Hmm. Stop drinking, get some excercise, devote some time to free-form thinking without distraction and you find yourself philosophizing again on a solitary walk home.
Working theory: at some point near maturity you come to a divergence on the path of mindset. You’ve been getting along fine with boundless enthusiasm and limitless optimism but here you are with more than a couple decades of Life’s Little Lessons and the load is getting to be quite a drag. Down the one branch you have the metaphorical equivalent of painting yourself into a corner. Down the other you have a somewhat Zen acceptance of the world you live in. Both paths represent a kind of acknowledgement of the reality of your situation.
In the painted corner you have the luggage of years weighing heavily on your shoulders. Your vision has become more tunneled than panoramic. You have set your opinions and you’ve come to realize than your lot in life is not especially glamorous or heroic. You punch your clock and look forward to brief vacations that you generally spend dreading going back to work. You secretly or not so secretly wish you were somewhere else. Or someone else. Doing something else. Or someone else. You sigh a lot and you feel tired, but everyone else seems to feel the same way you do and you all have a good laugh over it. You all shake your collective heads ruefully and shrug, c’est la vie. You envy your kids and reminisce a little too much about the good ol’ days, and you’re not even forty. You know your life isn’t bad and you’re even prety content. You’re having some good times and you can see lots of people around you who are a lot worse off so you can’t really complain. But you do.
Down mischiff’s path of enlightenment (tm, lowercase intentional) you have the same load carving furrows in the path behind you. Of course you do, you’re the same person as that other guy with the tunnel vision. But maybe parts of this freight of experience are helping out a little. Maybe they don’t weigh so heavily or maybe they even share the burden. They’re a part of you, after all. You don’t have that bright and glowing esprit so much now, because you’ve accepted that to really effect change in this world, to really make a difference, the most efficient track is to use the system. Butting heads hasn’t done much for you except give you a headache, much like yelling at a traffic jam. You’ve sensed that there is phenomenal magic in the idea of… well, dancing. Learn the steps better than anyone else in the system and eventually you’re the one calling the shots. New ideas are like candy to you. Change is a welcome respite from tedium and tunnels. Where the word possibility used to be a mysterious and ephemeral thing, now it surges with real palpable force, and you’re the one in control. (There is a card on Jen’s desk that says To truly have control you must surrender it. I think this is what they’re talking about. Or if they aren’t they should have been.)
In that traffic jam guest-starring the two possible yous you now have the guy resigned to a life of routine and familiarity. Of mindset. This is Road Rage Guy. And the other guy, the you with the fluid mind, who brought some good cds.
One gets mad at the waiter and the other knows the waiter didn’t cook the steak.
One feels it necessary to belittle others to feel superior. The other knows everybody makes mistakes and the details are hardly the important thing.
One complains that The City (the Strata Council, the Police, the Government, the Universe) isn’t doing enough. The other is wondering what he could do to make things easier for everyone involved.
One thinks the world owes him something. The other is just happy to be here.
Sure I’ve oversimplified. Sure I’ve drawn cliched stereotypes. And sure you’ve probably seen a bit of yourself in both of those people, although you’d probably like to think you lie more on mischiff’s enlightened side ™.
The truth is that it’s all shades of gray, and that’s kind of my point in the end. We’re so hell-bent on pigeon-holing, sound-biting, summarizing and simplifying, and that’s completely, flat-out all the time wrong.
The truth is that you can’t sum it all up in a convenient one-liner. You can’t get The Truth from any one source. No one is Right. No one has Got It All Figured Out. No one knows The Truth or can sum it all up for you in an exquisite haiku.
You are half wrong about half of the things you believe to be truths. And you’re completely wrong about a few things you believe to be absolute truths. If you know that you could be wrong, no matter how much consideration, research and insight you’ve given, and you accept that as writ, then you can make decisions without fear. Flexible thinking, being not only open to change but actively seeking options and new ideas guarantees that you will make more informed and smarter decisions.
You don’t know it all, but you know the important thing: you don’t know it all.
This Enlightened You also held on to the second most important thing: it (life, the world, the Strata Council) doesn’t have to be this way.
Working theory: people venturing down mischiff’s path of enlightenment, tm, tend to be happier with less, tend to have more fun, and tend to live longer (barring extreme sports accidents).
But I could be wrong.
Well put Adrian. An individual has more control over their reality then they even know, as is slowly being illustrated by developing String and Quantum Phsyics theories. The funny thing is that these formulae at the apex of Western theoretical scientific experimentation are simply rein.forcing teachings of ancient Eastern philosophy and religion. Perspective is the key word here.
“You secretly or not so secretly wish you were somewhere else. Or someone else. Doing something else. Or someone else.” — Why not?
To me, ultimate freedom is being able to give up a mind set that traps you in this impotent state of recurring longing.
True freedom and divine spirituality is being able to confront your inner desire and meet it head on. Provided, of course, it’s being done not to escape a current hardship (read: lesson in the waiting) and rather to reach the next rung of enlightenment because you’re comfortable with the lessons learned where you’re at. The hard part is mustering the willingness to abandon part of an established ego to venture into the unknown and answer the longing. I haven’t been on this Earth long enough, but a little voice tells me that it gets easier the more you do it.
-G