The Power of One
People make me laugh. People in LA really make me laugh. I love how naive everyone is here. It doesn't matter what crappy a job a person works, they still have this undying hope of "making it." It's quite childlike and enduring. You go into all these stores; everyone who works in them is just biding their time. Seeing that helps me recapture what I've lost but it also makes me remember what the chances are.
People amaze me. People in LA really amaze me. Struggling is glamorized, almost considered fun. That is what I've lost as well. I've become so enraptured (i.e. trapped) by financial circumstances that I've forgot how much I liked struggling. Once you get past that point of struggling then you can't go back. I want to go back. I can't take all this responsibility. I watch all these people not bogged down by possessions, they seem so free.
At the end of the day, I know what makes me so unhappy. I know what the problem is, it's that there is nothing I can do about it that makes me so miserable. Sometimes we don't know that we are digging our own grave until we look down and realize that we're holding the shovel. I think that's what makes it all the worse is that I did it to myself. I think problems that are imposed by the outside world are easier to deal with in that you have no choice in the matter.
I allow myself to be sad because it is the only control I seem to have on the situation. I think I'm down because I see everything I ever wanted slipping away as I'm simultaneously pushing everything out to sea. Power relationships are so interesting. Power seems to exist in different spheres. I think power is like energy in that it can't be created or destroyed only transferred. So when we lose power in one sphere of our lives we seek to gain power in another. If I lose power in financial sphere then I gain it in my emotional sphere. In terms of international power there is a theory that says that power is a vacuum, it needs to be filled. So if one leader falls in a region like the middle east then a conflict will arise because that power vacuum with cause it to.
It's like anorexia and rape are said to be not about food or sex but rather power. Like it's said about happiness: only you have the power to make yourself happy. The same rings true for sadness. Just like nations battles brew internally in which the power structure is constantly changing. Right now I am doing my best fighting a two front war, I'm trying to overthrow the power hold that controls my emotions while I'm seeking to reinstate power to my professional life. I suppose if I am successful on one front then I can pull my entire troops over to the other front.
In life everything balances out. If you are struggling monetarily then you are free to be happy, if you are rich you're miserable with everything that ties you down. Every yin has a yang. Life has symmetry. Power is bi-polar. Ignorance is bliss. Life is like shopping around for a good deal on Raman noodles. Like everything that seems true in life the answers can be found in an old camp song:
Happiness runs in a circular motion
Love is like a little boat upon the sea
Everybody is a part of everything everywhere
You can be happy if you let yourself be
People amaze me. People in LA really amaze me. Struggling is glamorized, almost considered fun. That is what I've lost as well. I've become so enraptured (i.e. trapped) by financial circumstances that I've forgot how much I liked struggling. Once you get past that point of struggling then you can't go back. I want to go back. I can't take all this responsibility. I watch all these people not bogged down by possessions, they seem so free.
At the end of the day, I know what makes me so unhappy. I know what the problem is, it's that there is nothing I can do about it that makes me so miserable. Sometimes we don't know that we are digging our own grave until we look down and realize that we're holding the shovel. I think that's what makes it all the worse is that I did it to myself. I think problems that are imposed by the outside world are easier to deal with in that you have no choice in the matter.
I allow myself to be sad because it is the only control I seem to have on the situation. I think I'm down because I see everything I ever wanted slipping away as I'm simultaneously pushing everything out to sea. Power relationships are so interesting. Power seems to exist in different spheres. I think power is like energy in that it can't be created or destroyed only transferred. So when we lose power in one sphere of our lives we seek to gain power in another. If I lose power in financial sphere then I gain it in my emotional sphere. In terms of international power there is a theory that says that power is a vacuum, it needs to be filled. So if one leader falls in a region like the middle east then a conflict will arise because that power vacuum with cause it to.
It's like anorexia and rape are said to be not about food or sex but rather power. Like it's said about happiness: only you have the power to make yourself happy. The same rings true for sadness. Just like nations battles brew internally in which the power structure is constantly changing. Right now I am doing my best fighting a two front war, I'm trying to overthrow the power hold that controls my emotions while I'm seeking to reinstate power to my professional life. I suppose if I am successful on one front then I can pull my entire troops over to the other front.
In life everything balances out. If you are struggling monetarily then you are free to be happy, if you are rich you're miserable with everything that ties you down. Every yin has a yang. Life has symmetry. Power is bi-polar. Ignorance is bliss. Life is like shopping around for a good deal on Raman noodles. Like everything that seems true in life the answers can be found in an old camp song:
Happiness runs in a circular motion
Love is like a little boat upon the sea
Everybody is a part of everything everywhere
You can be happy if you let yourself be
posted by Whit at 6:58 AM
4 Comments:
i've realized if you look back a few years at a time when you were "unhappy" and "struggling," right now you would probably said, what the hell...i would LOVE to go back to that time. And I bet three years from now, when we were "struggling" with a new set of life's battles, we'll look back to our time RIGHT NOW and say, what the hell...I would LOVE to go back to that place in time. I think certain things are constants in life, like challenges. Things that we could be upset about. But I think it's easy to let our mindsets fall into being upset about things. It makes our fear and avoidance of succeeding that much more justifiable, don't you think?
Sure, I think hindsight is 20/20, but that doesn't change the difference in mood that you feel in the now. I think there is this false notion of what happiness is suppose to feel like. For some people happiness is feeling bitchy or sad, it is what makes them happy. Society has put this cookie cutter version of a "feeling" one is suppose to feel to indicate that they are happy. Maybe happiness comes in all forms, being in a bad mood makes some people happy, it just isn't a definition that is accepted by society at large. Euphoria can be a false happiness, thus cause great fall out. As a culture we look to the highs and the lows to be the only answers. Society conditions us to be bi-polar that if we are not feeling the "high" then we have to feel the "low" because our lives aren't good enough if we're in the middle. As a result the "lows" become a self-fulling prophecy because it's impossible to maintain a constant "high." If we could learn to accept the middle as actual happiness then maybe would could enjoy it now instead of three years after. Because from the "low" of the "now" everything else appears high.
I don't know. Sometimes I feel like we'll tell ourselves anything to stay in the low because of our fear, not of happiness, but of contentment. Because contentment is boring. Even if you're very self-actualized and have a good handle at existentially analyzing life, everyone seems to struggle from contentment. Contentment is that nice, average-looking guy who never argues with you and supports most of your beliefs, opinions and feelings. Honestly? Everyone wants to be with him in theory, but he gets cheated on, dumped, made just a friend, etc. because the reality of security and a stable existence without the roller coaster of highs and lows just doesn't fit our human craving to be constantly surprised, for better or worse.
I notice I always have grammar mistakes when I comment on your blog. It's because I can't get away with it up on my screen at work. It's bright green... :) So I have to read as quickly as possible and comment as quickly as possible.
But at the same time isn't peace another word for contentment. I suppose we look at things differently at different times in our lives. We seek peace but fear contentment when in the end they are really one and the same. We always have to be in motion, never able to stand still. I guess in term of physics everything must rotate, so even if we stand still we are rotating, maybe we try to run in the other direction in order to counteract that revolution, thus in the end we are simulating standing still. If you don't slow down to catch your breath then you won't realize you've lost it. Really I don't know why we see settling as an end, it's not. If we stopped running around in circles then we'd see that all that does is makes us dizzy.
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