الذهاب مع تدفق

"Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness." - Zhuangzi

 the "key" to happiness is to realise that there is no key
there is no secret
it's not a member's only club
it's not something that can be "attained"
it's not a status
it's not a person
it cannot be won
or caged
or held
it is fleeting and it will not last for ever
it is subjective
it is not real

happiness is a momentary state of being
as is sadness
as is love
as is pain
as is grief
as is every other human "emotion"

you are not your emotions
in some languages, unfortunately not english, there are ways of expessing this
the verb "to be" changes for emotions in order to show that they are not part of the essential person
they are not part of what makes up the solid human being
they are temporary states
in spanish for example it's the difference between ser and estar.
(look it up it's quite interesting)

once you start to live in the moment
and accept and acknowledge every emotion and feeling as it occurs
and accept its departure as it fleets away
(for that is the nature of emotion and life itself: fleeting)
then your 'happiness' comes from a peace , an acceptance
that your experience of life is subjective

and really, all of these things are easy to state in theory
they are hard to practice
but they aren't
"let go, or be dragged"
it is one of my FAVOURITE statements.

really i was having a conversation with my friend and i was telling her,
you're always living in the future.
you are waiting for tomorrow
but tomorrow you will be waiting for the next day
you're not living in the present
and so many people do it

and i think really, it's hard to put into practice until you reach a point in your life
where you don't want tomorrow to come.
you don't want today to be here.
you wish you had done something different yesterday.
"it's your life and it's ending one minute at a time"
in order to understand how painful the concept of tomorrow is
and then to avoid it by living hedonistically in the present
you begin to understand that that's all life is
a series of moments
and if you don't acknowledge them daily
and as they pass,
then they're all just so fleeting and you're chasing down something you can never hold
because it's always one step ahead of you
you're chasing it right into your own grave

i suppose what i am trying to say is
to quote pessoa, whose 'book of disquiet' have i been reading this week:
"in order to understand, i destroyed myself"
now this quote is out of context
but it fits what i am trying to say
until you have destroyed yourself and worn your own skin and bones down
to the point where they cannot take any more
you do not understand the relief of living in the moment
of accepting your crippling pain as fleeting

and the relief of going with the flow

and then it becomes happiness
happiness and contentedness, to float along the river of life
and then it becomes little goals to aim for
and all of these little moments make up your life