The sun rises in silence and the fog,
in defiance, burns away leaving behind a stillness
enhanced by the lack of life
in all the world and in all things, and in this.
And in the end, a new sun will rise
and today will be yesterday,
a quiet memory of nothing.
© 2008 Chris Rodriguez
A bit of a thought spinning from my last post about happiness…
I got to thinking about happiness and our pursuit of it (with a bit of help from the movie, I suppose) and how we are all selfish. We all desire the best. We all desire to be happy. And in the essence of survival we do what we must to achieve it.
Religious folk make mention of sacrifice, giving, and selflessness; of making others happy and putting others first. This is all an impossible ruse.
Why do we do for others? Is it because we are good people? Or is it because to do good makes us feel good? Do you ever do something good and feel like crap about it? Of course not. Therefore, even sacrifice is selfish.
Sometimes I get to thinking about choices I’ve made when growing up. I think back when I was little and the trouble I’d given my parents. I think about situations I’ve been in requiring a tough choice in which I leaned on others for advice. I think about my future and how I’ll react when similar S
situations arise.
Being an adult means thinking for yourself. It means taking control of your situations and making the most of them. It means seeking out those things which are of most beneficial for you. It means to no longer rely on others to live your life.
Oftentimes we are presented tough situations which offer no apparent good or bad, right or wrong. We must decide for ourselves the path. These situations nobody can help with. Then there are other times when a war is waged between when we want and what we need. It is the latter that I think we find most difficult.
All to often what we desire trumps what is best; what we want outweighs what we need. The immediate positive is more appealing than the distant positive. The moment is more important than the lifetime.
It is hard to sacrifice things we care greatly about even if we know doing so will be better for us in the end. The multitude of christmas cookies my mother sent me, for example, are in no way healthy. Yet I crave them and many times more than a few. It’s hard to eat just one or two.
Or in relationships where the immediate fancy might not be best suited for long-term. And these, because of the emotional and physical attachments, are the hardest to problems to solve.
Happiness. We all desire to be happy and we all make decisions which increase that happiness. Nobody wants to live a life of incomplete happiness, even if that happiness is great. And nobody should have to.
We are all entitled to be as happy as we possibly can be. Each life is one shot at that happiness and every goal is meant to increase it. Many times women (and a few men) remain in relationships where they are not fully happy. This is not to say they are sad or unhappy, just that they are not fully happy. They, just as everyone, are entitled to seek fullfillment.
As you might know, I’m not a believer and the only faith I have is placed in two things: first in myself then not in anyone else. My life is made up of my choices, my actions, and my consequences, the result of which won’t send me to any heaven or hell rather into the ground or scattered elsewhere with the consequences of my life as a testament to my happiness and the happiness of others.
It is me; it is you who have final say of your life. Make choices which make you happy or make choices which don’t make you happy. In the end you are the only one who has to live with the choices you make. You can live happy or not.
“I have made my bed and so must I lie in it.”
Do you ever suddenly crave change?
Every once in a while I’ll get this craving for huge change. Like stripping off wet clothes and putting on new ones and settling in on a chilly day drinking coffee and reading. No pressure. No stress. No worries. Like a fresh start.
Being a military “brat” I’ve moved around a lot. I’m not used to staying put for very long so I tend to get antsy. As I get older I get more anxious to find that “one sweet home” to settle in to. Athens, GA certainly isn’t my final resting place, but it’s home for now. But lately, I’ve started getting antsy again (and it’s only been six months!) and I’m trying to calm my desire to move with my desire to make a big purchase.
I’ve been looking at laptops lately. Currently I have this self-built desktop that I’ve built and re-built over the years with upgrades and awesomeness, but I’m tired of sitting at the same desk in the same position doing the same things. I want something new and I was thinking that by getting a laptop I’d have more freedom to move about and work elsewhere. One possibility.
I want a new desk too. The one I’ve got is a few years old and it slouches in the center (cheapo). And it’s an eyesore to the rest of my cool place (thanks to Melissa) and I’m kinda ready to dump it and get a new one. Not a huge purchase, but definitely something to spice up my life a bit.
Then also I’ve been thinking about painting my walls. Unfortunately the management fines you for having “dark colors” and it’s a pretty steep $200 per wall on move-out, which kinda makes me say “Psh, nevermind.” I might do it anyway so long as I repaint before I move out. Just a big pain. But again, it would spice it up a bit.
I want to move to DC. I want to move to New York. I want to travel to Prague, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Perth, Rome, Iceland, Amsterdam… I want to do something I’ve never done before.
I’m antsy.
I’m not a religious person. Hell I don’t even believe in a god. I just can’t. I’m okay that you can and you should be okay that I can’t. Even if I could I wouldn’t want to. Personally, I find it weak, stupid, limiting, and a plain waste of time. It’s [Christianity] a circle of trapped logic and being that I am a logical person I find it equals failure. No, I don’t hate you because you believe. I’m happy you believe. I am happy I don’t believe.
Mistakes are part of life. In fact, if we didn’t make mistakes life would be pretty damn boring. We’d all be flat, dull, lame people with no unique or interesting qualities. We wouldn’t experience emotion because we’d never fail and if we never fail we’d never know success and if we never knew success we’d never experience the emotion that comes with it. We’d never grow and mature because we’d never make mistakes.
Religion inhibits mistakes. It keeps you in a bubble of false perfection. It keeps you blind. It keeps you caged. It keeps you ignorant. It doesn’t encourage maturity because it makes you afraid to make mistakes and mistakes are, as I’ve said, crucial to life. Sure, religious people grow and mature, but it’s the kind of growth and maturity that’s equivalent to experimental mice in a cage. No fun, if you ask me.
I am a successful individual. I am happy. I am smart, kind, and compassionate. I have a lot of good in my life. I attribute my success to my dedication. I attribute my happiness to my having learned lessons from mistakes. I attribute my intelligence, kindness, and compassion to my parents. None of my qualities come from a god. And why should I give thanks to some unseen, unheard, tasteless, scentless, and untouchable omniscient being when I am perfectly capable to life live on my own?
I understand man’s need for answers and I know we theorize things that are still unproven. God is just a theory – filler for the unknown. From spirits of rain, trees, and earth 90,000 years ago to Egyptian gods of death, life and birth to a single god, nothing has changed except the number of beings that fill these unknown holes in understanding.
Sorry, venting. I’m done now.
Believing in a god doesn’t make you a bad person and it doesn’t make you wrong. If it works for you, it works for you, just don’t expect me to follow you and certainly don’t judge me for not believing. I believe in me. You should believe in you and take props for the stuff you’ve accomplished and the goals you’ve achieved.