When people say "it was a simpler time then", I often wonder if time ever marked an era when things were actually simple. I find myself contemplating the real meaning of "simplicity", and if it merely meant the lack of technology that exists in our modern day and age, or if it extended to include people as well.
My conviction is that people are never simple, and they were never programmed to be. The existence of temptation is enough evidence to this; would Adam and Eve have descended from heaven to Earth, otherwise?
If people really were simple at the time Earth was created, then wars would not have been fought and thrones would not have been sought. Power would have remained an unattainable luxury and the masses would have remained oblivious.
The truth is, human beings are very complex creatures by nature. We always want what we don’t have, and if and when we get what we want, we find something else and convince ourselves that we yearn it. It's a never ending cycle.
Which leads me to the mirage of happiness. I don’t mean to sound cynical, yet if life has taught me anything it's that happiness always comes with an expiration date. It's just the way things are; we can never be happy for too long.
I remember a period in my life when I was happy in every sense of the word. I had my health, a job that I enjoyed, a loving family, a circle of good friends and, most importantly, an overwhelming feeling of security and stability. Perhaps I jinxed it, because at that time when I was feeling truly blessed, I wondered what it was like to be less fortunate.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have the same, in a slightly different setting. Yet I curse the times I questioned what unhappiness must feel like. Not that I am unhappy now, just that I am more aware and more exposed to a pool of less than favorable circumstances.
I still feel blessed, but I know now that the saying "happiness stems from within" is what little children are fed to convince them that self-fulfillment is the key to happiness. It's really not all that simple.
Just like people are complex, they are also very diverse. Everyone comes with a different personality and a unique set of traits. Some might avoid misery by living the myth of self-fulfillment, and others will choose to let their surroundings affect them and play a role in their happiness.
If I had to categorize myself, I would say I belong to the latter set.
Surroundings can be a number of things. They can be your family, your loved ones, or even others you have no connection to.
My family means the world to me. Those who detach themselves from their parents or siblings and don’t involve themselves in their affairs intrigue me to a great extent. I don’t know if I can ever do that.
Perhaps it's the way I was brought up. What happens to my family happens to me, despite the long distance parting our ways.
I am unable to detach, and I am not even sure that I should.
There is so much evil in this world, and if I am ever blessed to have children one day I don’t know how I would be able to shield them from it.
I have seen evil with my own two eyes and experienced it first hand during my detention by NISS in 2012. They left me scarred forever. More dramatically, they left me pondering what happened to my captors that prompted them to become so desensitized and cruel, or were they always this way? I can never find out.
Believe it or not, after confirming that I have seen the worst of the world, I came across more evil than I could have ever imagined. Those puppets that are NISS recruits cannot compare to the new evilness that has emerged into my life. This man I knew, he is the epitome of evil, and is very passionate about it. It is almost disturbingly artistic.
I can't talk much about him but I can say that dealing with him has taught me a lot.
Growing up I had temper issues. I learned the hard way that I need to practice self-control. This is because my bad temper got me into some serious trouble in the past (you can imagine). I now try to be more zen.
Going back to the man, he had (still has) a temper as well. He acts on impulse often, and the consequences of his actions don’t seem to be catching up to him yet. I don’t know how long it will take or how much longer I can wait.
He taught me about myself that yes, I can wish harm on someone if they hurt the people closest to me. It sounds horrible but it's the truth. I wished him harm for causing so much pain to so many people at once.
Anyway.
So simplicity, as well as happiness, are both mirages that we hang on to to help us carry on with our mundane lives. The only thing that is certain is evil. Evil is alive and well, it feeds on the oblivious who believe simplicity is ripe in our society.
Mirages.
Hope, on the other hand, is no mirage. Hope is the glue that keeps many of us together. Hope that there will come a time, whether in the near or far future, when our cycle of happiness will once again emerge.
PS - This blog post started as scribbles on my notebook. Honestly I didn't know where to begin or where my blue ballpoint pen will lead me. This is a confusing post.
