Today I saw a young-ish, whitish, long-ish haired guy in a baseball cap and a mustache driving a thunderous truck with his arm out the window. As he rounded a corner onto a dirt road, his tires kicked up a cloud of dust, I could see that sitting next to him was (I assume) his gal.
It made me think how so much of our frightfully limited time and energy is eaten up in striving to maintain not only our gross physical stuff, but more important, the idea that what we have actually belongs to us, and somehow it all adds up to a life worth living and dying for.
I imagined this guy working year after year, inside some corrugated metal building, pausing only to inhale cigarette smoke. It gets so hot in there you could get blinded by the sting of your own sweat and lose half your hand in the machinery.
I imagined how long and hard he worked—not only just to pay bills, feed and shelter himself and his gal, maintain his truck, possibly a beer habit and a dog or two or three—but to hold on to the precious thought that “this is what I wanted, I still want it, I’m going to do anything to hang on and make it worth the effort.”
I’ve imagined— too frequently— that my satisfaction is magically contained in the objects of my desire themselves, and that my strong desire to enjoy should itself be accepted as legal tender everywhere.
We rightly believe that some kind of happiness is our right, and we go on seeking it, despite so much disappointment and difficulty.
Sometimes we can’t afford what we’re desperate to have. Or we get it and turns out there’s something that bothers us so much about it—something we couldn’t see before but now can’t ignore—so much we kick ourselves for ever wanting it.
What if this particular guy, with the real truck and girl and the imaginary dog, somehow lost his grip on (what I imagined was) the fabric of his fantasy—that he was the center of a world, where all the things he wanted were only waiting for him to acquire, develop, and enjoy them?
How could he go on living without believing the carrot on the end of his stick would someday, upon coming into his possession, make him a kind of god?
Bhakti-yoga really is the end of the line, but not before most of us have tried beer.
What the hell are you talking about?
It’s okay to talk to yourself, just know where the conversation is going ;o)
Yeah—that can be a challenge sometimes! As Kenneth Atchity says, “Don’t sit down to write until you know what you’re going to write.”
Haha..u are a good writer..I linked you in my blog Gourmet Gopi, some of my cooking class students may get some food for thought with toi! 🙂
ys
Gopi
Haribol and thanks! I must now check out Gourmet Gopi! ED
«Sometimes we can’t afford what we’re desperate to have. Or we get it and turns out there’s something that bothers us so much about it—something we couldn’t see before but now can’t ignore—so much we kick ourselves for ever wanting it.»
Yeah, I know how you feel sometimes.
Stephen Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, tells of his research on two hundred years of “success literature” in America. For the first century and a half, American writers focused on the development of character as the path to success. In fact, the “pursuit of happiness” touted in the Declaration of Independence had, for the readers of its time, less to do with the gratification of desires than with the opportunity to cultivate the moral virtue that is the source and guarantor of happiness. Since the 1920’s, however, American writing on success has focused on specific tactics and strategies for achieving particular goals, emphasizing personality over character, winning over virtue, and what we can get over what we can become. And we wonder why we’re so frantic and unhappy, and why all our “values” talk rings so hollow!
Also Mr. Robinson, we didn’t have much depression
(in d’ moods) till the late 40’s when the psychology of advertising became more intense. Sure there’s more, but don’t want to get negative here… (o:<