Quote:accept fully that life is suffering.
embrace that, make love to that.
determine that you are going to climb the narrow road to success and see every obstacle as a stepping stone.
thats hard to do.
thats the road to enlightenment.
people think enlightenment is just some blissful state.
its not. if it was , everyone would be doing it.
its hard as f^^k.
but you dont have anything better to do.
you dont have anything better to do then to see how strong and tough and resilient you can make yourself
That's the thing, though
people would rather walk away from the fight, the whole thing. And I don't blame them
Most if not all have done the suffering bit
In many cases it does not make us stronger or better
Very often, it cripples and destroys
and for what? For what?
Let's liken it to a brand new pair of shoes
Lovely and new. Smooth, unwrinkled. Proud to be seen in them
Now let's look at those shoes after six months continual wear (remembering that life usually lasts a lot longer than six months)
After six months, those shoes are clearly worse for wear. They've been through a lot. In the process, the soles might have come loose. The shoes' shape sags, tips to one side perhaps. If velco fastener, then it's loose and covered in lint. If laces, they're tattered and eyelets are stretched/loose. Down at heel. Surface cracked and worn
so who wants to end up as a battered, fit for the tip pair of old shoes? Especially when those same shoes began as bright, ready for anything, fully believing they'd still look and feel good miles down the track
It was organised religion which force-fed the notion that suffering is noble --and that suffering to the end was a path to future paradise
It's my suspicion that humans are
reduced by Life, not enhanced
When I was a teen and we were asked in class as to our primary goal, ambition. I said it was my ambition to exit life 'as good as I entered it'. People laughed and interpreted that to mean I thought I was A1. They wanted to be nurses, policemen, etc. What I was to embarrassed to explain was that I'd already seen how adults had been reduced via their passage in life. They'd become bitter, angry, envious, resentful, blameful, etc. But with many, you could occasionally see how they'd been when younger - you could still see glimpses of their original enthusiasm, generosity of spirit, playfulness, empathy, etc. They'd been covered by experience, suffering, loss, theft and the day-to-day pain of living by barnacles of negativity, sorrow, bitterness, fear and so on
I wanted to fight that erosion and come out the other end with my better qualities intact. That was my ambition and for many adult years I believed I was on track. More years and the cracks became evident to me. Now I'm a lot changed. I lost myself along the way and became someone else, only parts of which I approve
that's the cost of living. And whom/what does it benefit?
Life simply wants more of itself. Life demands that everything replace itself before it dies, be that weeds, cockroaches, rats, humans
Once the entity has reproduced and raised its replacement to the point of reasonable viability, Life has no further use for that entity. On and on. Known as the boilogical-imperative, apparently
We humans attempt to make a virtue of it. We celebrate the birth of our own and others young as if birth of another on the path to suffering were an achievement when in fact it's merely result, most often, of an act committed nine months earlier with the result not always celebrated privately by either parent
It seems in many cases that forcing another human to endure decades of mostly pain, is wrong and an imposition on the newborn individual
in addition, parenthood very often strips individuals of opportunity and costs them irreplaceable time, effort, money, sacrifice
Sure, we focus on the positive; the joys of parenthood, the opportunity of the parent to mature, develop character -- and of course, conform with peers
But how many artists of all kinds, scientists, doctors, humanitarians, tutors, on and on, have we lost to the rigours of parenthood which demands a minimum of twenty years of an individuals prime productivity, courage, energy, etc.
So again, who/what benefits from the human condition -- with many believing the primary beneficiaries are not humans
We live in a world where most things are forced to live at the cost of others lives -- human lives, animal lives, environmental health. Except rabbit and deer and other non-predators
For decades I've wished humans worldwide would stop being drawn into diversions such as wars for profit, territory, domination, etc. --- and go on strike ! Against 'Life' itself ! No more breeding, no more bloodshed, no more religion. Just no. We're stopping. We're downing genitals. We're done
maybe that's what it needs to force a reset