One Man's Pleasure

We've all become suburban creatures: unshaven weekend slobs in slippers and shorts, jostling carts along the hypermart aisle, grabbing discount toilet-rolls by the dozens, helped by our once delectably lissome spouses--now tubby tiger mums with icecream-cheeked kids in the tow.

We choose our pain to get the happiness we want. Pain and pleasure, like a particle-antiparticle pair that comes into existence together in equal but opposite strength.

A monk values solitude as a time to pray, meditate and develop spiritually. The layman sees solitude as unbearable loneliness, utter and desolate.

So each one of us seek out a life partner that we may have a companion for life's journey. To start a family with bright bubbly kids that one may be proud to call one's own; and then to see them growing up, being educated and successful. That's happiness. So we are more than willing to take the pain that comes with it.

What's the pain of middleclass life? Mostly the fear of the future and the unknown: Will we be able to keep our jobs? Will we be able to afford to send our kids to the best schools? Will our kids grow up to be successful? Will we remain healthy to see our mission through?

Of course, we shall take the office politics with gritted teeth so that we may get our five-figure pay-cheques at the end of the month to pay for all the good things that we give our families. That's pain that we have chosen to accept for the prize of our middleclass happiness. It is a happiness we have taught ourselves to believe in. It is good happiness.

But one man's pleasure is another man's pain. A monk would see such a middleclass existence as empty and hopeless. A life wasted in the pursuit of petty things. A life of accumulating stuff that ultimately disintegrates. A life as hopeless as one could imagine; a life in denial of the ultimate spiritual purpose. A life utterly unexamined.

And here I am the eternal student, marveling at the play of pain and pleasure, awakening a little more with each passing sip of experience.

The Bounty of Knowledge

Listening to Mozart on a rainy Saturday afternoon, sitting idly under my bedroom window, catching shafts of light through its curtains, dipping in and out of a Paul Theroux book--such are the simple pleasures that make life worthwhile. Rare pleasures that I indulge in on weekends.

Weekends provide a much-welcome respite from the punishing exertions of the workday week. However my weekends are often filled with leftover work--work that requires special care and insight from a state of mind unatainable on a typical day at the office.

I'm not in love with work, nor do I indulge in it as a form of escapism. Like a professional footballer who needs to play regularly to be match-fit, I welcome work as an opportunity to keep myself mentally fit at all times. Too much work induces fatigue; too little work makes one mentally sluggish. Like any athlete, one needs to find the right balance.

So much of life is seeking this elusive balance: between work and play; between pain and pleasure--the psychological piston that drives one towards one's goals in life, pulverising obstacles along the way.

Perhaps I work a little bit too much, often with too little rewards. That's fine. I've mentioned it elsewhere in my blog before: my dictum is that no work is ever wasted--one's reward from work comes from the knowledge one gets in the process. It is what keeps me going all these years. It is the bounty of knowledge that I relish in, at the end of a hard week's work.

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.