me for food, but my life feels clear.  It is as if I have sweated out all of my worries and cares.  It is like my anchor that helps me from floating away into craziness.  The physical exertion helps me bring myself back to center, bring me back to sanity in what can sometimes be an insane world.  For example during the confusing time of a teenagers life known as high school, these long solo rides were an outlet for me to help make sense of this confusing time.  In the book A Question of Power the character Elizabeth battles with insanity.  She may go days on end in enthralled in visions within her mind, with no idea of what is going on in the real world around her.  However, she starts to be able to slash out the visions with the help of an “anchor.”

It all began to turn around for Elizabeth when she attained a job at the Motabeng Secondary School.  She got a job working in the garden.  Specifically, she works with the capegooseberry plant.  She is able to identify with the in that they are both not indigenous to the area.  Her job was something that she was able to take pride in.  During her work she is able to interact with many people, which helps her keep a grasp on reality.  Where as in the past she may have gone days on end with only the company of her delusions.  Now she is in the company of people that can help her keep her grasp on reality.  She also became very dedicated to her job in the garden which gave her another piece of reality which to grasp onto.  In here job at the school garden and the daily interaction Elizabeth was able to have to with real people she was able to develope an anchor into reality to help prevent her from drifting into her delusions.

So just a I am able to use bicycle riding to help me clear my mind and grasp onto my own reality, Elizabeth is able to use her job and the people of the garden to help her keep her own grip on reality.  For me it is the long period of seclusion with only the sound of my own breath and the occational passion car as company that helps me be able to keep check on the day-to-day craziness of life as a college student.  For Elizabeth it is the ability to occupy herself with a task and interact with other people that helps keep her out of the insanity of her own mind.