#16: Isn't this enough?
Existentialist realizations in weed.
Being high is awesome.
I don’t know how others perceive the feeling, but weed makes me hyper perceptive and my naturally curious mind is spun into overdrive.
Just for the record, it’s not always that I get like that. A lot of times I just wanna watch stupid stuff on TV, like Trailer Park Boys (what an awesome show, btw) but sometimes, when the setting is just right, when the conversations with fellows stoners takes just the right turn, my mind starts making these connections and having these realizations that literally blow my mind (which is so recursive! Like my mind blows my mind :))
So yesterday was one of those trips where about every five minutes I was making these astute observations that made me grin internally.
They fell into two broad themes -
Observations about people - I was just being super psychoanalytical. My mind was constantly whirring, drawing connections between what they were saying and the conditioning they were subject to in their life. We are all subject to different kinds of social conditioning and sometimes its so fascinating to break down a person’s personality to that social conditioning. And not just that, but also the biases, past trauma and how these things manifest in the form of their responses or defense mechanisms. In a way, I tend to become very empathetic with the people around me.
Observations about life generally - Through my meditations and general reflections, I guess, its been increasingly dawning on me that life is generally pretty fuckin good. There is just so much to be grateful for, and it is that feeling of gratitude that spawns the ‘Oh I am really happy right now’ because being happy is essentially realizing that your current life state is good . So when I was high yesterday, I was just laser focused into the moment almost; we were hiking, the sun was kind of setting, and there was just this moment when this flock of three birds flew by that I involuntarily said, “Guys, this is a pretty great fucking moment. Just enjoying a peaceful, beautiful walk with some friends, not any significant worry in life. Isn’t this enough?”
And as soon as I said that, I felt the enormity of that realization.
In the end, what are we trying to optimize for in life?
I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately.
All the money we want to earn, all the investments we wanna make, all the books we wanna read, all the jobs we wanna do, all the startups we wanna build - what are we doing all that for?
I don’t think I’ve ever really pondered on that question before. Like given it serious thought without making up some bullshit story that was basically a reflection of societal expectations really.
And now that I have been thinking about it, I realize that many of my past ‘goals’ were honestly just arbitrary pursuits I embarked upon hoping to reach an amorphous state of ‘happiness’ or bliss or whatever story I told myself in that moment.
It could be my stupid fascination to build a startup, earn more money, do a more ‘fun’ job or start a ‘side’ hustle - the crux of all these desires lay in getting someplace where……and I kind of trail of, because I honestly don’t have an answer for what these things would do for me.
If I earn more money will life be significantly different than now? Probably not. I can very easily trick myself in believing so but I very sincerely, objectively think that’s not true.
Am I wanting to start something because I have a burning passion for something or an intense desire to create change? No. Am I doing it for money, then? Probably? Then read the previous paragraph.
So what am I going for?
The enormity of my realization yesterday lay in the fact that I think I can now answer that question, as it pertains to me at least.
I realize that my stopping point comes at that state I achieved during my little walk in the sunshine.
The thing that I have been looking for, and the thing I want to continue striving for is for that intense feeling of being in the moment, where there is real joy and peace stemming from being grateful for being where I am.
And the insight that blows my mind is that that state does not require me to chase any goals or earn more money or whatever.
I can find it right here, right now. And I don’t even need to be high. Being high just pushed the envelope on the said condition yesterday but I don’t need to be high to have that feeling, I certainly don’t need to be high to be grateful.
It’s crazy, you can be grateful for the most random things. Like sometimes before my boxing class, I am grateful that I even have the opportunity, the money and time to box. Or after a car ride home, I am grateful that I even have a car, that life is peaceful enough that I can jam to my favorite music without a care in the world while driving on a highway in the US. Like who would’ve thought that my middle class Indian ass would be here in California, in Silicon Valley, driving his blue Prius on pretty nice US roads?
These small moments of reflection have such an outsized effect on me because it really lasers in on how lucky I am to have things that I do versus the stuff I can do (and that I am not currently doing) to get the the things and experiences that I don’t.
It’s pretty insane to me how I am (we are?) wired such that if not for those reflective moments, my mind naturally gravitates towards the things that can make life ‘better’ even though I don’t quite understand what that ‘better’ is.
From an evolutionary standpoint, maybe we are skewed towards ‘chasing’ as means to better our current state. Otherwise, if we were philosophical like so when we lived in our little caves, we would probably die there too, eaten by a lion or something, I guess.
But the crucial difference is that, we are no longer cave dwelling primates. Most of us have a pretty solid level of life security, food is guaranteed to be on the table, a roof is definitely gonna be there; basically no existential threat whatsoever.
Then why the mindless goal chasing, why the constant desire to better our state? To what end?
Maybe instead we should to ask ourselves - “Isn’t this moment enough?”.