Take Two

Well, it’s been a while. I’m feeling daunted in attempting to capture the totality of the life that has been lived in the interim. But I’m heeding my own advice (although certainly not original to me) and just beginning. This doesn’t need to contain it all; besides, what even is it all, and who’s even reading? Therein lies the freedom in mediocrity. And I mean that in a genuine and positive sense.

I suspect over the next several entries, there’ll be some life experience woven in, which will serve to paint a picture of the past couple of years. Don’t worry—there’s not much being missed, circumstantially, and yet, it feels like ages ago. And, in some real ways, a different person was writing.

For now, what I want to explore is ‘satisfaction’ and its pole, ‘dissatisfaction.’

Over the holidays, I passed through several days shrouded in clouds of darkness. Vivid regret, embarrassment, shame, despair, worry. Intense thoughts surrounding the decision to quit my job in April 2023 (more on that another time); really feeling like it was decidedly the ‘wrong’ choice. And not only wrong, but incredibly reckless, destructive, and devastating to my and my partner’s future. Fortunately, I was able to reground myself in the insights and motivations that led to this decision by rereading my own writing from that period (therein lies one of the benefits of the metacognitive aspect of writing—utilizing your own present thoughts as future inputs to your thinking), and digging back into the wellspring of insight and wisdom that is Alan Watts. But, out of this suffering emerged insight into a pattern of thought and behavior that develops for me with regularity.

Specifically, I’ve noticed a propensity to identify one element of life that is unsatisfactory and to fixate on that as the one thing that must be changed for contentment and fulfillment to arise. Surely that thing is what’s standing in my way! It’s happened over and over again. Recently, it was my previous job that had to change and now it’s not having a job. Perpetual dissatisfaction. Once you see it, you have to ask yourself how that element of psyche and behavior is working in service of a life well lived. My conclusion: it’s such a waste of a life in the Here-Now. I’ve been living primarily between a regretful past and a fearful future. That is certainly not ‘living into life,’ which was a primary motivator for this change of circumstance.

The other pattern I’ve noticed, is utilizing an outward display of dissatisfaction to portray a desire for change and a sense of ‘this isn’t good enough for me, either;’ to usurp another’s judgement because I’m levying it on myself first. The faulty belief here is that meaningful change comes out of dissatisfaction with present circumstances. There’s a perversely hopeful feeling baked into dissatisfaction, one of assuming that there’s a future circumstance that will bring about satisfaction. Of course, this is completely wrong, misguided, and, ultimately, counter-productive. It’s in fact complete acceptance and allowing of exactly what is, as it is, and the skillful application of attention and action that lead to ‘positive’ change. So, I might as well drop the dissatisfied ‘routine’ and embrace how it is and find the little ways of being and doing within it that, taken together, will lead in an interesting and worthwhile direction.

Dissatisfaction is the covertly hopeful feeling that a future circumstance will bring about satisfaction.

Out of this comes a trite, although perhaps pithy, slogan: ‘satisfaction now.’ Because, truly, if not now, when? It’s no different in essence than the most famous and pithy of them all: ‘Be here now,’ from Ram Dass.

Of course there are circumstances that ‘I’ want to change, but I’m seeing clearly that, aside from some pleasurable states where all seems harmonious, it will always be the case that the self perceives circumstances to be the root of discontent. So, the only hope for durable contentment with life is with it as it is, Here-Now. Any other if/then is just another delusion.

And, who am ‘I’ to change circumstances anyway? Am ‘I’ not also just a present-moment-arising of the interplay of circumstances? It’s like flowing water thinking it can decrease its turbulence by modifying the landscape. Rather, the skillful approach is to recognize the futility of that project and just flow, knowing that circumstances will change of themselves.

As Alan Watts says, if life were a constant struggle against what is, there wouldn’t be any life, because it would have ended itself, having become so frustrated in the never-ending suffering. So, there must be a deeper realization inherent in life that allows for a flow through suffering, ‘on top of’ a durable sense of joy, an at-easeness with what is, that enables us to go on. Otherwise, why bother—the game wouldn’t be worth the candle!

It’s interesting when you really dig into the sense of dissatisfaction. Take, for example, the feeling that things should be different at this point in life. Why do I want things to be different? Well, surely it’s the sense that if circumstances were different/‘better,’ then I’d be satisfied with life. But why not cut out the middle person and simply feel into the ever-present OK-ness of the present moment? To arrive here—to feel it and not just believe it—it helps to see that dissatisfaction is an attribute I eventually bring into every situation; I can’t escape it. It’s recognizing that there’s no escape that is ultimately your freedom. Freedom from the tyranny of the dissatisfied mind. It can be bypassed. This, however, does not imply complacency or non-action, and certainly does not disregard the fact that some circumstances are in urgent need of change. On the contrary, in fact. Through present satisfaction, immense energy can be harnessed to take skillful action, not to change the future, but to act fully in the present; the only place where meaningful change occurs.

And at a fundamental level, it is a deeper satisfaction that we’re seeking. However, we mistakenly believe that it’s pleasure we’re after; to feel good all the time through desirable experiences. But this is seriously misguided because pleasure (and comfort) are necessarily dualistic; that is, they only arise in contrast to their pole: pleasure-pain, comfort-discomfort. Pleasure is, by definition, an interval between pain, otherwise there’d be nothing to know as pleasure. What we’re truly seeking is the ever-present and eternal ‘vertical axis' of satisfaction, contentment, joy, independent of circumstance. Already and always here, just as it is.