I
recently sat with a few dear friends and enjoyed life with rare beer,
wine with my city's namesake and a few fine cigars. As our conversation
naturally fluttered about to several different topics and many threads
of thought were woven into the fabric of what makes up a really nice
evening, the idea of memory and happiness settled upon me. I attempted
that night to talk about it but somethings are better left alone after a
few glasses of Bordeaux and Guinness Foreign Extra. I have been
thinking of where happiness dwells for us humans and how we interact
with our experiences that make up happiness or unhappiness. I thought of
Siddhārtha
Gautama and his teachings of the 4 noble truths. I like the first two.
They, I think, present the idea of why there is SOME of pain in this
world. Reasons being that we want what we can't have, we try to hold
onto things that are not meant to be held onto, etc..(I am grossly
paraphrasing). I also thought of C.S. Lewis' second installment of The
Space Trilogy, Perelandra. In which a character is meditating on the
idea of pleasure, memory and the desire to hold on to the moments in
which we find pleasure and happiness. She realizes that life comes in
waves. The waves brings all moments of life to us, good and bad. When we
attempt to hold on to things and therefore keep a wave in place, we
kick against the inevitable and try the impossible. One cannot hold back
the waves of life and so in trying to do so we will naturally be
swimming against the current sort of speak. Life will be dissatisfying
and increasingly frustrating. Were I will stray from Gautama, is how to
deal with not the pleasant things of life but the unpleasant and
painful. We cannot delete longings and wants from our being. They are
written in our DNA. This is ONE of the things that separates us from the
beast. We desire to transcend just daily living. This drive and will
brought forth the wheel, the trans oceanic ships, thought up the steam
engine, designed the air foil, split the atom(that is debatable if that
is good or not) and put mankind in outer space. Ridding oneself of all
desires and longings will not give peace to you. It merely buries the
head in the sand. There is no life without pain and suffering. I do not
want to be presumptuous about this as I have not experienced heavy
suffering as of yet and I want to be respectful of those who have, but
telling a victim of war and famine that deleting their wants and desires
will bring them to a place where nothing bothers them is, I think,
flawed and a bit escapist in practice. Rather I call to mind Phil
chapter 4. The idea of being content in situations of plenty and of
want. Then James chapter 1 and the call to be joyful not happy of course
but joyful about meeting trials of many kinds. In further reading,
Peter calls people to rejoice and to expect suffering and trials. Now if
these were written by men who sat on cushy bums and lived lives of
luxury and ease then I would find great faults with these ideas and even
question if they even has any idea of what suffering felt like. However
each author of these seemingly counter intuitive exhortations and
encouragements spent the majority of their lives being thrown into
prisons, receiving beatings, alienated from friends, family and their
cultures and then all three left this world via a painful and horrible
death. I think they had a grasp what suffering was and what true joy and
happiness was.
I
am sitting in a coffee shop and the dark clouds and rains have fallen
and not the ridiculously blue sky is above me and the sun is shining
down. Darkness will continue to return, the rains will be back, thunder
will roll again but the sun will come back as well. So we should not
hold on to what we cannot grip or dwell on the things we do not have but
to live life with the proper respect of each moment that we are in. Not
always looking back to what was and therefore being unable to see where
we are going or looking too far in advance and missing out on what is
happening to us now. I will have moments of great happiness but I cannot
try to hold onto them anymore than to enjoy them for what they are,
great moments on the passing wave and then to turn and be ready for what
He brings me on the upcoming wave. If that be a trial of any kind, then
I can rejoice and persevere through it as that wave also shall pass.
