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Awareness, happiness, and attachments
[Pieces of my side of a conversation elsewhere, stitched together here.]
There's a lot of happiness to be found when one is oblivious, but then when one begins to see things a bit more clearly, it can hurt like blazes. So is there a stage past that, where one sees more, and is okay again? I'm thinking there is, but I have only a few shards to go on.
Lots of people ignore bad stuff. (Deliberately overfocus on good stuff to drive the bad stuff out, or are in denial. (And maybe also unhappy, maybe not.)) I ignore a lot just to stay sane, and somehow I think I'm missing a piece there.
I want to see it all, be aware of it all, and be okay. Some few humans can. I cannot (yet). Perhaps I don't have enough lifetime left to get there; that's okay. I firmly believe that people can.
I'm thinking of a very few people: Dalai Lama, maybe. I read him as truly happy -- that is, he is content, serene, happy, but not due to ignoring shit. Not due to making up a sweetness-and-light "good outcome" that no one actually knows will happen. That's a dependent, weak happiness. His is not.
The more I think about all this, the more I start to surmise that the attachments we hurt ourselves with are ideas. "Other people should meet my needs even if I cannot articulate them." "People should be competent at what they do." "Life should be fair." I've got that last one and it is going to cause me pain until I jettison it. I am deeply attached to it.
I would guess that this is a teeny tiny step on a really long road. I have peeled one layer of a very large onion. I suspect there's more onion in there and I can do better.
There's a lot of happiness to be found when one is oblivious, but then when one begins to see things a bit more clearly, it can hurt like blazes. So is there a stage past that, where one sees more, and is okay again? I'm thinking there is, but I have only a few shards to go on.
Lots of people ignore bad stuff. (Deliberately overfocus on good stuff to drive the bad stuff out, or are in denial. (And maybe also unhappy, maybe not.)) I ignore a lot just to stay sane, and somehow I think I'm missing a piece there.
I want to see it all, be aware of it all, and be okay. Some few humans can. I cannot (yet). Perhaps I don't have enough lifetime left to get there; that's okay. I firmly believe that people can.
I'm thinking of a very few people: Dalai Lama, maybe. I read him as truly happy -- that is, he is content, serene, happy, but not due to ignoring shit. Not due to making up a sweetness-and-light "good outcome" that no one actually knows will happen. That's a dependent, weak happiness. His is not.
The more I think about all this, the more I start to surmise that the attachments we hurt ourselves with are ideas. "Other people should meet my needs even if I cannot articulate them." "People should be competent at what they do." "Life should be fair." I've got that last one and it is going to cause me pain until I jettison it. I am deeply attached to it.
I would guess that this is a teeny tiny step on a really long road. I have peeled one layer of a very large onion. I suspect there's more onion in there and I can do better.
no subject
I have a certain cynicism about human nature - I do believe that people have the capacity for great good or great evil. It's one of the reasons I don't think socialism or communism can actually work other than for small groups, because there will always be people who only care about what they can get out of it. And, in a lot of ways, I think that level of selfishness is the root of all evil.
I think that cynicism is how I survive. All I can do is behave in ways to not contribute to the horrors in the world, as far as I can.
I have to allow that evil exists as a counterpoint to good. And I have to accept that. If I fight that concept, I refuse to accept something that is basic human nature, and has existed since the beginning of time.
In some ways, it's how I deal with my own "evil" impulses. I know I have the capacity to be a selfish, self-centered person. I've done things in my past that prove that to me. All I can do is to continue to not act in those ways.
I know I take the concept you have of global horros and keep bringing it down to a personal level, but it's something I have to do to deal with it, in some ways.
no subject
That rings very true for me as well. "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." --I forget who.
All I can do is to continue to not act in those ways.
Yes. And when I fail, recognize that I can do better in the future...