-this is a ten page treatise i spent all day writing today. one of those things i couldnt put down until it was completed.
On Modern Sadness
My attempt at clarity though I freely admit my experience with philosophy begins and ends with “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. I do not expect these views to be shared by everyone, but I believe the larger themes they convey are good and worthy. They are merely my reflections; perhaps they will be of use to you.
Part 1: A Few of the Modern Causes of Sadness.
I have a lot to say concerning modern sadness. Recently I have been very closely acquainted with the aspects of sadness, but it wasn’t until I sincerely looked at the situation of a dear friend that I was struck with some realizations about the causes of it and the solutions to it. I have a close friend, who is wonderful, and also very sad. She has a blog as well, and is always honest about her depression, which is beyond courageous. I have noticed a trend, however, as I have paid close attention to her posts, especially the ones that deal with her sadness. Her sadness seems to be heightened, if not created, by a sense of Isolation. This is something I can relate to intimately, as it has run through my meditations as well. It’s a strange sensation of being "chosen for awareness" in a world where many are perceived as living "blissfully unawares".
First, before I dive into the complications of "chosen for awareness", let me hypothesize about the connection between awareness and sadness, and why my friend is sad. I believe her sadness is a byproduct of how she views her awareness. She is aware in that she is intelligent enough to see the shallowness of many of the social behaviors that people lean on for their own transient happiness. She is intelligent enough to realize that a happiness based upon such worldly conditions as money, education, fame, etc, is a sad counterfeit for lasting contentment. She is aware that the things our society seem bent on procuring are merely shadows of joy. So, being charitable and noble and courageous she goes in search of real Joy, but does so feeling isolated from the masses that seem content with the worldly solution to the problem of happiness. Her feelings of "being chosen for awareness" become a noble Cross, a responsibility, a solo burden, or more poetically, transmute themselves into the deep pain she imagines people seeing as they look into her eyes. This is her sadness, that she must be the enlightened one of her family, the prophetess in her own country, and the message bearer to a blind world. This feeling is perhaps best described as a "weight". It is a sadness that can be easily heightened by feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy for the task at hand, or stagnancy along the road to enlightenment, or frustration with self, or of a host of other things I am not aware enough to intimate. These, all compounded, form an interesting definition of depression.
The solution to this sadness lies in a critique of the whole "chosen for awareness"
idea, but to understand the critique its necessary to first understand another reason why modern people are sad. When a seeker of true Joy (and by this I mean the happiness of which fame and money are merely counterfeits) begins their search, they often believe they will find an absolute. But the journey towards happiness provides no absolutes, only an infinity of worthy hypotheses. Let me explain: Awareness is primarily an understanding that you are unaware of a completed picture of anything. It is Socrates' humility in stating that above all he knows; he knows that he knows nothing. The analogy is opening a door to find a room filled with one hundred more doors worth opening. Each one of those doors leads to another hundred doors, and so on. Anyone who has delved into a search for enlightenment will tell you there are a lot of truths out there, and a reasonably intelligent mind cannot hope in such a short lifespan to get a complete understanding of it all.
This is not to say there isn’t an absolute truth, (I firmly believe there is) but it is to say that fragments of that truth, while also found in the absolute, are scattered in infinity throughout a million other hypotheses. And to arrive at a complete understanding of Absolute truth and happiness is to exhaust all of those truth fragments, which is, in mortality, impossible. The cause of happiness cannot be the goal of understanding it. Our modern sadness comes because we are a society bent on understanding, whose natural tendencies demand order. We periodize our history, we systematize our learning, and we create logical hierarchies. When a person bent on completion, bent on understanding, is faced with the ever-changing and unfathomable intricacies of life, a hopelessness of understanding in the face of the intricacies can emerge. The hopelessness is not found in the lack of a solution, but in the sheer number of potential solutions. This was best explained to me unwittingly by a dear friend when she commented that she can't stand to go to a bookstore anymore because seeing all the great books she will never have time to read makes her inconsolable. The inability to accept the length of the journey, coupled with the sadness of isolation, can be very depressing. This feeling is sometimes compounded when a modern seeker falsely believes that others have figured out a final solution, and reached a time to rest. Thus the insecurity plays on both sides; contempt for those who have not yet become aware and envy of those who seem to have it all figured out.
Part 2: A Solution to Sadness
Since you have so diligently struggled with me this far, I will try to be clear and concise with the solutions I propose. There are two answers to sadness, and the first is community. The way to overcome sadness is through an acknowledgement of the large population of sadness. In other words, there is intense joy in community. This is clear in our lives. Take my blogger friend for instance: in response to her latest post about sadness and isolation there were 8 comments detailing how others in her circle of friends were going through the same thing. She must view them as true friends, as partners, and the joy she gets from them is probably what has kept her going. I have often daydreamed about this principle, and tried to define those that are aware of their journey as the "Community of Suffering and Joy". In fact, I have dedicated books to this community and decided that my purpose in writing is to help people take deep breaths and become aware that they are part of a Community of Suffering and Joy.
Let me tie this together by talking just a bit about "art". I suggest that most modern art is considered quality if it is an accurate expression of the human condition, or a commentary on that condition. Why do you think most of those in my generation who consider themselves aware or "chosen for awareness" are so drawn to alternative music, Indie movies, Emo, confessional poetry, etc.? Maybe its because we view them as accurate and honest expressions of the human experience, which is tinged with enormous suffering and joy. We find Joy in holding on to such artists and art. In my experience I have found incredible Joy in music, in knowing there are groups like Modest Mouse (and so many others) out there poetically expressing what its like to live in the modern world. I find Joy in knowing there is a small community that feels like I do. I find Joy in knowing there are people who face my issues and understand me.
To understand the concept of finding joy in community is to realize that the idea of isolation is a myth. The idea of being "chosen for awareness" is itself a dangerous myth unless everyone is chosen. To use the Christian maxim, "God is no respecter of persons". To my blogger friend and myself I clearly say that to believe anyone or we are chosen for awareness while others are not is the worst form of pride. The ability to grow is everyone's right by birth. The prideful view presupposes that there are those who can go through life unaware. I do not believe anyone can experience life without at one point, becoming aware that there is more to life than the shallow things. I mean everybody. I mean every prejudiced person. I mean everyone we might consider conceited or slow or content (in the bad way). No one escapes the experience of life. Everyone is, at some level, a member of the Community of Suffering and Joy. When that truth is embraced, the burden, the weight, the cross of responsibility that so often accompanies sadness is lifted completely. Our joy in the community becomes absolute when we realize the community is everybody. Can you see how such an epiphany can liberate your mind? Can you feel the weight being lifted?
Now, there are those who do not believe what I just said. Which explains why some hate when the underground music, movies, theatre we love becomes popularized.
They lose their sense of community (which has become so crucial to their happiness) when the masses they believe are selfish and inferior also find Joy in true and expressive art. I have seen this played out a hundred times, (once very clearly in regards to Modest Mouse) and it is this pride, so indefinable to me until now, that compounds the feelings of isolation. Those who believe they are more enlightened than others must hold on to these art forms because it is where they get a lot of their Joy in community. They must cultivate their exclusivity. You see this in every country club, at every art show, in every underground concert, at every University. The more exclusive a community is, the more they are wholly dependent on that single community to achieve the Joy of Community and therefore it logically follows they are protective of the status quo and hateful of those outside their circle. Anyone who has ever been on the short end of prejudice knows this phenomenon well. As I described earlier, they are insecure of those who are more enlightened and contemptuous of those who seem to have less.
Conversely, this is why the masses resent and fear the rebels and the artists. Not for what they do, but for how they seem exclusive about what they do. Everyone has their own insecurities, and when we feel judged we tend to react with judgment. To those who insist on being "rebels" I would say the modern "rebel" is never a rebel because he/she is merely following a pattern so rote, so basic, and so predictable it has become a part of common sense. No, a true rebel is one who possesses groundbreaking truth and brings it back to the populace. They bring it back to the populace because they trust the populace will believe it, and because they love. In other words, they act as if everyone is a member of the Community of Suffering and Joy. They act with the truth that everyone deserves the blessings of the Joy of Community. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of this phenomenon, and while time has tried to marginalize his truths, one thing is clear, that he taught them; that he, one who understood all the intricacies of life, still loved enough and thought enough of us to return and teach.
Now I want to explain the second key to overcoming sadness, and I want to do so by returning to the concept of everyone being a member of the Community of Suffering and Joy. When we realize that real community is limitless because the Community of Joy is everyone, we come closer to the second and most crucial key to lasting happiness: The acceptance that happiness is in the process of enlightenment and not the outcome. This is a trick, I know. It’s a mental shift. But the ramifications are amazing. The realization (taken to heart) that everyone is a member of the Community of Suffering and Joy immediately engenders great feelings of love and charity for everyone you see. Prejudice disappears. Racism cannot exist. It's as if the feelings my blogger friend had for her closest confidants in sorrow were suddenly applied to every human being on earth. Then, the joy she so easily finds in helping her closest friends be happier, (which incidentally, is the same joy I feel as I write this) becomes available when she helps even the most distant of human beings. The end of her entire existence shifts from a selfish quest for personal happiness into a passion for helping others (with an acknowledgement that our own quest continues through the experience of guiding). In other words, the "experience of happiness" during the process of enlightenment becomes the purpose of that process. The mind shifts from outcomes to experiences, it detaches from a perfectionist view of the future and adheres to the glorious present of helping other people.
Our only sadness then becomes the momentary feeling when someone is stuck in their own journey, or when someone momentarily refuses the journey. Physical imparities no longer produce permanent sadness, because we are not alone in them, and because they are merely a different and equally powerful experience along the road to awareness. We no longer hold back the pearls of our minds from what we perceived to be a mass of fools. In our new acceptance of the world we now share freely of our experiences with those we truly hold up as equals or future equals. We love those who are less aware of our favorite random specificities because we realize there are other areas in which they far surpass our maturity. We Love those who we perceive as more mature, further along the road, and we realize that we have qualities of our own that they must learn from us. Isolation, fear, insecurity and sadness all melt away. The modern metaphor is the idea that everyone is a different graphic equalizer of traits, and that the process of reaching out to others along the path of enlightenment is the only way to get everyone to the max settings.
Now, let me end by saying that I love you. I hope I have not confused you with my often-interchanging definitions. I hope you will realize my earnestness, and take to heart whatever is of value in these reflections. And for those who read this and are aware of things I cant yet comprehend, love me. Love me in the same way we must all love everyone else, because we are on the road; because we are members of the Community of Suffering and Joy. In a final note, I would like to say that my only sadness tonight stems from the inability to express in words all that I mean and feel. I look forward to a time when written language will match emotion and be able to convey the exact meanings of our minds and hearts.
