Awareness, happiness, and attachments

[cjsmith]

[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.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It seems very close to what I meant. I admit I have seen a lot of people crumple when their illusions have gone away. I've been among them. Perhaps my idea of percentages is skewed, so the "very few" I wrote is wrong.

It's not a matter of ignoring those things, but acknowledging they exist and are part of life.

Yes, this, definitely. And somehow having a rock-solid foundation that can't be shaken by them. Even the worst of what humans do to other humans -- war, hunger, they're all there, and in my day-to-day life I ignore them. I could claim it's so I can do my work, but is it? Or is it because if I thought about them I might be uncomfortable? If the latter, then to me, that's denial. Now it might be denial I desperately need right at the moment. Maybe I'm not ready to face the horrors. One of the ways I've taken charge of my own happines is not watching the news, and that may very well be a smart move.

I am imagining what would happen if the Dalai Lama were walking through the rubble and violence of war. If he were watching some torturer feed a man to a wood chipper. In my imagination, he would be compassionate to the pain, he would urge the torturer to stop, but he would not have to close his eyes. He would long since have made his peace with this aspect of reality; in his face or not, it wouldn't be new information somehow. He already knew what humans are capable of. He's already done the grief. Me, I haven't. I'd be shaken to the core. More of my comfortable illusions would be pierced. I might never be the same, and I might not be too sane for a while.

I want to acknowledge. I fear that I haven't, except maybe for some of the little tragedies (like my chronic pain). My house is built on sand.

Now it reads like I want to swim in horror. That's not right either.

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

I keep abrest of what's going on in the world, I read the paper, I check out web sites (I don't watch the news, because I've never really liked to) and there are a ton of horrors out there.

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.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I think that cynicism is how I survive.

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...