Apart from contemplating the nuanced aspects of reality, observing human behaviour is what I unwillingly spend much of my excess time on.
I don't know why, but my brain simply prefers to default to contemplation mode.
When I go for walks, it's usually with an almost empty slate, in terms of mental content to consume or distractions to hide behind. Just the rhythm of my steps and the silence.
But the silence is rarely empty for long, as it usually acts as a vacuum that pulls the world in.
I start with myself and then compare and contrast with all the observable people that come through my field of vision.
I see their rush, anxiety, fleeting joys, perceived suffering, etc. and I measure it against my own internal state.
For one, volatility is a constant and inevitable feature of this landscape. It is the rule, not the exception.
Humans bounce from elation to despair or certainty to confusion often within the span of a few hours. It happens so swiftly that we barely register the transition before we're swept into the next feeling.
I think this is the mud. To live is to be dragged through it. We are pulled through the mess of difficult conversations, painful setbacks, moments of doubt and stretches of boredom, which is simply what living feels like from the inside.
Silent observer, of sorts
However, as I look back on a relatively long time period, i.e separating the raw data of events from the feeling of having lived them, I always tend to notice a discrepancy.
There is a backdrop of sorts, a constant background of awareness that gets dragged through the mud but doesn't necessarily get dirty.
One could speculate endlessly on what this background of awareness is.
Is it the soul? Is it biology trying to maintain homeostasis? Or is it what the mystics call the "Witness"?
Experientially, it feels distinct from the events themselves.
If I had to employ an analogy, it would be along the lines of having guests at your place. In this case, the house is your awareness, and the guests are the experiences.
The guests are at your place, doing what guests do. A few are polite and bring gifts of happiness, they sit quietly in the parlor.
Some are rowdy, drunk on adrenaline or rage and they knock over vases and track dirt across the carpet.
Other guests, like grief, refuse to leave for weeks, sleeping on the couch and darkening the mood of the entire home. And so forth.
Needless to say, the house is not the guest.
The walls of the house will vibrate with the noise of the party while the structure itself remains the container of these temporary visitors.
Such is what it means to be dragged through the mud without becoming the mud.
Ideally, we feel it all deeply, that is, the party going on, the full vibrancy and dullness as guests with their different energies come and go.
But then, in terms of identity, we don't confuse ourselves with what passes through and recognize that something in us stays clean beneath it all.
Now, having recognition of such doesn't make the mud any less real.
However, it does help a lot to know the difference between what we are and what we experience and then act accordingly within any given situation.
Grief, for example, can be banished out of the house by simply removing the couch.
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