Unhappiness is an incredibly vulnerable state of being. It makes people do all kinds of things they don't want to do. Desperation is a kind of unhappiness - I'm thinking of our special brand of capitalist desperation that makes people do horrible things in order to subsist. And loneliness is another kind of unhappiness, leading us to endure bad treatment to salve it, or to just experience loss, jealousy, self-doubt, neediness, and all kinds of other difficult things that accompany loneliness. And to get rid of those feelings we are willing to do difficult, or unhealthy, or expensive things. We are motivated by our unhappiness to do all kinds of things that aren't good for us.
Knowing that unhappiness is an important motivator, and that unhappiness is prayed upon by manipulators for gain, makes me hesitant when I think about spiritual paths. I mean, the enormous human suffering of basic existence and the promise to eliminate it is the basis of religion, right? God will take care of you. Give over to god. I mean, you know how you know if you're in a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn? The number of churches goes way up. I always thought the title "the audacity of hope" was so stupid for this reason - hello, the function of hope is to keep the downtrodden moving. When things are good nobody needs hope. Hope exists primarily and fundamentally where people are suffering. It's not audacious, it's obvious.
It just hadn't occurred to me yet that the persuasiveness I feel from the Buddha guy is based on this, and that my seeking out of yoga and Buddhism advertises me as a vulnerable person. I guess it does. And when the Buddha man speaks he really does describe my exact suffering, straight out of the unwritten dairy of my whole cell-scape. And this understanding is what makes me so open to meditation - it's like this: "see how well I know how you suffer? Guess what else I know. I know what you should do about it." Anyone can pick up the "I feel your pain" thread and then promise that there is a solution at the end of their particular sales pitch.
The embarrassment I feel of the capitalist end of the search for happiness is crushing sometimes. Like weight loss commercials. Yeesh, depressing. I can't help imagining someone at home alone, watching their tv, suffering in their feelings about their body, feeling spoken to, and calling the 800 number. We're just so vulnerable. Really our unhappiness is a given, and the promise to solve it is everywhere. I try not to buy into these promises, or even to see them if I can help it, because of course it is reciprocal - if someone promises to solve your beauty problems, it might occur to you that you have beauty problems to solve. Ain't need no more stuff to fret about, thankyouverymuch. My friend got an email about a course on self-love and it was so transparently massaging the typical contemporary expressions of unhappiness ("can't get enough done? feel unproductive? stressed out? I have the answer!") that it made me embarrassed. How stupid and desperate does everyone with something to sell think we are? Well, we're extremely desperate, and it makes us very stupid.
Bleh anyway I hope I am using my unhappiness as a motivator for good things. I mean, it's definitely made me buy stuff - the yoga teacher training course, books about yoga and meditation, and the Buddha classes ain't free. I'm purchasing my access to a path away from my unhappiness (sucka!). At least church is free (at first, then we take your tithe, bitches!). It's tough because I don't want to feel like a vulnerable sucker, but I definitely don't believe that I should drop my deliberate engagement with my search for happiness - doing it alone hasn't been the answer either. Whatever, I feel pretty good about yoga and Buddha as healthy, positive recipients of my energy, but I do want to make sure I am mindful of the extent to which my own desire for happiness make me vulnerable to believing or buying anything.
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