Thursday, March 04, 2010

a thought mix

this morning a simple realisation. the consumerism based economy is driven by one basic thing: human/your/my/our unhappiness. if we were happy or even happy with enough, or willing to consider "enough", oops e-con-o-me gone. so that's the con me is getting huh.
happiness. isn't it all really about it? in the past fifty years have heard many advice me how this is not what i think it is, or if it is it isn't high minded to seek it, or it's not possible, or or or.
but i still want to be happy.
i desire to be happy. in the body, in the spirit, with all of me happy. happy as i define it. silly. then i read stanley kunitz:
i kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine,
what makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
the longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
one season only
and it's done.

ah desire desire desire. if i didn't have you why ever would i want to live? and then if still the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide carried on would it be called life? no, not so silly.
yet life as we have devised it leads us resolutely away from fulfiling the desire for happiness. on the surface to deep unfathomably down happiness. from childhood to the middle years firmly are we pointed in the wrong direction. unknown to us, perhaps even with the noblest of intentions, we have created a way of life that would never make it to happiness while all the while purporting to reach some "real" form of it. misdirection everywhere: in education, career, marriage, is it even tainting mother's love, or worse, friendship?
through the years, something in me kept saying, hey this is not the way to go. but who would listen? certainly not those who loved me. for they themselves were being led right away.
what a way, or maybe the tangled web of mr shakespeare.
then the big gap in the chest, the echoing emptiness within. and to fill it up: a diamond? a car? a house? some more diamonds? another house? how about some thousand dollar cream to keep your skin eternally unwrinkled (but what about i like wrinkles? they show life love experience? nah, you don't you silly, buy the cream buy the cream trussst in me)
still i keep hearing "so clear and brave a music pour." is it happiness calling? should i look away from that 2 carat princess cut e colour, vvs rock?
no no noooooooooooo. economy also has a right and a desire to be happy. too bad it's at my cost.
the thought mix moves on, what about my daughter's happiness? will sending her to the "best" school teach her to be kind, pure, strong? no, silly, that's your job, the school will try of course its level best to make sure you get nowhere.
and ibi? and modhu? and dipali and abdul and uttami my nanny? what about their happiness? does our so wise so superior way include answers for them, our cooks, maids, drivers, loving kind nannies? our cleaners, farmers, watchmen, prostitutes? does it even even include them?
jumble jumble jumble.
interrupted by simple realisations.
thank you for reading. here's to your desires and your happiness.

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