"We danced too wild, and we sang too long, and we hugged too hard, and we kissed too sweet, and howled just as loud as we wanted to howl, because by now we were all old enough to know that what looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight."
~Pearl Cleage
A Zen master once said that enlightenment was just like ordinary life, only two inches off the ground. I think maybe love and enlightenment are synonymous. And I'm not talking about romance, either. I'm talking about the realization, in whatever version of grown-upness that you use, that you have surprisingly large control over how excited and invested and overwhelmingly joyful you can feel about the mundane facts of everyday existence.
Visual illustration: http://xkcd.com/150/
Interesting thought. I tend to think that we (or at least I) cannot claim to have complete control of feelings. They are ethereal somethings that science can't explain but they affect our days profoundly. I find it frustrating, but also sometimes freeing, to consider that I can't control my base feelings about an event, person, book, smell, whatever.
ReplyDeleteThat's a for sure fair point. I guess I'm thinking more about everyday stuff rather than specifically negative emotions. For example, I can still get kind of a kick out of typing quickly or tying my shoes, but have little control over the ridiculously large barrage of negative emotions I feel when someone uses "lol."
ReplyDeleteEnlightenment is when you are one with the Zen master and in control of extreme happiness. Then there is the rest of life where, as gur8 suggests, we aren't one. We are two or ten in intriguing emotional confusion. Hey if you leave the light on all the time it will burn out, eh?
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