Wednesday 15 January 2014

The Paradox Of Percieved Peace

Have you ever been fully at peace? Did you find that in the absence of anything to do your mind began to fester, you became restless? This is because man is at his strongest, his best and in his most alive state when he is uncomfortable; when there are problems to overcome. It has been my experience that when I'm not at my best, when I have a small injury or when I am feeling sore I can get into  the 'zone' quicker and easier. When my mind has begun to stagnate in times that are too easygoing, when there is nothing challenging to occupy me, I find it hard to enter that meditative state. And K1 really is a form of meditation; depending of course, on your interpretation of the term meditation. To me it is the waking body in absence of conscious thought. This is a state fighters enter when they are sparring or competing, they do not act, they react.
Returning to the point about man only being truly happy, truly alive when he is uncomfortable; I think that strife and struggle is an inherent part of our being. Don't get me wrong, times when there are no worries are good, arguably essential, because of the dualistic nature of our world. But if these periods are prolonged and your soul faces no challenges, you have no obstacles. To over come and so you begin to seek a way, consciously or perhaps subconsciously, back out of tranquility. What is the reason for this paradox? In trying to overcome problems we are essentially striving for times of peace and no worries. Yet upon reaching such a point we find that these times fuel our desire to face adversity or to have fun and experience crazy times.
The paradox is that the sought after solution fuels the problem.
I put it to you that our struggles in life are not just obstacles but lessons. And that our purpose here is to learn. If you are bored or unoccupied it could mean you have stopped learning.
With regards to what it is we are here to learn, I can offer no solid idea and only my abstract opinion, whatever use it is to you. Perhaps we are here to learn about ourselves, and what better way to do that than the tests and trials of life? If you haven't failed recently or have not tried anything new, you have lost the connection to yourself, Miserable people do not know their own mind. I for example have found that indecision is one of the most difficult things to deal with. Better to make a choice and if it transpires that you were better off taking a different path then change your path! So it is undoubtedly advantageous to know ourselves. It is difficult because we cant easily see ourselves objectively. It is very hard to look at your past decisions and your actions from a neutral point of view. We don't really know ourselves, man is a mystery to himself. The old saying "your mother knows you better than you do" holds some truth because she has witnessed almost your whole life from 'outside' of you. We are too busy being ourselves, being so very human to analyse and think about how we work. So yes, it could be said that the underlying attraction that pulls us into situations where we are forced to grow could be that we are here to learn about ourselves.
Notice that there is no reason you cant be calm and grounded during busy times and the nature of being calm is in itself the real peace. When you are busy and tired you perceive "peace" as doing nothing and chilling out. And compared your current state it is. Yet this cannot be the ultimate goal. For it is easily reached without any real effort or learning, and so as an end it is unsatisfying.
There can be no ultimate goal. Other than to make sure that you have a goal, which will change and evolve as
you grow and achieve.
Real peace, true peace is happening when man is doing whatever it is that challenges him and engages him, it is an unconscious feeling that we do not know we seek.
'Want to be WISE? Do a lot of shit: life is about experiences' -Elliot Hulse

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