Formulaic Dharma

When I thought I knew how things were going to end, I always ended up with defied expectations and a bittersour aftertaste. Bittersour because it's the kind of taste you wish you can forget forever and not to be fondly reminisced once in a while like bittersweet. I believe this is why I rarely set any expectations at all, the least for myself.

Whenever I get involved in a social setting, which deals with one or more people who don't live inside my head (yeah, you read it right - there are voices inside, trying to say many, many things all at the same time, which gets really noisy at times), things had a way of spiraling out of control very fast. One moment you were laughing, the next moment things went whooosh downhill.

Every time I would be replaying the scene in my mind, trying to figure out where the hell it went wrong. The answer would always come shrouded in doubt because I can never be sure of anything. In the end, all I have of the whole process is a lot of bruise I inflict upon my intangible self. Oh, I must've said this, I must've done that. Oh, how could I be so stupid? So careless? How could I cause such trouble?

I wonder where this tendency for self-blame springs from. I wonder why I like it so much. For once, I want to try living without the fear of offending or hurting others. Trying to read people and please them all the time is so tiring, is it not? Perhaps then, without such fear, the self-blame game would stop. The world would cease being such a scary place. I would be able to wave the figurative middle finger without a shred of guilt.

But then, what an unfeeling person I would've become. I don't know if I would be truly happy like that. One suffers and suffers - perhaps it is the best state of humanhood (I know I'm inventing a lot of words right now, but shush) and from it, one's true self emerges.

So what does that say about me? I suffer from a perpetual guilt of failing, which leads to an endless fear about everything. I go through my day with countless scenarios inside my head, minute by minute, a perpetual sort of What Ifs factory, an infinite number of parallel worlds swirling within the universe of one. Imagine how many regrets, big or small, I have. Imagine trying to sleep like that. Imagine having to wake up to that. I truly am amazed that I haven't dashed towards insanity after all this while. 

Perhaps this is normal; meaning, others experience this too. Perhaps this is not unique, this is commonplace and many, many before and after me would've gone through the same tiresome thought process. If it is so, what is our true self? What emerges after the long torture of what-could-have beens?

Logically, I would answer (like the good student I am), "Self-reflection breeds wisdom, applied wisdom breeds enlightenment. Applied enlightenment breeds peace." It sounds good in theory. In fact it sounds perfect, like the answer to everything. If Deep Thought the Supercomputer had to describe 42, it would've said it like that (anyway, digressing a bit here, 42 is a pretty, flat number in my head, like a wooden bench painted white against a white background). But it is easier said than done. Much more so. Hence, the discrepancy between what we know to be ideal and the reality we face is the suffering itself.

Putting it in a formula:                                  Suffering = Ideal - Reality

where the ideal state is the enlightened state, and reality is what we're facing when we are currently unenlightened, hence:
                                                   
                                                      Suffering = Enlightened state - Current state

Epiphany! I've always been confused about how suffering can bring about enlightenment, but I think I might've started to understand it a little now.

So if this is true, at the end of my conscious self, I would've had the chance of finding enlightenment and finally peace. But only if I move on from endless self-reflections to wisdom (and even if I manage to do that, there's still the whole thing about applying wisdom to achieve enlightenment. Life is really not easy, hey?).

Anyway, the whole point of this rambling is to get my thoughts straight. And this is why I love writing. Amidst all of those voices in my head, only mine is heard when I write.

I can finally hear myself speak.