Yes, I am. I accept it. I embrace it. I realize it. I also keep forgetting it. The realization of my death came to me one day while I was in a movie theater. It was an indescribable overwhelming feeling. It was so overwhelming that I couldn’t react. I couldn’t share, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t even move. I wanted to leave but I froze in my place because I felt that there was no where to hide from this unstoppable monster, this terminator, madly running after me; and I’m in an empty desert where there’s no where to run or hide. Of course, as soon as something else caught my (short) attention (span), I forgot about the whole ordeal.
Until it hit me again.
It seems that there is a certain uncertainty about death, an uncertain certainty if you will. It’s as if we know we’re going to die, but we don’t really know it. We don’t truly realize that one day, possibly very soon, we will leave everyone and everything we fight hard to acquire. Our hopes, our opinions, our political and social affiliations will suddenly lose all relevance. But enough with the word game. I’m going to die soon. I need to use every moment I get. I’m just not sure what to use them for.
The realization of death can make you hungry for life, but only for a while. It will eventually lead you to stop and think, find a balance, stop doing things because you’re pushed into doing them or because everyone else is doing them. You gradually stop giving in to reactions and habitual tendencies and start acting with heartfelt intent. Of course it can also lead you into a frenzy of looking for God’s approval in extreme actions and places. This can be dangerous especially when coupled with stupidity.
So how can one use such a realization?
I believe the first thing to do is to reinforce it. Keep bringing to mind the idea of impermanence. Use it as an antidote to anger and other poisonous attitudes. The biggest illusion we have may be that we are permanent. Actually, from the moment we are born, it is truer to say that we are dying than to say that we are living. Birth is above all the first step towards death. So what’s the use of carrying around grudges and hatred and issues, and of constantly increasing the size and weight of our baggage when we know it will all be irrelevant one day soon?
Death reinforces the idea of life. It can be the crowning moment of our life. Of course, the interpretation of this depends on one’s philosophical approach to life, but I have come to see that, if taken from a certain angle, most of those approaches coincide in their interpretation of death. But this is a digression. The importance of the realization of death is not about death itself but about life. The level of fullness of life depends to a certain extent on the level of realization and acceptance of the fact of death.
The illusion of impermanence is not all that we can be relieved of with the realization of death. Other illusions that can be dispelled are:
1. We’re constant: In fact, every little moment brings another “me” into existence. Our body is made of matter made of molecules made of atoms made of particles made of energy that keeps appearing and disappearing. All matter can be broken down the same way. A Buddha and a trash can are the same in essence. The flame of a candle and the light emitted from a bulb are also the same. A very slow camera would show us that light appears and disappears trillions of times in a moment, giving us the illusion of continuity. Everything we see or hear or think about is made of the same thing: energy particles that keep popping up and burning out, trillions of times in a given moment. Solidity is nothing but an illusion. What we refer to as the I is actually non existent. It’s a label we use to refer to this illusion of a solid mass we think is who we are.
2. We’re pure and clean: Just go without a shower for a few days. Our bodies are inherently dirty. We are decaying. The daily shower is nothing but a -necessary, lol- mask for our inherent yuck. This is not about hygiene though. This is about us being component beings, not independently existing or created entities but relative and compound phenomena. This leads us to the next point.
3. We’re independently existing: “I” is nothing but a label that we use to create the illusion that we exist independently. In fact, I have been searching for years for this illusive “I” to no avail. It is nowhere to be found. Instead, “I” have found a set of ingredients and conditions that can be broken down infinitely. “I” exist only relative to those ingredients and conditions. Change one little thing thousands of years ago and “I” am gone. For example, “I” depends on all the food I have eaten, which depends on all those who made it and on all those who have planted it, made it, fed it, processed it, on the soil, on the animals and the animal feed and the rain water and the chemicals put into the soil and the farmers and their families and their families and the food they ate and the people who planted it, made it, fed it, and processed it, and on my parents and their parents and the food and the rain and the sun’s light and, and, and… In fact, “I” is made up of everything that existed in this universe until my formation. That means every phenomenon in the world except for one: “I.” The most mind boggling of truths is also the simplest. I am the only ingredient that’s missing from my I.
4. We’re free: Freedom is as relative as the rest of us. Absolute freedom does not belong in this world. As far as our mundane world goes, free will is a myth. If nothing, our habitual tendencies rule over us. How many times have I wanted to go eat a healthy meal, only to fall into the burger and fries habit? How many times do I decide not to fall into certain traps only to walk into them with my own “free” will? Are my opinions really freely formed? Don’t they depend on the media I watch and the people I know and in which part of the world I was born and in what part of society I was brought up? What we say and do is relative to the conditions around us. We cannot exist independently of them. The definition of freedom needs to be reconsidered. But that is a different post.
5. We’re happy: A re-examination of the term ‘happiness’ is long overdue. I remember a song I used to love a few years back. It went: ‘happiness seems to be loneliness.’ I used to love that song. Now I know why. I tried to see where my happiness is and I found that what I call happiness are nothing but momentary addictions. Buddhists refer to what we call ‘happiness’ as the ‘suffering of change,’ the addiction to small comforts that turn to suffering shortly after being acquired. I have reduced happiness to things that I acquire and places and situations I pretend to own and belong to. None of those things, places, people, or situations, has made me any happier today than I was a few days or years ago . They are just not it. Moreover, when I don’t get those things I subject myself to the suffering of being denied of them. I submit to anger and agitation. My teacher always gave the example of chocolate cake: waitress tells me they’re out of cake and I feel the empty hole in my stomach where that cake is supposed to be. On the other hand, she gets me the cake and I quickly realize I need something else to really take me where the cake couldn’t. So what is the definition of happiness? Happiness is not the opposite of suffering. It is simply the absence of it. This in turn leads to the next point.
6. We own: Objects come and go. The more we hang on to something the more likely we are to enjoy it and also to loose it or loose its desired effect. If anything, it will disintegrate, or be forgotten, or go out of fashion or just become useless.
The above can seem a bit depressing. On the contrary though, it is liberating. To see the truth and accept it is nothing but liberation. We can turn this knowledge into a launch pad, a starting point for another stage of living, the next level in the game: the level we call Living in the Know.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Why Illusions never change into something real…
It seems that wherever I turn my eyes these days, I see bad news. We have grown accustomed to equating news programs with distress. Catastrophes ranging from ‘natural’ disasters, to wars and armed conflicts are manifesting everywhere. It seems also that investigating and analyzing those problems easily throws us into bottomless pits of opinions and opposing opinions creating outer and inner conflict and resulting in anger and agitation. It is no longer a question of two sides to every story, but more like many, many sides to so the parts of each story. I have not found any definitive answers anywhere. I wish things were black and white and 1-2-3 but they aren’t. If I can’t embrace solutions to the problems, then maybe I can use these problems in another way.
Buddhists talk about problems being opportunities. Difficult phases are periods when windows are open to our minds, allowing us to see what’s in there. My country is going through a very difficult time. The ‘opposition’ has decided to up the tone of argument a few notches, leading to an armed struggle on the streets of Beirut and spilling into other areas of the country. This may be one of the most difficult periods of my life. In addition to professional, social, and personal obstacles that I face like everyone else, I am now also facing the obstacle of seeing my country going through a potentially destructive conflict. Being away is not easy. I worry about my loved ones, I worry about my business, I worry about my city. Problems are manifesting. The best that I can do is to use them as an opportunity to understand my mind. My emotions and reactions to these problems will be the looking glass that can help me see the state of my mind and its inner workings.
The antidote for emotions and reactions does not come from the opposite direction. It comes from the middle, from the comfort of non-engagement, the quenching non-taste of water when one is spitting cotton. My philosophical school and my experience have taught me that fighting emotions and reactions produces the same effect as running with them: agitation. It is better to use them to simply see the mind: accept what it’s experiencing and understand its processes in hope of recognizing its nature and becoming a better, happier person.
My reactions and emotions to the recent events have been buzzing in my head in the form of thoughts. I have been experiencing fear, anger, worry, depression, mental fatigue, restlessness, sleeplessness, confusion, and all out agitation. I have been fixated on the problem, which has in turn lead my mind to fixate on other problems and even expecting them. My partner often jokes about work being a sort of waiting for the problem de jour. In the past week I started to unconsciously become that waiting.
So where's that antidote?
Looking back upon the continuum of my life, it’s easy to see that everything passes. Good things come to an end, true, but, by that same logic, so do the bad. Everything moves and changes. It’s difficult to see that when we’re in the hole but we know that that’s the nature of things. Therefore, in spite of the shit that’s stirring in it right now, I can see that the nature of my mind is a clear, clean, non agitated, calm abiding. The problems and the happy events are like clouds moving along, constantly changing. They don’t and can’t stay and they certainly have no effect on the nature of the sky. Clouds keep coming back, of course. But when we see them for what they are, as passing phenomena that obstruct and enrich the visual of our sky but that can't hide the fact that it’s still there, they stop having any effect on us.
So I sit down and meditate. Thoughts come and go but I remain un-engaged. If and when I find myself unconsciously engaged, I simply and gently bring my mind back to the only thing I’m sure of: the breath. Free from fixation, my mind is calm, untouchable yet all around me, un-distracted, fully aware, and infinitely blissful. Free from fixation, my mind is one with God.
Realizing the nature of my mind is no easy matter though. The clouds keep hitting back. Sometimes they take me off guard and I forget for a while the reality of the sky behind them. However, reapplying the anecdote of realization again and again brings me ever closer to the truth and makes me more and more capable of overcoming obstacles. Problems become opportunities to receive and practice those blissful realizations. Obstacles and the people who cause them become compassionate manifestations of the Divine, helping me to come ever closer to His truth. When problems are transformed in this way, they are reduced to the illusions that they really are. Recognition becomes liberation.
Buddhists talk about problems being opportunities. Difficult phases are periods when windows are open to our minds, allowing us to see what’s in there. My country is going through a very difficult time. The ‘opposition’ has decided to up the tone of argument a few notches, leading to an armed struggle on the streets of Beirut and spilling into other areas of the country. This may be one of the most difficult periods of my life. In addition to professional, social, and personal obstacles that I face like everyone else, I am now also facing the obstacle of seeing my country going through a potentially destructive conflict. Being away is not easy. I worry about my loved ones, I worry about my business, I worry about my city. Problems are manifesting. The best that I can do is to use them as an opportunity to understand my mind. My emotions and reactions to these problems will be the looking glass that can help me see the state of my mind and its inner workings.
The antidote for emotions and reactions does not come from the opposite direction. It comes from the middle, from the comfort of non-engagement, the quenching non-taste of water when one is spitting cotton. My philosophical school and my experience have taught me that fighting emotions and reactions produces the same effect as running with them: agitation. It is better to use them to simply see the mind: accept what it’s experiencing and understand its processes in hope of recognizing its nature and becoming a better, happier person.
My reactions and emotions to the recent events have been buzzing in my head in the form of thoughts. I have been experiencing fear, anger, worry, depression, mental fatigue, restlessness, sleeplessness, confusion, and all out agitation. I have been fixated on the problem, which has in turn lead my mind to fixate on other problems and even expecting them. My partner often jokes about work being a sort of waiting for the problem de jour. In the past week I started to unconsciously become that waiting.
So where's that antidote?
Looking back upon the continuum of my life, it’s easy to see that everything passes. Good things come to an end, true, but, by that same logic, so do the bad. Everything moves and changes. It’s difficult to see that when we’re in the hole but we know that that’s the nature of things. Therefore, in spite of the shit that’s stirring in it right now, I can see that the nature of my mind is a clear, clean, non agitated, calm abiding. The problems and the happy events are like clouds moving along, constantly changing. They don’t and can’t stay and they certainly have no effect on the nature of the sky. Clouds keep coming back, of course. But when we see them for what they are, as passing phenomena that obstruct and enrich the visual of our sky but that can't hide the fact that it’s still there, they stop having any effect on us.
So I sit down and meditate. Thoughts come and go but I remain un-engaged. If and when I find myself unconsciously engaged, I simply and gently bring my mind back to the only thing I’m sure of: the breath. Free from fixation, my mind is calm, untouchable yet all around me, un-distracted, fully aware, and infinitely blissful. Free from fixation, my mind is one with God.
Realizing the nature of my mind is no easy matter though. The clouds keep hitting back. Sometimes they take me off guard and I forget for a while the reality of the sky behind them. However, reapplying the anecdote of realization again and again brings me ever closer to the truth and makes me more and more capable of overcoming obstacles. Problems become opportunities to receive and practice those blissful realizations. Obstacles and the people who cause them become compassionate manifestations of the Divine, helping me to come ever closer to His truth. When problems are transformed in this way, they are reduced to the illusions that they really are. Recognition becomes liberation.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Shantideva's Prayer
May all beings everywhere
Plagued by sufferings of body and mind,
Obtain an ocean of happiness and joy
By virtue of my merits.
May no living creature suffer,
Commit evil or ever fall ill.
May no one be afraid or belittled,
With a mind weighed down by depression.
May the blind see forms,
And the deaf hear sounds.
May those whose bodies are worn with toil
Be restored on finding repose.
May the naked find clothing,
The hungry find food;
May the thirsty find water
And delicious drinks.
May the poor find wealth,
Those weak with sorrow find joy;
May the forlorn find hope,
Constant happiness and prosperity.
May there be timely rains
And bountiful harvests;
May all medicines be effective
And wholesome prayers bear fruit.
May all who are sick and ill
Quickly be freed from their ailments.
Whatever diseases there are in the world,
May they never occur again.
May the frightened cease to be afraid
And those bound be freed
May the powerless find power
And may people think of benefiting each other.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
On life, love, sex, and the (vain) pursuit of happiness
Am I living a good life? How do we measure how well a person is living? What measuring stick holds truest? When I’m on my death bed, will I be able to say that I lived well without suspecting secret disagreement from loved ones around me? Will my brothers and sisters agree? Will I imagine a smirk on my cousin’s face? Will I believe my friends’ pats on my shoulder? Will my partner break down and cry?
Fools may agree that a better measure of quality of life is not monetary or professional but that it’s about happiness. I may have a trillion dollars in my account and still be a miserable Scrooge. On the other hand, I could be a penniless struggling actor and be the envy of the world for the life I am living: the friends I have, the love I share, and the unfussy unadulterated happiness I experience every day in my life. Still I don’t think I am alone in wanting financial and professional success. It’s when I start sacrificing my happiness to get to that success that the alarm sounds. That’s when I would start having less life, if that makes any sense. I would lose sight of what’s important and slowly empty my life of joy and love. Life is about living with joy and love.
But what is this thing we call love?
Love can very well be the most sung subject in the world. The word ‘love’ may be the most frequently used word in the history of film, music, and religious discourse. If you don’t ‘have’ it you are likely to feel insecure, deprived, ostracized, and unhappy. If you do have it, you’re supposed to not feel insecure, deprived, jealous, and unhappy. But mostly we are not sure if we have it, and we feel insecure, deprived, jealous, and unhappy.
Is love over-rated? Have we been placing a little too much emphasis on it?
My earliest recollections of love are like fuzzy dinosaurs. They feel big but little is left of them besides the sweet feelings, which are still with me today, hanging around, like memories, like the corners of my mind. So sweet and tasty are those feelings that -I realize now- they are still the yardsticks against which I compare my feelings today. More than that, I think that they are affecting the way I deal with people I’m attracted to. I’m sort of still there on some level. What I feel must measure up to them or else it’s not strong or real enough.
My love life started at my pre-teens. At that time, I always imagined myself in love. Whether this love had an actual object was beside the point. The feeling was there anyway. I was moving from one person to another in my head, editing and perfecting the image and along the way using different personas to suit my mercuric moods and dispositions. Sometimes the person was real, but often it was a figment of my imagination. At times it would be a crush over a star or total infatuation with a song or a book and its singer or author. But most of the time it was an imaginary person. I’m not sure if I was actively cultivating those feelings or whether they were there by default and I was just basking in them.
As a teenager I went through several crushes, one after another, only abandoning one for the stronger force of another. Another way to end the crush was by some sort of consummation, which did not happen frequently I might add. Later, in my early twenties I moved to another realm, adding a physical element but losing something along the way. Love, now in the form of relationships, was not based on crushes but on needs and emotions. I found myself dragged into and through relationships for more reasons than I can assume. Love became a quest for satisfaction. I think I developed a need to be with someone. The need was about personal satisfaction as much as it was about a social need to be like everyone else. I think a lot of people are in relationships because they need a partner -be it for social reasons or sexual fulfillment. So many people are in love with love as opposed to in love with a partner. I understood much later that I had to discern my feelings. I learned to take a step back and look at them. At one point I decided I was never going to fall or be dragged into relationships, that I was going to only accept what I thought were real emotions. I wanted to be satisfied and I looked for satisfying relationships. That was a whole other issue.
With time and experience I rearranged the way I understood satisfaction. I found that small measures of satisfaction were a sure way to go forward in life. They are the toes in the water, the taste buds on the tip of the tongue, our defense against full-blown catastrophes. I divided my satisfaction target into smaller progressive units. I started to enjoy my life more. My relationships became more stable.
Needless to say, before I figured out this system, I went through a crazy period where I was looking for more and more satisfaction: higher intensity, more feeling, superior emotions. I was running faster and jumping higher and, in the process, falling harder. I didn’t notice that I was actually getting less and less. I do not regret this period. I think that the path of excess is OK too because it eventually leads us to our balance. Some people are luckier or smarter at using experience than others and will learn quicker. The danger is that a few may end up stuck in the excess, drowning in the ineffective quest of reaching new heights and not realizing that their highest point was at the very beginning.
So then, what is love?
My dictionary defines love as an 'intense feeling of deep affection' or a 'deep romantic or sexual attachment' to someone. Buddhists define love as the wish for others to be happy. They regard it as a step further from compassion which is the wish for others not to suffer.
What else? Love is the answer. You gotta have love. Love is pain. Love is jealousy and betrayal. Love makes the world go around. Love is a cliché. Love is all there is. Why can’t you get it through that thick head of yours that all you need is love? Love is a need. Love is need. We are needy for love.
Love is damaged by need. Take the need out of the love and you have a better relationship. Of course, we cannot easily do that. What we can do is recognize. That’s the surest way to liberation. When we recognize that we need, we start needing less. When we need less, we love more. Then, jealousy decreases, friendships become better, families become closer and more open to each other. Love becomes more about giving than expectations. It wouldn’t be so often transformed into hate because according to this definition, love is not the opposite of hate but the absence of it. No longer will love be about the search for happiness through others. Rather we will realize that love and happiness are one and the same. The illusion that happiness is a feeling equal in intensity to suffering but opposite to it in direction is actually what ruins our happiness. We search and search for it but it’s not anywhere over there. It’s right here. Drop the search and you will experience it.
Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone. Canadians, Americans, Brazilians, Palestinians, Israelis, Lebanese, Syrians, Black people, White people, Asians, Latinos, poor people, rich people, young people, old people, Muslims, Presbyterians, and Hindus all share this very same basic desire. Madonna, Haifa, Bush, Sarkozy, Carla Bruni, Ahmadinejad, and Bin laden are all moving out of the same exact place in their hearts. Why is it so hard to believe that we are all the same in wanting to be happy? It is not in wanting happiness but in the pursuit of it that we go our separate ways. The search for happiness is causing us unhappiness.
The basic mistake that we often make is excluding others from this search. We forget that terrorists are looking for the same things that we are. We assume that they don’t have mothers and lovers and that they hate their own children. We become so swallowed up in our search that when we collide with someone else who’s on the same search, we think they are only there to deny us our trophy. My precious! If only we can see that we all want the same thing and that what we want is inside each and every one of us. The supply is infinite.
I remember a song that I used to hate in the 80’s. It went: “What is love?
Baby, don’t hurt me.” In that lame song, I see meaning for life. Go figure.
Fools may agree that a better measure of quality of life is not monetary or professional but that it’s about happiness. I may have a trillion dollars in my account and still be a miserable Scrooge. On the other hand, I could be a penniless struggling actor and be the envy of the world for the life I am living: the friends I have, the love I share, and the unfussy unadulterated happiness I experience every day in my life. Still I don’t think I am alone in wanting financial and professional success. It’s when I start sacrificing my happiness to get to that success that the alarm sounds. That’s when I would start having less life, if that makes any sense. I would lose sight of what’s important and slowly empty my life of joy and love. Life is about living with joy and love.
But what is this thing we call love?
Love can very well be the most sung subject in the world. The word ‘love’ may be the most frequently used word in the history of film, music, and religious discourse. If you don’t ‘have’ it you are likely to feel insecure, deprived, ostracized, and unhappy. If you do have it, you’re supposed to not feel insecure, deprived, jealous, and unhappy. But mostly we are not sure if we have it, and we feel insecure, deprived, jealous, and unhappy.
Is love over-rated? Have we been placing a little too much emphasis on it?
My earliest recollections of love are like fuzzy dinosaurs. They feel big but little is left of them besides the sweet feelings, which are still with me today, hanging around, like memories, like the corners of my mind. So sweet and tasty are those feelings that -I realize now- they are still the yardsticks against which I compare my feelings today. More than that, I think that they are affecting the way I deal with people I’m attracted to. I’m sort of still there on some level. What I feel must measure up to them or else it’s not strong or real enough.
My love life started at my pre-teens. At that time, I always imagined myself in love. Whether this love had an actual object was beside the point. The feeling was there anyway. I was moving from one person to another in my head, editing and perfecting the image and along the way using different personas to suit my mercuric moods and dispositions. Sometimes the person was real, but often it was a figment of my imagination. At times it would be a crush over a star or total infatuation with a song or a book and its singer or author. But most of the time it was an imaginary person. I’m not sure if I was actively cultivating those feelings or whether they were there by default and I was just basking in them.
As a teenager I went through several crushes, one after another, only abandoning one for the stronger force of another. Another way to end the crush was by some sort of consummation, which did not happen frequently I might add. Later, in my early twenties I moved to another realm, adding a physical element but losing something along the way. Love, now in the form of relationships, was not based on crushes but on needs and emotions. I found myself dragged into and through relationships for more reasons than I can assume. Love became a quest for satisfaction. I think I developed a need to be with someone. The need was about personal satisfaction as much as it was about a social need to be like everyone else. I think a lot of people are in relationships because they need a partner -be it for social reasons or sexual fulfillment. So many people are in love with love as opposed to in love with a partner. I understood much later that I had to discern my feelings. I learned to take a step back and look at them. At one point I decided I was never going to fall or be dragged into relationships, that I was going to only accept what I thought were real emotions. I wanted to be satisfied and I looked for satisfying relationships. That was a whole other issue.
With time and experience I rearranged the way I understood satisfaction. I found that small measures of satisfaction were a sure way to go forward in life. They are the toes in the water, the taste buds on the tip of the tongue, our defense against full-blown catastrophes. I divided my satisfaction target into smaller progressive units. I started to enjoy my life more. My relationships became more stable.
Needless to say, before I figured out this system, I went through a crazy period where I was looking for more and more satisfaction: higher intensity, more feeling, superior emotions. I was running faster and jumping higher and, in the process, falling harder. I didn’t notice that I was actually getting less and less. I do not regret this period. I think that the path of excess is OK too because it eventually leads us to our balance. Some people are luckier or smarter at using experience than others and will learn quicker. The danger is that a few may end up stuck in the excess, drowning in the ineffective quest of reaching new heights and not realizing that their highest point was at the very beginning.
So then, what is love?
My dictionary defines love as an 'intense feeling of deep affection' or a 'deep romantic or sexual attachment' to someone. Buddhists define love as the wish for others to be happy. They regard it as a step further from compassion which is the wish for others not to suffer.
What else? Love is the answer. You gotta have love. Love is pain. Love is jealousy and betrayal. Love makes the world go around. Love is a cliché. Love is all there is. Why can’t you get it through that thick head of yours that all you need is love? Love is a need. Love is need. We are needy for love.
Love is damaged by need. Take the need out of the love and you have a better relationship. Of course, we cannot easily do that. What we can do is recognize. That’s the surest way to liberation. When we recognize that we need, we start needing less. When we need less, we love more. Then, jealousy decreases, friendships become better, families become closer and more open to each other. Love becomes more about giving than expectations. It wouldn’t be so often transformed into hate because according to this definition, love is not the opposite of hate but the absence of it. No longer will love be about the search for happiness through others. Rather we will realize that love and happiness are one and the same. The illusion that happiness is a feeling equal in intensity to suffering but opposite to it in direction is actually what ruins our happiness. We search and search for it but it’s not anywhere over there. It’s right here. Drop the search and you will experience it.
Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone. Canadians, Americans, Brazilians, Palestinians, Israelis, Lebanese, Syrians, Black people, White people, Asians, Latinos, poor people, rich people, young people, old people, Muslims, Presbyterians, and Hindus all share this very same basic desire. Madonna, Haifa, Bush, Sarkozy, Carla Bruni, Ahmadinejad, and Bin laden are all moving out of the same exact place in their hearts. Why is it so hard to believe that we are all the same in wanting to be happy? It is not in wanting happiness but in the pursuit of it that we go our separate ways. The search for happiness is causing us unhappiness.
The basic mistake that we often make is excluding others from this search. We forget that terrorists are looking for the same things that we are. We assume that they don’t have mothers and lovers and that they hate their own children. We become so swallowed up in our search that when we collide with someone else who’s on the same search, we think they are only there to deny us our trophy. My precious! If only we can see that we all want the same thing and that what we want is inside each and every one of us. The supply is infinite.
I remember a song that I used to hate in the 80’s. It went: “What is love?
Baby, don’t hurt me.” In that lame song, I see meaning for life. Go figure.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Oh Lord, won't you buy me an undo button...
Do I always have a choice? Theoretically, I think I do, though it is quite often that I'm tempted to feel that I'm forced to do something. Is it because the choice is too difficult, so I make believe there is none?
However, even when dabbling in the illusion of forced action or situation, I find that I still do have the following choices:
1. Deny any responsibility in what's happening and surrender to anger and depression or wallow in self pity, never allowing myself to hear the end of the story. In this case I find I get stuck in trying to get back to what was before only to realize really late that I can't undo anything. No one can.
2. Open up to the possibility of personal responsibility but remain unable to find my share. In this case, I would be able to shake off some of the anger, depression and self pity and improve my mental state a little but I wouldn't be able to improve the situation drastically. Frustration builds up from day to day, in time returning me to the cycle of anger and so on.
3. Face responsibility head on. I understand that I must have taken steps along the way leading to something which led to something else which eventually led to where I am and that I have never been completely helpless or choice-less. In fact, anything happening at any point in time does not just suddenly appear out of God's situation bag. For anything to happen there must be a set of causes and conditions that can be traced as far back as the afternoon of the biting of the first apple. Therefore, I generate acceptance and make the best of the situation and move on. When I take this option I often find that the situation does change for the better. Many times I find good fortune where nothing but you-know-what was in view. I may not be able to undo but I can move things around a little to make them more suitable for me and others.
If only I can remember the third option all the time...
One of my teachers once asked: if a person gets shot at the door of your building, are you responsible? What if the person is hit by a car in another part of town? How about if someone dies in an train wreck in a far away country? My answers to the three questions were no, no, and certainly not. He proceeded to say yes you are. You are responsible. I didn't like that. He said as long as you are alive, you always have the ability to respond. Life and responsibility suddenly became faces of the same coin.
Responsibility is not guilt. It is not blame. It is not about deciding who did what. The word responsibility comes from response-ability. Whatever happens in this world, whether it's to me or to someone I never imagined existed, is my responsibility. My situation is my responsibility. It is so because I always have the choice of response. This is what life is made up of: responses and responses to responses and responses to the responses to the responses and so on, endlessly.
I still wish for the undo button though.
However, even when dabbling in the illusion of forced action or situation, I find that I still do have the following choices:
1. Deny any responsibility in what's happening and surrender to anger and depression or wallow in self pity, never allowing myself to hear the end of the story. In this case I find I get stuck in trying to get back to what was before only to realize really late that I can't undo anything. No one can.
2. Open up to the possibility of personal responsibility but remain unable to find my share. In this case, I would be able to shake off some of the anger, depression and self pity and improve my mental state a little but I wouldn't be able to improve the situation drastically. Frustration builds up from day to day, in time returning me to the cycle of anger and so on.
3. Face responsibility head on. I understand that I must have taken steps along the way leading to something which led to something else which eventually led to where I am and that I have never been completely helpless or choice-less. In fact, anything happening at any point in time does not just suddenly appear out of God's situation bag. For anything to happen there must be a set of causes and conditions that can be traced as far back as the afternoon of the biting of the first apple. Therefore, I generate acceptance and make the best of the situation and move on. When I take this option I often find that the situation does change for the better. Many times I find good fortune where nothing but you-know-what was in view. I may not be able to undo but I can move things around a little to make them more suitable for me and others.
If only I can remember the third option all the time...
One of my teachers once asked: if a person gets shot at the door of your building, are you responsible? What if the person is hit by a car in another part of town? How about if someone dies in an train wreck in a far away country? My answers to the three questions were no, no, and certainly not. He proceeded to say yes you are. You are responsible. I didn't like that. He said as long as you are alive, you always have the ability to respond. Life and responsibility suddenly became faces of the same coin.
Responsibility is not guilt. It is not blame. It is not about deciding who did what. The word responsibility comes from response-ability. Whatever happens in this world, whether it's to me or to someone I never imagined existed, is my responsibility. My situation is my responsibility. It is so because I always have the choice of response. This is what life is made up of: responses and responses to responses and responses to the responses to the responses and so on, endlessly.
I still wish for the undo button though.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Saucy Tales and Bikini Veils (Excerpt)
I DON'T REMEMBER GROWING UP. I remember being a little baby, I actually do. I remember craving milk, sleeping in a cradle, and looking at people from far below. I remember holding experiments to find out things like 'does the refrigerator light stay on when its door is closed' and 'do noises and sounds actually dampen when I shut my ears -in other words are my ears the volume knobs to the world or are they just mine?' And I remember being a dorky little kid who read till he dropped. I just couldn't stop reading. I remember listening to my elderlies' and school teachers' saucy tales and asking them questions they didn't answer. I remember them telling stories about why they wouldn't, and I remember me thinking, and eventually saying, that they probably couldn't. I remember stubbornly arguing with everyone about almost everything. I was rarely satisfied.
Now apparently I've 'grown up' and, suddenly, I see myself getting smiles, often sympathetic, sometimes hypocritical, and at times empty. I hear myself being branded with both good and bad adjectives. I'm frequently reassured that I'm only reacting, that I'm passing through a phase, and that I'll change with time. Who doesn’t! Every moment in life is a phase. That doesn’t change what’s going on in its span.
Now that, I guess, I've grown up, I realize that I maybe right or wrong on issues. And although I am not completely sure about anything, I do know some things. I know that I belong to a veiled, censored, and often violent society. It's veiled, both physically and morally. Some women wear head veils, others wear bikini ones. The men? They're just as veiled as the women. Individualism has been dying in this society. But then again, maybe it was never exactly kicking. The veil extends to many areas of society: music, movies, books, the media, and all forms of expression. Is it a coincidence that Lebanese artists and writers have traditionally been unable to make it in our society? The list is long starting as far back as Gibran. Today, we are seeing glimpses of change. I hope this trend will mature and prosper. Still, most of our collective talent is scattered around the world, lamenting their luck, stuck in 9-5 jobs in Dubai or Saudi, or struggling to make it day to day in the west. All our society does is take foolish pride in them. Those who dare come back may be threatening their intellectual freedom and span. The boundaries of our collective intellect are LBC in the north, the name of the airport in the south, Crystal nightclub in the east, and the large unending sea of mediocrity in the west. We have killed each other so many times, and we may just do it again. Once around before there’s no one left. We prolong our own suffering by grasping on to worn-out political and social traditions and regurgitating the same slogans without pondering their meanings. It never occurs to us to rethink our ways. We can’t think further than our own hairdo’s. Bleak picture? The bad news is that instead of anyone constructively criticizing, trying to know the real story and telling it as it is (after all, that would be the first step in bringing about positive change, wouldn't it?), everyone is caught up in what I like to call the Rahbani syndrome: singing praise of the beauty and perfection of our country and of our ways. We grew up with a nauseating national pride. We knew we were it. The country. The history. The heritage. Don't get me wrong; it's fine to say that Lebanon's beauty is the envy of the rest of the world. My problem is, where is this beauty today? OK, so you drive a while and you find some of it untouched, kind of. But how long would it be till someone else finds what you have found and does the perfectly Lebanese thing to do -cut it up and sell it? It's great to take pride in the commercial success of our Phoenician ancestors, but what about their literature and intellectual heritage? Where is it? All right, it's also fabulous to boast about our monotheistic traditions and of our being the ‘model’ of inter-religious coexistence, whatever that means! But, say we accept that coexistence is a good thing, my question remains, where is it? Where is this coexistence? More importantly, how is this spirit of coexistence affecting tolerance of others who are disqualified by monotheism? What issues is the political establishment debating besides who puts up which tents? Will my asthma ever get better given the levels of pollution and smoke in public places? How many more people have to die before we enforce traffic laws? When will I be able to see a movie, read a book, or even receive a mail package without the active participation of our lovely censors? Who decides who thinks what?
As my generation began 'growing up,' with Fayrouz and Sabah’s patriotic songs ringing in our heads, many of us started comparing notes: Oh, oh! We're not the greatest society in the world. We're not better than everyone else. Actually, in many ways, we are a bit worse! Oh my God, Lebanon is not God's paradise on earth. A goat’s dwelling in Lebanon is not the envy of the whole world. The result was a black hole in our minds. Some of us couldn't, or wouldn't, see the forest because of the trees. They denied what they plainly saw and played on with the charades. The rest treated this new insight in one of two ways. Some trusted their vision and stuck to their ideas. They revolted against the status quo and waged little wars, facing little losses, little gains, or general marginalization. Others started looking for another paradise on earth: Canada? The US? France? The Gulf? What, they're all the same? They all have faults? So many of us today are caught up in limbo, living somewhere and waiting to grab the chance to move back or forth somewhere else. In, out, tick, tock, or so the story goes for our lot. Are we finally waking up and smelling the coffee? Or is it the smell of mendacity, as Tennessee Williams so delightfully put it, that’s finally awakening us? Are we growing up? How can we know if we are?
I am forty years old. How in the name of all Broadway shows did I get here? I still habitually forget that I’m not 17 anymore. When did I start realizing all the above? Why don't I remember growing up? I have thought about this glitch in my memory and have found a few potential explanations for this bizarre phenomenon.
The first is that I was never a child. Maybe no one ever is. Maybe we're all born as grown ups, but we're limited by our physical appearance and by our elderlies' need to prove that they're better. I mean juvenile voting is a legitimate idea. Articles have appeared in respectable reviews about it. Could be.
The second is that the process of growing up is so slow and routine that it is impossible for anyone to remember growing up. Instead, though we don't always ponder the meaning of them, we remember growth enhancing incidents such as losing one's virginity and reading long meaning-infested books. Therefore, there is a possibility that the issue is not just mine but a symptom of the human condition. The problem with this logic is that it feels to me as though it's the opposite. The passing of time is not slow at all. On the contrary, it is really fast. It’s still a possibility though.
The third possibility is that growing up is such a hard process that people just push it away from the accessible parts of their brains. Maybe growing up in my society was so hard that I too unknowingly pushed the set-aside button in my brain. That's understandable when we consider the violent mess that my generation grew up in. It's even more understandable when we consider that my generation is being charged with the economic and social cost of resolving that mess and rebuilding the country.
The fourth possibility is that I haven't grown up. Maybe no one ever does. Maybe that's human nature. Maybe we're all just children. That would explain the way we look down on juvenile intellect. We could be jealous that we no longer exercise it. On the other hand, maybe people do grow up, but it's just me and my society that haven't. Maybe we need to finally decide that we want to grow up. Only then can growth take place. Could be.
Revisited excerpt from Edentown, a self published work. www.edentown.org
Now apparently I've 'grown up' and, suddenly, I see myself getting smiles, often sympathetic, sometimes hypocritical, and at times empty. I hear myself being branded with both good and bad adjectives. I'm frequently reassured that I'm only reacting, that I'm passing through a phase, and that I'll change with time. Who doesn’t! Every moment in life is a phase. That doesn’t change what’s going on in its span.
Now that, I guess, I've grown up, I realize that I maybe right or wrong on issues. And although I am not completely sure about anything, I do know some things. I know that I belong to a veiled, censored, and often violent society. It's veiled, both physically and morally. Some women wear head veils, others wear bikini ones. The men? They're just as veiled as the women. Individualism has been dying in this society. But then again, maybe it was never exactly kicking. The veil extends to many areas of society: music, movies, books, the media, and all forms of expression. Is it a coincidence that Lebanese artists and writers have traditionally been unable to make it in our society? The list is long starting as far back as Gibran. Today, we are seeing glimpses of change. I hope this trend will mature and prosper. Still, most of our collective talent is scattered around the world, lamenting their luck, stuck in 9-5 jobs in Dubai or Saudi, or struggling to make it day to day in the west. All our society does is take foolish pride in them. Those who dare come back may be threatening their intellectual freedom and span. The boundaries of our collective intellect are LBC in the north, the name of the airport in the south, Crystal nightclub in the east, and the large unending sea of mediocrity in the west. We have killed each other so many times, and we may just do it again. Once around before there’s no one left. We prolong our own suffering by grasping on to worn-out political and social traditions and regurgitating the same slogans without pondering their meanings. It never occurs to us to rethink our ways. We can’t think further than our own hairdo’s. Bleak picture? The bad news is that instead of anyone constructively criticizing, trying to know the real story and telling it as it is (after all, that would be the first step in bringing about positive change, wouldn't it?), everyone is caught up in what I like to call the Rahbani syndrome: singing praise of the beauty and perfection of our country and of our ways. We grew up with a nauseating national pride. We knew we were it. The country. The history. The heritage. Don't get me wrong; it's fine to say that Lebanon's beauty is the envy of the rest of the world. My problem is, where is this beauty today? OK, so you drive a while and you find some of it untouched, kind of. But how long would it be till someone else finds what you have found and does the perfectly Lebanese thing to do -cut it up and sell it? It's great to take pride in the commercial success of our Phoenician ancestors, but what about their literature and intellectual heritage? Where is it? All right, it's also fabulous to boast about our monotheistic traditions and of our being the ‘model’ of inter-religious coexistence, whatever that means! But, say we accept that coexistence is a good thing, my question remains, where is it? Where is this coexistence? More importantly, how is this spirit of coexistence affecting tolerance of others who are disqualified by monotheism? What issues is the political establishment debating besides who puts up which tents? Will my asthma ever get better given the levels of pollution and smoke in public places? How many more people have to die before we enforce traffic laws? When will I be able to see a movie, read a book, or even receive a mail package without the active participation of our lovely censors? Who decides who thinks what?
As my generation began 'growing up,' with Fayrouz and Sabah’s patriotic songs ringing in our heads, many of us started comparing notes: Oh, oh! We're not the greatest society in the world. We're not better than everyone else. Actually, in many ways, we are a bit worse! Oh my God, Lebanon is not God's paradise on earth. A goat’s dwelling in Lebanon is not the envy of the whole world. The result was a black hole in our minds. Some of us couldn't, or wouldn't, see the forest because of the trees. They denied what they plainly saw and played on with the charades. The rest treated this new insight in one of two ways. Some trusted their vision and stuck to their ideas. They revolted against the status quo and waged little wars, facing little losses, little gains, or general marginalization. Others started looking for another paradise on earth: Canada? The US? France? The Gulf? What, they're all the same? They all have faults? So many of us today are caught up in limbo, living somewhere and waiting to grab the chance to move back or forth somewhere else. In, out, tick, tock, or so the story goes for our lot. Are we finally waking up and smelling the coffee? Or is it the smell of mendacity, as Tennessee Williams so delightfully put it, that’s finally awakening us? Are we growing up? How can we know if we are?
I am forty years old. How in the name of all Broadway shows did I get here? I still habitually forget that I’m not 17 anymore. When did I start realizing all the above? Why don't I remember growing up? I have thought about this glitch in my memory and have found a few potential explanations for this bizarre phenomenon.
The first is that I was never a child. Maybe no one ever is. Maybe we're all born as grown ups, but we're limited by our physical appearance and by our elderlies' need to prove that they're better. I mean juvenile voting is a legitimate idea. Articles have appeared in respectable reviews about it. Could be.
The second is that the process of growing up is so slow and routine that it is impossible for anyone to remember growing up. Instead, though we don't always ponder the meaning of them, we remember growth enhancing incidents such as losing one's virginity and reading long meaning-infested books. Therefore, there is a possibility that the issue is not just mine but a symptom of the human condition. The problem with this logic is that it feels to me as though it's the opposite. The passing of time is not slow at all. On the contrary, it is really fast. It’s still a possibility though.
The third possibility is that growing up is such a hard process that people just push it away from the accessible parts of their brains. Maybe growing up in my society was so hard that I too unknowingly pushed the set-aside button in my brain. That's understandable when we consider the violent mess that my generation grew up in. It's even more understandable when we consider that my generation is being charged with the economic and social cost of resolving that mess and rebuilding the country.
The fourth possibility is that I haven't grown up. Maybe no one ever does. Maybe that's human nature. Maybe we're all just children. That would explain the way we look down on juvenile intellect. We could be jealous that we no longer exercise it. On the other hand, maybe people do grow up, but it's just me and my society that haven't. Maybe we need to finally decide that we want to grow up. Only then can growth take place. Could be.
Revisited excerpt from Edentown, a self published work. www.edentown.org
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