| This is from my Facebook:
------
This has turned out to be a very long post that I wrote in response to [friend]'s Note (attached at the end, read that first, its quite interesting). Here we go:
Peace is a mild term. For just a sec, let's call it Happyness (with a Y) so that you can relate to what I'm saying here:
You have paths all around you. An infinite number of paths, radiating outward in all directions like the rays of the sun. Like Arrows. Some of these paths are short, some are long, but they're all being targeted at something called Happyness.
Visualize it again for a second: Infinite number of arrows of light, pointed outward from you, many lengths, all desperately trying to hit ONE bullseye: Happyness.
-
Of course, Happyness is what you make of it. You're the one who has set the target. Therefore, you're the one who has determined which path is the one that hits the bullseye.
-
What this implies is that its not the path that you choose that's important, but the target that you set.
-
If progress is your goal-----thats it, checkmate, you're NEVER going to be Happy! You're on an INFINITELY LONG PATH, where the target is always just beyond your reach. You'll ALWAYS be dissatisfied, always moving forward, always wanting that 0.45% market share that forever eludes you, that quarter pound of fat around your waistline that you think makes you fat. That's what consumerism drives on, that's what the rat race is----be the King of the Hill. Buy better, do better, be better -- eventually be the BEST. BE THE MAN!!!!!!!!
Who's doing what here?
Someone is trying to be better?
Better than who? Better than others? Better than YOURSELF?
But you can never be better than yourself. You are a fixed point and all around you, life is moving.
By saying that you want to Progress yourself, you're implying a deep INSECURITY about who you are right now.
Go with the flow. Enjoy. Relax! If making money is your thing, do it. If its making art, making music, making love, do it, whatever it is. How old are you? How quickly did 20 (30, 40, 50) years pass you by?
Do you really want to Progress? Why? For whose sake?
Or do you want to be Happy for the rest of your life? Is Happyness (with a Y) really that bad?
Being Happy is a war, and in a war, you're SUPPOSED to take the shortest path, to sneak up on your enemy in the middle of the night, to CHEAT, take shortcuts, BE RUTHLESS.
Movies, books, mythology, scripture, make Progress out to be a noble thing. Do you WANT to be noble in a war?
Be ruthless in setting your goal. Don't make it a burden on yourself by trying to add fat stuff to that goal: "Oh, I'll be happy when I have somebody to love me. And when I have a gazillion dollars and a whole colony of Bahamian Islands to my name."
Stop. Just say: "I'll be happy when I have somebody who loves me."
Or better yet, just say: "I am happy right now." For no reason at all.
Why do you need a reason to be at Peace, to be Happy, to fulfill your goal of Progress? Why do you need a reason to ultimately accept yourself as who you are: a flawed piece of creation that's going to wink out soon, no matter how much Progress or Happyness it accumulates?
Would you rather wink out with a billion dollars, or wink out with a heart full of love and Peace?
That's my $0.02
------Original post by [friend]---------
Ask anyone, what their ultimate goal in life is. And the answer will be: Peace, or ideas synonymous to Peace. We want Peace in love, money, success, trips, massages, ice-creams, books and even in mirrors. Peace is an end, an end to struggle. It is an assurance that all is going well (according to every individual perspective) and will continue do so. When we have Peace, we turn dormant. When one is in Peace with one’s job, one will continue working in the same manner that has been making one feel so, since. When one is in Peace with one’s fitness, one hopes to retain that fitness by continuing the lifestyle that has brought one that fitness. Peace in books, or time spent with friends makes us hope that they never end.
Peace is the ultimate goal of humanity. After Universal Peace is attained, we have nothing more to desire for. All we need is that state to be Constant. There, what we don’t want is Change. Peace makes us reluctant to change.
However, Progress, an essential requisite of human life, is the main factor that has brought humankind to this stage (not something to be really proud of, though). Evolution is a very evident form of Progress. Every action that we take is intentionally or unintentionally towards progress. Not that we may actually know where we are progressing, but yes, traditional trends have been established through the experience of the history of life to inhibit in us an affinity towards progressive actions, which are mostly good for us, good for survival. And survival is an established good for all forms of life (from their point of view, atleast).
We all Progress (in bits or wholes) towards goals. And all Progress (animate or inanimate) is directed collectively towards an ‘ultimate goal’. That, ‘ultimate goal’ is reasonably: Peace. So, all Progress is directed towards Peace.
Thus, when there is Progress, Peace is absent. Since, when we have Peace, we have no need for Progress and when we are in Progress, we do not have, but desire Peace. Peace and Progress cannot co-exist. Progress is hampered by Peace.
I may be rebuked, by being told, that Progress is possible only when one has Peace of Mind. Peace of Mind allows one to think clearly. Yes Peace of Mind is good for Progress, but not essential for it. Peace of Mind, is only that: Peace of the Mind. In the Mind, a person may have thought through a Plan for Progress and envisioned what the ultimate goal, Peace, may feel like. But that person has not achieved Peace yet, and that is why that person strives on the Plan for Progress to convert the Peace of Mind to a real, tangible Peace.
If SPAM Gandhi, Einstein, Marx, Darwin were at Peace with the workings of the worlds, they wouldn’t have bothered to mess around with it to change stuff, would they?
Let us Imagine, that we have actually attained Peace. The whole humankind is at Peace. No discomfort, poverty, hunger, sadness. No signs of struggle. So then what? Does humanity end there? Or is that stage: Peace, just another stage of Progress, which we cannot fathom in this 4-dimensional universe? We don’t know. Atleast, I don’t. I find difficult to believe the religious answers that are there for this question.
All I know is that, next time I come to know that someone somewhere is working for Peace; I will hope that they don’t succeed before I become a Billionaire.
_________________
Stormy: Being friendly to seek approval is needy. Being UNfriendly to "raise your value" is needy. Needy people depend on others' reactions.
|
CHAT