200. At War With The World

It’s easy to fall into the habit of seeing myself in conflict with the world. All it takes is to see everything around me as separate from me and thus as something I must resist. I must resist it because it opposes my will and stands in the way of getting what I want. I then become alienated from the world and obsessed with myself and my desires.

At best, this develops into a bleak isolation where I’m imprisoned in the rigidity of my own mind, blocked from the possibilities of life, and barred from loving connections to other people. At worst, I become cynical about the world, and I see everything and everyone as a hostile threat to my security or even my existence itself.

The problem begins with my own judgment. The world is different from what I want it to be and I judge it to be deficient. There is nothing I can do about this judgment. A functional imagination will always see the possibility of a world better than the one that currently exists, and my judgment follows directly from the presence of this ideal.

But my judgment only becomes problematic because I allow myself to become attached to it. I hold it so tightly that it transforms into part of my identity and I separate myself from the world. I lose sight of all the world has to offer me. I cannot see its value because its value has been occluded by the attachment to my judgment of what the world should be but isn’t.

To loosen my hold on this judgment is to grant myself the opportunity to see that the world is bursting with value. It is full of beauty and truth and endless varieties of experience. And it’s the experience of beauty and truth that meets my need for these things and supplies me with the energy of joy.

Experiencing life makes me passionate about life, a passion that is also compassion. For compassion is a response to the need for connection between the self and the other, which itself enables the elimination of suffering and the creation of joy. The world has so much to offer and so much I need, if only I will allow myself to see it.