"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
-Henry David Thoreau
I had a long conversation last night with a friend I speak with far too seldom. As often happens when I talk with this friend, I left our conversation with a great deal to contemplate.
A few notes about said friend:
+ He is currently on a path that will most likely lead to material wealth and by most traditional societal standards significant success.
+ He is incredibly gifted intellectually. In most areas that count, he is smarter than I am. (At least mildly impressive, depending on who you ask).
+ He is a damned good guy with a sound moral structure and a huge capacity for good.
+ More often than not, he is miserable.
Like many intellectually gifted individuals with a huge capacity for good, he finds himself overcome by loneliness, even when surrounded by others. In his busy world, people just don't have the time to listen.
"Sometimes I just want someone to have a cup of coffee with," he confesses. "And I don't even like coffee. "
He is still torn up over a relationship that ended years ago.
That's the thing about love. It's damned powerful. Nothing else seems fully capable of causing the stir of emotions that love creates in even the most logical souls.
When you have it, nothing else matters. Or so I'm told.
Thing is, the power of love seems to work both ways. My friend thought he had met his soul mate. Instead, he was cast aside as soon as something "better" came along. He was cheated on, without remorse, and his ability to trust now seems irreparably harmed.
He refuses to consider the idea that he could ever love again, that he could ever open himself up to another woman.
"If it ever happened again, I don't think I would be able to live through it."
It is a statement delivered matter-of-factly, without a hint of melodrama, and it terrifies me.
Given the choice between a chance at future happiness with the risk of getting hurt again and a life lived without romance, he chooses the latter.
The optimist in me refuses to accept this, but the realist in me wonders if my friend is on to something. Is the human condition so doomed, so inevitably sad, that the real key to life lies with finding a route that minimizes the pain?
And then there's Michael Pardue.
Driving around in my van, I was struck by his story while listening to Howard Stern. Imprisoned for twenty-seven years in the prime of his life for a murder he was later proven innocent of, I was shocked as I listened to Pardue calmly explain the atrocities he was put through in prison. There was barely a hint of anger in his voice. Standing by his side the entire interview was his wife, Becky, a woman who spent most of her life dedicated to a man falsely imprisoned.
Despite all of the Hell he was put through, Pardue claims he wouldn't trade his life for anyone's.
He found his soul mate and that's all he needs.
If only my friend could be so lucky.
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My unconventional search for the meaning of life.
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- I am traveling cross country, living in my 1992 GMC Vandura, searching for the meaning of life. I can be reached at Logan@projectmeaning.com.
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3 comments:
I think perhaps that's why the Buddhist philosophy is becoming somewhat popular in the Western culture; non-attachment is a way of avoiding suffering.
One finds much pleasure when he can focus on the self and meditate to get the self to a higher vibrational consciousness.
I feel extremely lucky with what I've found with Jim, but I also KNOW that it is EXTREMELY rare. Without our circumstances being the way they are and him having experienced and learned from 3 other marriages as well as being with an extreme amount of other women, he wouldn't recognize pureness of soul in a woman if she stood out from what he was accustomed to.
What you find is that the body is the same.. whether you have it perfectly fine tuned, or choose to more frequently indulge in tasty foods.
What he found was different was that it was hard to find a combination of intelligence, beauty and spiritual depth in a person. Most people seem to be superficially beautiful and materialistic, or not quite as symmetrical and well-kept, yet their focus of course has developed in the ways of intelligence and/or spirituality.
Women generally seem to be drawn to obsession about their bodies because of their pressure to look so good for men, and what they (we I suppose) are constantly compared to.
Men are usually drawn more to obsession with power and materialistic gain because women want a man who can provide for them.
If this is a viewpoint you can empathize with, welcome to the world of naturalism. It's an ugly one.
I encourage this Eastern philosophical development for those who are on a path of solitude. It's really what is best for us to find ourselves first.
I personally don't feel it's the most logical worldview, but it is one our country needs, and can help with avoiding suffering and discovering other psychic gifts we all have within ourselves.
I feel Christians especially, need to come to the understanding of Eastern philosophy and use it to help their understanding of their worldview, instead of our previously ingrained naturalism... but that's a whole second topic, isn't it Logan. ;)
Miss you. Glad to see you are doing well!!
Rebecca hints at Buddhism's four noble truths, that desire causes suffering, and the cessation of suffering comes from the cessation of desire. The word nirvana means literally to be extinguished, or to blow out, like a candle; it is the cessation of the desire that drives one's live.
But there is a meaningful difference between eliminating desire and simply not acting on it. In the latter, suffering still remains.
Well.. actually, I believe the desire changes to an urge or desire to meditate and become one with the ever-present force that one does not necessarily lose. As one approaches Nirvana, one's urge for physical desires cease, and need for spiritual unification increases because of the enlightenment and euphoria both experienced with it.
At least, that is the impression I got through my studies.
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