Built to Disappoint

Symptom number four hundred million, seven hundred fifty-nine thousand, nine hundred and nine that I am not God but I would like to be:

“Built To Disappoint.”

According to all accounts (at least the accounts I trust, and I can be a pretty cussedly cynical iconoclast), there is one Absolute Truth, who is a person, one of whose names is Krishna, which means “the all-attractive person.” He’s also all-powerful, all knowing, etc, but the specific name Krishna means He’s attractive to everyone.

If you’re a poor schnook in a material body like I am, you know how hard it can be to attract even one person in this world. If you’re ever able to find even one person who finds you attractive, you may think, “Someone finally understands me!” You feel stoked beyond compare—the way you imagine God must feel all the time.

But how long do such attractions last, when they’re directed toward a being whose outer features reach their peak of attractiveness at age sixteen, and go unrelentingly downhill afterwards, to the point where you have to pay someone a full salary to have anything to do with you on a day-to-day basis?

Krishna never has to change His body. He always looks incredibly, incomparably good—one unique feature of being God. He’s a category of gorgeous unto Himself.

Being all-attractive is just the way He is. It’s not His fault. He’s always been that way, and that’s the way He’s going to stay.

Not to say that others aren’t attractive in their own right, it’s just that, if you had to compare, Krishna would win any Mr. Universe pageant in whatever universe—spiritual or material—the contest was held.

Temporarily beautiful people on Earth may be lucky enough to have their ever-so-lightly Photoshopped faces selling lots of magazines today, but built into the whims of the marketplace is a “guaranteed decline in interest factor” which then hides the “once-beautiful-and-desirable” from public view until their “brave last days.”

I’ve often thought to make a t-shirt that says “Built To Disappoint.” Not that I imagine it would sell well (or, for that matter, at all), but no matter how cool, or solidly physiqued, or well-spoken, or financially savvy anyone is, people in material bodies are in fact built to disappoint whoever becomes attracted to them.

Krishna, during His recent trip to Earth, not only married over sixteen thousand wives, He also arranged for the design, construction, and furnishing of over sixteen thousand palaces in which to live with each bride individually while expanding Himself into over sixteen thousand forms in order to give each wife His complete attention.

I am embarrassed to remember my own dismal past, which includes my failed attempts to maintain more than one romantic relationship at a time. Juggling full refrigerators would have been easier.

I simply didn’t have the time, energy, class, money, appeal, or whatever to keep up with the demands of more than one full-time commitment at a time. The ability to both agitate and satisfy the desires of unlimited members of the opposite sex is curiously missing from my DNA. Damn it.

There’s one Supreme Enjoyer, and I’m not Him.

I consider myself perfect, powerful, and happy if I can open a stuck peanut butter jar, or make a basket from across the room with a wadded-up, used Kleenex.

The mindset I’m hoping to achieve someday goes something like this: “Krishna, you’re God, and that’s OK with me. I’m OK being Your servant, and not being God doesn’t bug me at all.”

Someday.