Short questions, long answers [Part 7]
Once you have all the answers in the world, what will you do with the questions? This thought is so unsettling that I wonder what would happen to us if we weren’t so lost (in ourselves) and pained (by others). Just imagine existing knowing everything, like literally, everything. My best (or worst?) guess is that we will immediately go mad. What history has taught is that we thrive in chaos. If we are peaceful and sorted, we seek elements and events that would drag us out of our comfort zones. This evolutionary distinction separates us from dodo. And also explains why we don’t live in caves anymore. I mean, apart from the 30 million or so Chinese who still reside in caves.
However, moving on with the subject of this particular blogpost, we go through certain hard-hitting questions in this series. The last installment, Part 6, happened earlier this year, and it’s time to introduce a few more queries worth breaking my head over. Of course, these are my takes and they might not resonate with you. But as long as there is room for a conversation, all is well. The day we stop communicating and recede to our self-imposed shells—I am not referring to the peculiar but disturbing hikikomoris—we will left with too many answers and too few questions. Never an ideal world to inhabit.
On that cheerful note, let’s proceed without any further interruptions —
What is the simple formula of contentment?
First of all, there is no one-formula-fit-all here. Contentment works differently for different people, depending on different backgrounds, aspirations, circumstances and situations. To expect everybody to be content in the same way is quite an impossible task. That said, the basic tenet of contentment is to stop the old bad habit of comparing oneself with others. It’s when we focus too much on what others have instead of counting our blessings for what we have, we end up in a state of despair. The happiest people in the world are mostly the most content people as well. They have figured out what matters the most in their lives, and the answers tend to be about themselves, not others.
Depending on external factors to influence your mood/joy is a precarious way of leading your life. A better method would be to calm yourself down and pull yourself out of your current state of distress. Slowly, one day at a time. When you have a small car, you want a bigger car. When you live on rent, you want a house for yourself. When you are able to buy a 5-course meal, you want to visit the most expensive restaurants too. This attitude to outstep is considered growth and progress, but in essence, it’s a life-long exercise in (trying to) achieving contentment but failing to hold on to it every single time.
Why do the colors of our hope keep changing?
Because our heart is a restless city. We want more and more and more and we end up with less and lesser and least. There is no cure for the desires of our sorry hearts. We keep hoping for something that we will never get. It’s not that we aren’t aware of our limitations, it’s just that we want to push the universe to pay attention to our case.
In The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Morgan Freeman’s character Red goes from saying “hope is a dangerous thing, it can make you insane” to finally admitting that “hope is a good thing, even the best of things”. This is our tricky relationship with hope. We want it to change its colour according to our will but that’s not how hope works. Hope will do what it has to do.
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