Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Fleeting moments

Every once in a while, seemingly out of the blue, I will be struck by a penetrating "everything is gonna be alright" episode; a feeling that things will work themselves out, regardless of how dreadful life may appear at the time. For some reason, I had one of those moments yesterday morning. Maybe this particular experience is tied to having done unexpectedly well on an exam I took Monday night, or maybe it is Friday's trip to Tampa's Buddhist Vihara. Whatever the cause, I welcome these episodes the way a tree welcomes sunlight! With all the work going on in my life right now, it is incredibly easy to lose sight of the fundamental fact that life, in and of itself, has not been an unpleasant experience. I fall into the intellectual trap of letting external forces, or my perception of external forces, apply far too much pressure on my thinking. An unfortunate side effect of "thinking too much", I suppose.

But then, thinking too much is probably a better idea than thinking too little. Thinking too little tends to be the primary catalyst for many an internet video, usually prefaced by those famous last words, "Hey y'all, watch this". I would wager more than a few cataclysmic life events started with moments of too little thinking. So the problem is not necessarily thinking too much, it is thinking about the wrong things too much and too often. In my own life, the situation is that I expend far too much energy contemplating what is wrong with the human animal at the macro level, rather than focusing on what is right in my life at the micro level. I am not certain how this works for others, but all too often, I will find my internal processes invaded by some tidbit of information that sets my mind to work on the eternal ills of the human species, i.e. a SEC filing detailing our lay-off happy CFO's $900,000k+/year salary, or a story on the resurgence of teen pregnancy. It is almost as if my subconscious is continually building a case against goodness in the species.

When you find yourself in that sort of cycle, it becomes more difficult to see one's own goodness. That's the danger of focusing too acutely on Humanity's collective failure. For better or worse, mixing and intermingling with the masses means being exposed to all of the behaviors, good or bad, that define the human animal. Unfortunately, a great deal of these range from banal and boring to outright disgusting and dangerous. Introversion and isolation would seem to be a logical response, but the unfortunate truth is that we are hardwired to be social animals, so disconnecting completely will bring about its own negative outcomes. So we're left with sucking it up and living with "them", which is a very difficult thing to get excited about. Subsequently, the only real option is to turn your focus inward, so as to keep the world, or at least most of it, at arm's length. This way, it becomes possible to pursue yourself as a means to an end without succumbing to the negative influences of society at large.

Let's face it, a majority of society isn't doing much of anything in the way of positive, inspirational work. Most Americans seem to focus their lives on TV shows, sports teams, fornicating, making money, and/or getting intoxicated. There is not a whole lot to be optimistic about and we certainly do not seem ready for the next stage in evolution, so all one can do is live in accordance with some kind of vision or ideal, if one is so inclined. In my experience, the closer you get to your vision or ideals, the easier life becomes. Lately, I have been inching a tiny bit closer, so that could explain yesterday's "everything's alright" moment.

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Posted by Erik @ 4/09/2008 11:17:00 AM