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A Warm Gun
I know it’s kind of redundant to say that Merkuns are stupid, but here we go again…
Most Americans seem to operate under a default belief that things are supposed to go right all the time. So when bad things happen, it’s reasonable to get upset—either with oneself or at someone else—and when good things happen, well, that’s just the way things are supposed to be, right?
This winds up producing an interesting effect. We spend a whole lot of time thinking about the things that didn’t go right—dwelling on them, rerunning them in our minds for hours, sometimes months on end—but we almost immediately disregard the memory of anything that goes well, because there’s nothing exceptional or worth noticing about a good day.
The result of this belief is that as we Americans go through life, we accumulate and remember a lifetime’s worth of disappointments, anger, and self-hatred, and we have difficulty remembering any times where we were deeply happy. We grant the worst of times a “stickiness” that we rarely extend to the best of times.
Why is it that we spend so much time and effort focusing on the negative? Why don’t we just choose to let those things go? Moreover, why is it that we never savor and dwell on the things that go right, that should delight us? Why don’t we give good experiences the same emotional weight as the bad? Surely that would yield a more balanced view of our lives, and it’d go a long way toward making us happier with ourselves, our lives, and the world around us.
Fortunately, I got over much of my chronic anger and self-hatred during my adolescence, and let it go much more in recent years. In fact, I think I do a pretty good job taking delight in the wonders and joys of my life. Because I don’t suffer from the mainstream blindness toward joy, I can look at our culture with an outsider’s perspective. When I do, I’m struck by the strong impression that most Americans prefer to live with a singleminded focus on the things that have made them unhappy. Is it any wonder our society suffers so much from existential angst?
I hope you’re not one of those people, because we all deserve joy, our lives all contain a large portion of things to enjoy and appreciate, and we are all completely capable of living joyful, fulfilled lives—here, now, and forever—if only we choose to.
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For me, this is the key to how the wealthiest society in the world is also the unhappiest. Because we cultivate our material wealth to the exclusion of our philosophical/spiritual wealth, we know how the options and futures markets work, but have no idea how our hearts and minds work, which is the big thing I've gotten from my Buddhist studies.
And I'm sure you know this, but I'll state it for the record: Christianity as practiced by most Americans doesn't even remotely approach what I'd term "spiritual wealth". Not that they're exclusive, because Christianity can be a valid path to insight, but most people never get that from their religion, whatever belief system they subscribe to.
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I've always believed that the good and bad go hand in hand. How can you appreciate how wonderful things can be if you don't have an appreciation of how rotten things can be? Ken's cancer was a nightmare, and while he's no longer ill, it's still a sword hanging over our heads. But I took it all as a trial by fire so when we came out on the other side, I knew we were stronger for it. I think I now appreciate our silly larks all the more because I know we're not in a hospital, fighting with nurses, doctors, and a disease all at the same time.
It's all in how you chose to experience the world. And it constantly amazes me how few people acknowledge that they do play some part in making that choice.
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