Monday, December 27, 2010

Snow Storm Mania: More on Good and Bad

Holy moly the snow in the Northeast is crazy!! It's so snow stormy that it's not even fun to romp around in. You could only walk away from the wind and then never get home anyway because it's impossible to see. Pretty awesome.

So I'm all cozy, house-sitting some cats and enjoying decadent thermostat settings of anywhere from 62 to 68. Treats for me. Too bad the sit-ees didn't leave a huge cache of marvelous treats in the fridge for the snow storm (although they did leave about a hundred batteries in case I wanted to play Wii . . . which I don't). I don't tend to check the weather, my stock reason being that it's pretty much the only thing I can ever be sure of actually happening, right now, in this moment, ever. Plus my friend rightly calls weather news "The Worry Channel" and I'm all set with that generally speaking. But knowing a storm is coming is handy. Oh, one of my only jokes also: do Xtian radio stations provide weather reports, or is that blasphemy?

So back to the good/bad issue I've been thinking about. Here is the problem: learning that anything is good means creating a seed of judgment in yourself that the opposite behavior is bad, and this is why we're all doomed to live in eternal strife/conflict. Take something like punctuality or sharing. We learn that it's polite to be on time and to share our toys. Well then, now we have some basis for thinking that anyone who is late or doesn't share toys is impolite - and we feel we have a basis for thinking of someone (or at least their behavior) as "bad." Then we get to feel offended or angry, because we know that being on time and sharing are "good," and being late and not sharing are "bad" (the issue of why we feel personal offense needs more examination I think, but another time). I mean, beyond good/bad, there are lots of substantive reasons for being on time - it's respectful of other people's time and expectations etc. And sharing is important because it fosters good will and what goes around comes around etc. But these more (barely) substantive explanations are still mired in good and bad and being judgmental. The ideal would be that I become someone who shares, but doesn't get mad or filled with hate at anyone who fails to share in the way I would. And that I am on time as much as possible, but I don't label as rude or disrespectful (aka "bad") someone who is perpetually late. Wouldn't this be nice? If we all had high standards for ourselves and infinite patience and forgiveness for others? Wouldn't the world be awesome? Wait a minute - let's change "patience and forgiveness" to something closer to total good natured indifference, and not even reach the mental state where we have to use our patience and forgiveness muscles, because this usually means something like "you're bad but I am overlooking it out of ego-driven magnanimity." I don't even want to get to that point. I just want to not even notice or be bothered if things are delayed or someone doesn't share.

How can someone be taught to behave very well without teaching them to judge the opposite behavior as being bad? It seems too abstract. When someone is late, so many things inform our anger: we're going to miss part of the show, or maybe not get tickets, or I'm hungry and we are holding dinner for the late person, or I settled into a state of mind in which I am Ready To Go and I had to put down my special projects in order to be on time and now because of this lateness I am sitting here in my nice clothes when I could have spent another half an hour in the garden and finished up the whatever I was doing. Okay so if all these things are attached to someone's timeliness, what is the state of mind that would permit someone to just not be bothered? You have to let go of EVERYTHING. It's fine if we miss the beginning of the show! It's fine if we can't get tickets, we'll do something else! It's fine if the gardening isn't done! It's even fine for me to sit here in my nice clothes with nothing to do but try not to get dirty! Yes I'm hungry and maybe there is emotions connected with the feeling of being hungry (crankiness!) but that's fine too! I don't even internalize a feeling of personal offense if the late person is so oblivious or self-absorbed to others' time that this inconvenience doesn't register for them! Phew. I mean, that is a LOT of stuff to be okay with. I think someone would have to be pretty evolved to abandon all those negative feelings in order to truly not care if someone else is late. This isn't easy. Imagine a kid believing that it doesn't matter if Susie is hogging the green crayon even though the kid really needs it for the shrubbery (and Susie totally knows this), or that it's fine if you miss the beginning of the movie. Seems unlikely.

What to do? I can't think of anything right now except to aspire to be cool with everything a la Buddha says so.

No comments:

Post a Comment