Monday, January 27, 2025
I believe people are secretly happy. The derivation of pleasure is found anywhere. When one is tired, one seeks to please himself with sleep. When one is hungry, one seeks to please herself with food. The homeless population in my city has community. I see them reading, gathering, talking, etc. I have waved to and spoken to some of them. They seem content in their discontent.
How does one become totally content in a body that is constantly fluctuating? The sensation of contentment cannot be known without the sensation of discontentment lurking in the background. So we’re constantly questing. We’re constantly putting out the fire while the fire continues to burn. This is the leading edge of reality, the buzz of pleasure-seeking in a strange friction of suffering.
We love to lick our wounds, patch up our sorrows, and sometimes bathe and wallow in our self-pity. These are insidious forms of pleasure derivation seemingly lurking in the background. We rarely understand this phenomenon. We’re drawn to fear, for example, yet pretend to avoid it. Haunted houses and scary movies draw us in, but the conflicted mind says “Keep away!”
Fear and excitement buzz together. If you really get into it, fear draws you in, like a haunted house. Don’t you want to get a thrill of seeing? Fear is thrilling. Pain is pleasing. This is the buzz of living, that dying is rubbing up against you in simultaneity. A sting seems to hurt, but the soothing relief follows almost immediately.
Are we secretly in love with life – all of it? I believe so. We love our ailments and catastrophes. We love our screw ups too. We love our lives because they provide dissonance that we love to relieve. Sweet discordance? Makes you wonder.