The Road to Contentment

One can never attempt to be profound. I suppose that’s an ironic thing to say as someone who uses ‘one’ in every sentence so I can to try to seem more profound but I suppose after writing it a thousand times this truth has finally come to me. Revelations are like the wind; when they come we feel as if all of creation is animate again, as if we have just discovered something so profound that it could never leave us. And yet, inevitably, someday it does, and sadness and confusion close in upon our light once again. I’ve spent my entire life attempting to fight this cycle but what I’m finally realizing after it’s swallowed me up and spit me out a million different times is that this cycle is a revelation itself, a revelation that sadness and stasis can’t take away. Change is inevitable but it’s more than that; we have to forgive ourselves for our own feelings. Sometimes we feel sad when we’re supposed to feel happy. When we have everything people below us wish to have: a roof over our heads, loving families, food in our stomachs. Sometimes when we’re supposed to feel safe we feel as if we’re in danger, when we’re supposed to feel angry we feel forgiving, and when we’re supposed to feel calm we feel enraged. And it’s all okay; the truth is we don’t have control over ourselves, even though we do. We are the actors upon our own minds; the forces which shape our every move and yet, though we may be the most powerful of these forces, we are never the only ones. There will always be actors outside of ourselves; our social environment, our family, the weather. Each of these things is like us, constantly changing and as much as we try to reinforce our own agency against these forces, at the end of the day we will always change with them. We will move gracefully or we will move clumsily but nonetheless, we will be moved. How then can we hold ourselves together against the roiling currents of life? The answer to this is another cliche but it doesn’t matter: we can reinforce ourselves against inevitable change by remembering our values. By selecting a few things from the composite entities of existence that matter to us, for the largest portion of our waking hours. These could be passion projects, duties to the ones we love, or moral values we intend never to erode. By clinging to these things and allowing others which feel less important to fall away, we can remember ourselves. When we wake up and feel smothered by an impenetrable blanket of sadness and self doubt we can remember that we are a person who finds it important to be clean, and take a shower. When we barely have the motivation to move we can remember that we are a person who finds it important to be with our grandmother on her birthday, to watch the waves crash against the shore, or sketch the dappled light which trickles through forest leaves. Life is hard, and even when you believe it will become less so, it often remains just as hard as it used to be. In order to survive in this weary world we need to remember why we’ve survived so long. For those of who can struggle with suicide it can often be hard to articulate to others just how difficult life can feel, whether our lives take the shape of something our elders would describe difficult or not. It doesn't matter what they think! What right does a parent have to tell a child the sandbox isn’t coarse and dirty when they haven’t stepped foot in it for decades? Or lecture a student on the ease of education after they’ve been away from it for longer than the person they’re lecturing has been alive? None of us can ever truly perceive one another’s perceptions, because how can a woman on the second floor understand the view from the fifth? They are simply unable to and that’s okay. Forgive yourself for all those things the people around you say aren’t hard enough to make you feel the way you do.

It’s very common for us as human beings to discuss what we and others should or shouldn’t do, but it’s much more useful to describe what we are actually doing. Rather than telling ourselves that we should exercise two times a day; what if we simply observed as a scientist would, that we exercise two times a week? When we begin to collect actual analytical data on ourselves and our lives we can ask forgivingly: why? Why is it that we’re consistently attracted to people who are unkind to us? Why is it that we consistently choose intoxication over sobriety? Why is it that we consistently fail to complete the work that’s expected of us? In each of these instances, the decision behind the behavior is a rational one, because we, and all other forms of life, are rational beings. Perhaps we are attracted to people who put us down because we don’t think we deserve to be put up. We choose intoxication because it allows our most painful hours to pass faster, and we don’t complete the work that’s expected of us because...we simply don’t want to do it. Beneath each of these rational answers is another set of questions, like a root system which continues to spiral and branch out. Why is it that we feel we don’t deserve to be up; because we don’t fulfill what we think is expected of us? Ah so we’ve uncovered a connection. Why is it easier to pass painful hours under intoxication? Because being alone with ourselves reminds us of the times when we weren’t, when are ex would tell us that we weren’t good enough to be loved by anyone again. Ah, another rational decision for a being attempting to survive into adulthood in a difficult world. Why do we not want to complete the work that’s expected of us? Because while doing so we feel as if we are shaving off parts of ourselves to transmute our chaotic minds into something palatable for someone else’s analysis? Well that makes sense as well. What we choose to do with these observations is up to us, or perhaps it’s up to our feelings; which is less important. If we can truly be honest with the way we look at ourselves, then whatever direction we decide to go in, ultimately we will be able to get there faster. Most people are unable to be honest with themselves. They remember feeling a longing for contentment while staring at magazines of rich people, so they make it their life’s goal to become rich. Once they get there though, they find themselves unhappy and can’t understand why. Why is it that this thing they always longed for turns out to be something they didn’t truly want? Probably because they never truly asked themselves why they longed for it. They never simply observed that they felt a longing for contentment while staring at those magazines, and then attempted to theorize why that could be. Maybe they always felt a sense of inferiority in the presence of those with more money than them, maybe they always felt hungry and thought that if they could ease the pain of their bodies that their minds would follow. But our minds are fickle creatures. They can be understood but only after astute and forgiving observation. If they had gotten to the root of their longing for contentment, which turned out to be the desire for respect from others, then perhaps they could have surrounded themselves with meaningful work and intimate friendships; finally encountering that thing they sought after, which no amount of money could buy. Because for people to truly respect you, they have to know you. Often the things we seek can be found within us already. Often the things we want other people to forgive and enjoy about us are things which we refuse to forgive and enjoy in and about ourselves, and so how then can we expect others to feel differently?

In truth I’m not sure where I’m going with this, or how cohesive it will truly turn out to be, but I’m just trying to write a group of things which are both objectively and emotionally true. I don’t want to be that guy always longing for something he feels he can never have, and I hope maybe that by forgiving this longing within my heart today, gradually it will begin to ease tomorrow. The truth is, I do have enough; all of us do. If we didn’t we would die. Each of us has survived this long because something about our existence is working, and if we can figure out what those somethings are, hopefully we can begin piece by piece, to weave a tapestry of our own contentment.