Dear Diary,
A person, at least theoretically, has the opportunity to use and enjoy two states of being. The divine one, when they simply are. And the servile one, when apart from them there’s also something else alongside. The divine state is somewhat harder to access, only under certain circumstances or with certain efforts, whereas the servile one – simple and everyday. We have a fabulous drive to serve, or more often, enslave ourselves to everything that appears on our horizon. I won’t expand on slavery to alcohol, nicotine, trips, ever-new relationships and other dopamine sources, because I wouldn’t say anything new. But even a simple “Well dmn, what lovely weather today! :(”, uttered while barely parting the curtains, already makes us dependent on the weather – it begins influencing how we feel. “That btch Marytė gave me a crooked look walking past in the corridor!” – and you’re already Marytė’s slave. “I need to make it by Friday” – and you’re already a slave to time, “and there are still so many reports waiting on my desk…” – and you’re already a slave to work. “What a charming stranger smiled at me on the street…” – and you’re already the stranger’s slave. And here processes automatically activate where you start pondering how to smile back so precisely that the stranger understands you’re small, meek and she can do whatever she wants with you. Even take you as a husband.
It goes so well that I see I could easily write another 17 A4 pages with such and similar examples. And there’s nothing new or shocking in it. I too, when I forget, often enslave myself to some drunken commentators who barely finished nine grades, when I read their comments about work I contributed to and somehow allow that to influence my mood. I enslave myself to a deteriorating financial situation both globally and somewhat locally. I enslave myself to time, of which I sometimes run short (but, as you might have gathered, not this morning :-)). I enslave myself until I don’t notice it myself and don’t pull myself out of that state, shouting “Romeo, wtf?!” at the top of my lungs. I’m glad that decades of meditation and self-observation have grown muscles capable of pulling myself out of all of it.
Perhaps there are simply cases around where that slavery is somewhat too much. When you stand before a person and you yourself don’t understand why you want to run from them. You know, a person can be rich, and can be rich and at the same time – a slave to money. A person can be famous, and can at the same time be famous and – a slave to status. A person can be healthy, and can… When I look at him and see how everything in him is compressed, how hard it is for him to breathe inwardly, to move inwardly. When somewhere inside you know – “God, maybe I don’t have THAT much money, fame and health, but at least I have Freedom!” “And if I spend another five minutes with you, it seems there’ll be even less of that Freedom left for me…”
Have a beautiful, meaningful, productive and rich day. And don’t enslave yourselves. At least to what enslaving – isn’t necessary :-)
