*A young Peter Parker and his Uncle Ben fishing. A fish bites, but Peter struggles to reel it in*
Peter: Ugh, I can’t do it Uncle Ben, you know my rotten luck.
Uncle: Nonsense! Boy, good or bad luck is nothing but the right or wrong mix of opportunity, preparation and confidence. Now, I know you’re prepared because I had a hand in that. Now we’re looking square at opportunity!
*Peter catches the fish!*
——-Maybe there is such a thing as luck, but it can be manipulated?
Dishwasher guilt
A few weeks ago, my psychology professor made a beautiful metaphor. We were discussing how absolutely everything in life is impermanent. In other words, everything will eventually pass away and if something begins, it will surely end. One of the other students seemed shocked to hear someone describe life this way. He asked, “if life is impermanent and nothing lasts, then what’s the point of doing anything?” I smiled when he asked this because I could practically see his mind being opened to a profound truth. Our professor responded with a question:
Professor: “Did you ever build sand castles?”
Student: “Well yeah, when I was little”
Professor: “You built them even though, even as kid, you knew full well that the tide would eventually wash it away.”
Student: ”Yeah?” (confused)
Professor: “There are lots of people on that beach that didn’t even bother. ‘Why even try to build a sand castle if it’s going to be washed away’”
I loved it! The point he was trying to make was that the student accomplished something and had fun while he was building the sand castle. So whether or not it would be washed away didn’t matter. What mattered was the effort and fun he had while he worked.
Our Professor’s next statement really got me thinking.
Professor: “…and some people have their sand castles washed away and then they curse the ocean. ‘GOD DAMNIT! HOW DARE YOU TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME AFTER I WORKED SO HARD ON IT’”
I’m beginning to realize that I’m one of those people who curses the ocean. Maybe being a religious person can be double-edged sword. On the one hand, I find comfort that there’s a Higher power with an invisible hand that seems to guide me, protect me and wants what’s best for me. The downside is that when things go wrong. Things that I have no control over, then I either wonder what I could have done wrong (with is probably nothing) or I blame and scold that Higher Power for being a sadist.
Through that simple little metaphor, I learned a lot about my relationship to events that I have no control over and perhaps more importantly, my relationship to my Higher power.
During my last day still in NJ, I was riding the train from New York on my way back home. For some reason I felt really sad. Maybe it was because that I was going to be away from everything I knew for the whole summer and it was finally hitting me at that moment. Or maybe it was because there was no where to sit, as always.
I wondered if anyone else on the train felt sad. Then at least I wouldn’t feel alone. So I felt compelled to find someone else on the train who also seemed sad. So as I stood there, I tried really looking at people. I thought that if I really tried to look at their faces, I could get some hint as to what they were feeling. At first, it didn’t seem like anyone was particularly sad, which honestly made me feel worse…
But then I noticed something else. Although they might not have been feeling what I was looking for, there was a lot of other stuff going on. Some people were sleepy - forcing themselves awake - probably afraid they’d nod off and miss their stop. Other just seemed really bored. Others seemed perplexed - maybe they were wondering - “why the hell is this dude looking at me?”
And others were actually laughing, having a great time on this boring train. The fact that other people were having fun made me feel better.
Now, Barack Obama is obviously a very inspirational guy. And probably my favorite anecdote from him came from a letter addressed to his daughters. I think that, in a way, it really sums up my experience on the train.
“When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me—about how I’d make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want. But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn’t seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that my own life wouldn’t count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours.”
Its far too easy to get caught in thinking that life is all about me. I probably began feeling better on that train because I realized that I wasn’t the only person on that train. So what if I wasn’t feeling particularly great at that moment. I am not the only person on the planet and I am certainly not the center of the universe. Somehow, there’s a lot of comfort in that. Maybe we’re all just a little bit too self-centered.
I’ll end with a quote that I think is from the Dalai Lama. It’s something like:
“If we make our own happiness our only chance at fulfillment, we have one chance. If we make everyone else’s happiness our chance at fulfillment, we have more than a billion chances.”
Obama’s whole letter:
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/01/barack-obama-letter-to-my-daughters.html
Now that the day is come
I see myself as everyone
I am what’s all around me
No Nothing, it just cannot be
Feelings come from the sun
Like most everything and everyone
What seems lost is free from the force
That slowly destroys us and kills all matter off
Well we don’t control the chance that plays with us
And we get existence back by hurting others
When we go the other way, it’s ourselves we hurt
But who pushes on through eventually will see every moment’s first
Every moment is first
What’s gone will never come back
But it exists when you think of it
What is anything anyway
But a series of things running through your brain
All of the fucked things you do
Are the product of what’s happened to you
What ever you create from love
Is a gift from a place which some call above
There’s only the forces of hate and love
One breaks things down and one builds them up
I’ve been doing some interesting reading lately. I don’t know how I ended up there, but a while back I was doing legit research on wikipedia and I began reading some really crazy predictions of what the future might be like.
Transperonalism (See Ray Kurzweil) is an intellectual movement that attempts to reconcile technology’s rapid advancement and its involvement in our lives. These people argue that technology will eventually be interwoven into our lives on a very concrete level. Some major people in this school of thought believe that human beings will soon transcend their biology and become “one with technology”. Machines of all types will become a part of our own bodies and consciousness. The practical implication would be that these machines (in whatever form they take – probably nanobots) will help our meager bodies become impervious to disease and eventually help people reach immortality —- or at least live a very long time.
As if those claims weren’t grandiose enough, the predictions of how technology will augment human psychology were incredible, and to be honest, a little scary. Some are arguing that computers will eventually attain and surpass the processing power of the human brain. That part I guess makes sense, but then there are claims that nanobots will be sophisticated enough to interface with our natural neurons, to the extent where the nanobots will significantly expand our cognitive abilities. These neural nanobots will also help us interface with other computers, the internet and experience a full immersion virtual reality. Kurzweil then asserts that in the future, we will live exclusively in this virtual consciousness, where we will essentially create anything and everything we want – and then live in it.
It seemed disturbing to me that our “standard” reality is so unacceptable that we have to go off and create other realities. The fact that we cannot accept reality and that we live in delusion is, in fact, the cause of a lot of psychopathology. This is the focus of practically every talk therapy (except behaviorism, of course) that we have these harmful ideas about what reality is, when it might actually be something else. This is also what a lot of schizophrenic people go through. For the most part, their suffering comes from being completely and hopelessly separated in their delusions. They’re living a world completely different from the one we live in and it’s to the extent they may hurt themselves (and in extreme cases, other people).
But then I recently read a Spider-Man comic that gave me another perspective. In this particular series, a character with reality-altering abilities lost control of her abilities and was coaxed to give every super-hero in the Marvel Universe a world they’ve always wanted. It was a great concept and lead to some really great storylines, but I felt particularly moved by what Spider-man went through.
A little background info:
If you’ve seen the cartoon or the first movie, obviously his Uncle Ben was killed by a mugger he neglected to stop earlier. In subsequent issues and movies, he was traumatized so badly that he vowed to use his powers to protect people.
In the comic book canon, his first love was actually Gwen Stacy, not Mary Jane. You may remember Gwen Stacy from the third Spider-Man movie – she was his date with the blond hair at the jazz club. In the comics, she was killed by Dr. Octopus (who was in the second movie!).
In his perfect world, both of these people were alive. He and Gwen were married, with a young son and Aunt May and Uncle Ben were alive and wonderful grandparents. He had this great life and Spider-Man was loved by the general public (in the comics, he was widely disliked thanks to the Daily Bugle propaganda). However, in a heart-breaking scene, he finds out that it’s all been a lie and remembers that his life is actually very different.
After reading what he went through, my mind actually changed a bit. Why shouldn’t we have everything we want? How is it that reality puts up these walls to what we want and we’re forced to compromise. What’s so great about compromise?
I wonder what’s the inherit value in not getting what we want. Does it make us stronger emotionally or psychologically? To me it’s all a big life lesson in Buddhism’s 2nd noble truth – we suffer because of our attachment (tanha) to what we want. For better or for worse, life sometimes seems to be cruelly indifferent to our desires. Since we cannot control what’s happened in the past and we can’t control what will happen to us in the future, then accepting what does happen is the only answer.
One of my favorite stories of the Buddha was the one where he was visited by a local king. Once the local king found out that the Buddha and his monks were traveling through his kingdom, he was so grateful for their blessings that he went to greet him personally. He invited the Buddha and all his monks to an extravagant feast the next day at his palace. The king told the Buddha that it would be the best meal he would have ever eaten in his life. The next day the Buddha and his monks visited the palace only to find the gates locked. On the gate, they saw a note that said “So sorry, Lord Buddha but the king is away on urgent business in another village. He will be unable to have you over for dinner.” The Buddha then responded something to the effect of “Oh well! Let’s go get breakfast in the village!” I think for most of us, we’d be hugely disappointed to miss out on the “best meal of our lives” at a royal palace. Although, the Buddha was delighted to accept the king’s offer, he wasn’t attached. Eating the village’s ordinary food was just as good.
I guess the Buddha was right again. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with wanting things but our attachment to them is a primary cause of human suffering. There’s a great peace that comes with accepting reality as it is – sometimes it’s pleasant, sometimes it’s unpleasant or sometimes it’s neutral. We don’t need fancy neural nanobots! Honestly though, hopefully the Transpersonal stuff never happens.
