Day 182 - Desiring Desires

 Boredom is desire seeking desires   ~ Leo Tolstoy

Anyone with kids will encounter "I'm bored". I counter with, "What are you going to do about it?" or "So?". It doesn't make them feel less bored, usually shrugging and looking around like lost souls. It is important to recognize that boredom is a choice, and we are in charge of our choices. As parents of young children, we find creative ways to help them out with activities or chores. Older children require a nudge in the direction of understanding that it's beneficial to be self-sufficient in problem-solving, and boredom is a good place to start. Once teens are out in the world, they may start relying on friends or outside influences to help solve a sense of boredom, if they haven't learned to solve it themselves, leading to unsavoury or downright dangerous choices because they're looking for solutions from others. Parents try to occupy every minute with activities instead of truly allowing our children to appreciate free time and with that the freedom of personal choice.

Adults, on the other hand, see boredom as a of lack of stimulation, so we try to create excitement - this can be in the forms of various addictions or dramas or vacations or shopping sprees... The problem is that the underlying sense of boredom (or anxiety or uncertainty) will never be fully relieved if it is continually covered up by stuff. Most people cannot accept that they themselves are the cause of their own suffering, and that they themselves are the only ones who can relieve it. This isn't necessarily to say that our personal actions have caused our suffering, it is to say that suffering itself is a human condition which needs compassion and not blame. How can we relieve it if not doing something about it?

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone," wrote the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. Why? I think it's because we get obsessive with our thoughts about how we feel and why we're feeling certain emotions. Most people will take their thoughts and run with them, either blaming others or their own actions for their misery, instead of simply feeling it and not attaching blame at all. We are very good at distracting ourselves from solitude, which is not the same as loneliness, although sitting with loneliness can help us break through many problems because we start recognizing the source of suffering - that being a constant desiring - a craving for something else.

In Buddhism, suffering or duhkha (translated as unhappiness, unsatisfactoriness or stress) is the main ignorance of self - The beginning of the end of suffering is understanding that our craving for stimulation, attention and material things is an unconscious ego-oriented way of existence. The ego is never satisfied though, there will always be more things to do or say or be. Ironically, accepting that life is full of ups and downs, and that our ability to go with whatever is occurring, relieves the stress of striving to change what already is.

I think of it like a game now, the game of life, the awareness that we all are playing roles. I get a little happy, like a momentary win, when I recognize an unconscious reaction in myself and how it has affected my mood and the mood of those around me - the unconscious behaviour is enlightened with consciousness. Over time, I've also found an overall sense of satisfaction because it's just a game, and being able to deal well with the hands I'm given daily is the objective. 

It all goes back to desiring things to be different than they are - the desire to obtain more desires. Ego is a wonderful tool for motivation, goal-setting, building self-esteem... we use it to achieve certain things we would like in our lives - The problem is when it becomes unconscious, where our ambitions become laden with superiority (I'm better than) as we meet our goals, or negative self-talk (I'm worse than) when things don't go the way we want. Accepting what is, whether or not our ambitions are met, is the only way to keep ego in check.

The desire to not desire anything is still a desire! The middle way, living between extremes, moderation and acceptance are all practices that can help navigate this wonderful, miraculous, stressful and boring existence.


 

 


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