Among the crowds

A heightened level of diverse activity in my life of late has made for changed patterns of my daily doings. Like heavy rain swelling a river that then has its course altered or spills over its banks. I have not been able to hold to habitual ways and expectations, as everything is in flux.
Writing that, I instantly think, « Everything is always in flux! » And of course it is. Rivers are always gaining and losing water, always flowing, always draining and replenishing. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that sometimes this flux is more or less than at other times. Flux is impermanent. Flux is relative.
At the moment, mine is a bigger flux than at other moments.
Circumstances have found me steeped more than « usual » in the passions of the workplace, the marketplace, the household. I think of a line from a Talking Heads song: « How did I get here? »
In an old book of Buddhist texts, I find these verses from a poem by a 2nd-century Mahayana poet, Matrceta:

Your compassion, given free rein, made you pass your time
Among the crowds, when the bliss of seclusion was so much more to your taste.