Dreams, Success, Pleasure Etc… (Just the Usual Then)
We distract ourselves with the trappings of responsibility and ‘duty’, finding refuge in service to others, to distract us from the difficulties and distress we face in our vain attempt of attaining happiness. We unashamedly worship other human beings, be they parents, celebrities or gods; we immerse ourselves in devotion to higher concepts, only to give us a sense of worth, purpose, and order. Questions are troubling. Answers are satisfying. Religion, nationality- even class, gender and race- unify us, because what is different scares us… independence scares us… free thought scares us. The mightiest of us live to serve. Within these labels, we have a place, a purpose, seemingly a reason for being- or at least a basic function- which grounds us, in a boundless world of infinite possibilities that overwhelms us, that would send our little heads floating away up through the atmosphere of limitless dreams and into the incomprehensible, and hence oh so frightening, world of space, were we not to hide from our true and limitless potential by concealing our ambition and desires in this shroud of ‘realism’ and ‘expectation’- that suffocating cloak interwoven with insecurities, fears and doubts.
Nothing is unconditional. Serving others gives us security. Helping others gives us superiority. Healing others leaves them forever indebted. Loving others encourages them to love us, which in turn makes us love our own lives and ourselves in turn. At the very least a degree of appreciation echoes back… Loving gives us a place and purpose.
We flee from our dreams, cower from our carnal desires, and distance ourselves from ambition, through the pursuit and acquisition of all things material… all things false. But what is reality, but the physical manifestation of fantasy? Greed is ambition at its most flawed. Power isn’t corrupt. The pursuit of it is. But through the outward material demonstration of our ‘success’, we lose the true meaning of the word success. Success is the state at which you feel contented with what you are. Truly contented. Within. Not proud. Not even merely satisfied. Happy. I recall two school assemblies on success that were dominated by money- but money itself is worthless, and it is all too often an unsavoury tool to bring misery. Money can be a means toward happiness, but money itself can never be an end. Never. You may become a millionaire- the measure of success at my school. You may be a millionaire. But do you feel the same sense of accomplishment of the homeless man who has just found the source of his next meal? Do you feel the same sense of achievement as a midwife who has helped bring a life to this Earth? If you do, you are successful. I congratulate you.
But what of pleasure- at what cost can pleasure be pursued, both to others and one’s self? Where is the line between what is enjoyable and what is ethical, what is right and what is wrong? Is the notion of pleasure not a selfish and contemptible desire- or is that a result of our restricted, forceful, shut-minded society? Is this whole passage deeply immoral? Is it not humanity’s shared prosperity that matters? Or can that only be obtained if everyone is committed to their own self, from which morality will then thrive? Are we even best placed to know what is right for ourselves? Is this whole passage just not rambling bullshit? Do these very words not restrict us to enshrined ideas and limit our free, uninhibited expression of feelings, since thoughts and ideas are represented purely by words- a jumble of noises, or, on this page, an ordered mess of squiggles?
As Morrissey once humbly proclaimed, “I dunno.” I don’t even know if I agree with myself. Even now.
Heed these ‘wise’ words and make of them what you will. You decide whether or not you agree. I wrote this to invoke your own thought and questioning, because I find questioning more gratifying than the answers I am told, or reach myself. But I wrote this for me. Everything I do, however altruistic, is ultimately for my own perceived benefit- in some form. At least that’s what they tell me…
And now I wish to go to bed. So goodnight…
Apprentice of Enlightement 