Indifferent Enthusiasm
There are always 3 options and most often the best one is to do nothing.
“The dogs bark, the caravan passes.” - Sufist saying
I’ve always been perplexed by how we, man, homo sapiens sapiens, wrap everything with meaning when indeed, faced with the immensity of what we don’t know and the fact our lives are but momentary, brief spawn on an infinite ocean of time/space - it’s clear we don’t matter.
We should be indifferent to so much and I think we’d be so much happier for it. Truly. I believe in that - an indifferent enthusiasm. It’s our own intentions that destroy us and make us miserable. It’s our own overcoating of importance that makes this world, one of suffering and emotional turmoil.
“With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all. ~Jean-Paul Sartre
My pet theory is that man is his own worst enemy. We spend too much time NOT getting on with it, not getting on with life and the facts, basics of existence. We screw everything up with our machinations of dominance, being outside nature (NOT) and dancing in beats of false sacred superiority to all that exists.
In all situations, there are always 3 options. Don't be fooled into Cartesian dualism. It’s destructive always cutting everything into only 2 pieces.
Option 1. Do This.
Option 2. Do Nothing.
Option 3. Do That.
Where’s our humble pie? We don’t matter - truly. Take the middle road.
“Cultivez votre jardin.” Voltaire.
In the world we live, in the vortex of others we bump among night and day - I think we’d be much better off if we let go of all our grandiose ideas and hopeless and ultimately evil efforts to make the world a better place. Instead, let the dogs bark, forget about the bills due, hug the guy that just served you, slurp your soup and hold it delicious a little longer in your mouth and get on with it - life, the small things and beautiful pleasures, there for you every day. They are even free. How about that?
Stop trying to save the planet, fix the energy crisis, change pronouns, make better mousetraps, bring peace through endless war, stop people from X, Y or Zing for their own good. Just stop doing all this nonsense having to do with the fixing of a broken world. I’m telling you - it ain’t broke. You just got to start seeing the mess differently and being to love the mess that is, what is.
In that strange way, that illogic of getting out of the way, eating some humble pie, just focusing on the local, here and now - would make us all much better off. Maybe, just maybe, it, the world might even make sense - once we stop trying to make sense of it.
Never try, it’s the trying that gets in the way. If you’ve been reading me, that’s always on the tip of my tongue.
Now, back to my small world. I’m shutting off this machine after clicking publish. I’m going to let the dogs bark and the caravans pass - it’s all good! Pour a drink, and think of nymphs swimming with pink maniacal elephants floating on soft seas. The world will be better off without me - and you.