The Curse of Emptiness

Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping!

from Peace by Rupert Brooke

We live in a time of relative peace, or at least in a country which is fortunate enough to be located in a region with peace-loving neighbours. Our generation has no direct experience of war.

My parents lived through the World War II and the Japanese occupation of Malaya. WW2 defined and shaped their generation. We can only imagine the horrors of war through Hollywood movies and history lessons. But they seem so distant and remote. It is no wonder that every generation has to learn the lessons of war anew.

European countries welcome the onset of World War I in August 1914 in a mass exhibition of misguided patriotism. It felt like the right thing to do--a war to end all wars and one that would finally give a worthy cause for a restless generation to prove their worth. How wrong they were. A generation of young men was sacrificed because of it. But hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

Do we possess the wisdom and foresight to avert future wars? Far from it, I'm afraid. For the simple reason that a human lifetime is short. Lessons from history books only enlighten the privileged few who bother to learn. Invariably, we are driven by our selfish instincts, not only to survive and procreate, but to possess and to dominate. Hence, we continue learning the lessons of history the hard way--through war and suffering.

For we humans are not creatures of pure reason. What defines our humanity are our passions. And passions get easily inflamed by rhetoric and beliefs. We are but suckers for the romance of ideologies and religion, without which we feel empty and restless.

Every new generation is blessed with energy and cursed with emptiness. Emptiness is merely directionless energy. Harness them wisely and channel them towards progress and creation. The alternative is simply war and destruction.

Karmic Lessons

A thought arises in the mind and subsides, like a ripple on the surface of the pond.

Another thought arises. More ripples.

The amplitude of some ripples are so huge that they manifest themselves as action or speech. Mental ripples become physical "ripples", producing consequences in the world outside.

No thought is ever lost. Its energy is merely transformed, stored or transmitted into another medium. The energy of several thoughts could be merged into a larger throught-front, creating a thought-tsunami, capable of sweeping away every obstacle along its way.

An obsessive man channels all his energy into a few focussed stream of thoughts. An obsessive man is often "successful", because all his actions are focussed and channelled towards the object of his desire.

All self-improvement books teach you techniques to be focussed. When you are focussed, you do not waste energy on things that do not contribute towards your goals; everything you do is a "right action" that leads you closer to your destination. Every move you make is either an advancement, or a correction from a deviation.

Anything that you desire in your life comes with a price. Why? Because it requires you to control the world around you. You need to act in specific ways to produce specific effects, specific results, which you yourself define as "desirable". Remember, this is your definition of "desirable", and hence whatever pain or pleasure, goes directly into your account.

Like what people say: you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. An egg does not transform naturally into an omelette like how a pupa morphs into a butterfly. An omelette is an artificial construction, produced by the human desire to satisfy its palate. It requires "force" for it to happen.

The force that you apply on the world to create your vision of an ideal life requires you to expend a lot of energy. It requires you to go against the current sometimes; it requires you to sacrifice time, to kick asses and to take blows. You might not mind doing all this, but that's the price you'll have to pay.

Your so-called ideal life also requires constant maintenance, because everything in the world is subject to decay. What is ideal now never remains ideal indefinitely. Furthermore, what is ideal for you might not be ideal for the people around you--your spouse, your children, your colleagues and friends. Lots and lots of energy is required to maintain it. That's another price you'll have to pay.

Ask yourself, why do you want these things? Where do these desires come from? What deeper part of the soul does it satisfy? Are you going to spend your entire life's energy attaining and maintaining this "ideal" state?

If you have decided that what you desire is worth it, then by all means go ahead. Take the pain and the pleasure that comes with it. Take it on the chin.

What's important is that you know what you are paying for and you yourself consciously take responsibility for your actions. Only then is the loop closed; only then do you learn your karmic lessons.