Quiet Rivers

I’m trying to recall who it was who said it was neither oppression nor war that causes unhappiness in us. He spoke of the false beliefs inside our heads, especially the ones we share with our society; those so widespread it never occurs to us to question. These beliefs, for the most part, programmed into us by our peers and our families, so distort our way of thinking that it doesn’t even occur to us to change them; that we do have the choice, the power, to repudiate them for causing us so much stress and unhappiness.

Do you know of any one in your corner of the world who was genuinely happy? One so unstressed that he or she had no insecurities, anxieties, or worries? One obviously unhampered, untroubled, by someone else’s expectations? Do you know of anyone perennially the reverse; someone so neurotic you couldn’t bear to be with them for long, someone constantly on the verge of breaking down from some worry, some unexplained fear?

How many times have you accepted blame for events happening around you, even when it wasn’t sensible to do so? How many times have you played the guilt game like you play Solitaire with a deck of cards? How much energy have you wasted trying to rearrange your world from some belief that after doing so you’d be much happier?

What are the things you are attached to? Which ones can you go without and stay happy? What do you think you do not have that, on deeper reflection, you don’t really need to achieve happiness? What do you already have that’s giving you joy every day? What are the things you’ve overlooked, or taken for granted, that you already have?

And after all that reflection, do you still think your happiness needs to come from someone else? Do you honestly still think that happiness is just around the corner, past this day’s sunset perhaps, that you can just twirl your thumbs while waiting for it to pounce on you?

What is happiness to you, except that it is indescribably, profoundly filling? Have you ever tried to explain light to someone who has sat in darkness all his life? How might reality be drawn for someone in a dream?

This is what I do most days now; trying to recall things I should know already, mentally groping for the forgotten shape of yesterday’s loved one’s lips everytime her smile lit up my day, trying to express feelings I used to know quite well, trying to distinguish dream from reality. Trying to rediscover words I’ve forgotten.

Trying to rephrase happiness into my own understanding.

I should wake up soon.