"Now let us make for
Campania. Now I am sick of rich cultivation: let us see wild regions, let us
thread the passes of Bruttii and Lucania.
“Yet amid this wilderness one
wants some thing of beauty to relieve our pampered eyes after so long dwelling
on savage wastes: let us seek Tarentum with its famous harbor, its mild winter
climate, and its district, rich enough to support even the great hordes of
ancient times.
“Let us now return to town: our ears have too
long missed its shouts and noise. It would be pleasant also to enjoy the sight
of human bloodshed."
Thus one journey succeeds
another, and one sight is changed for another. As Lucretius says:
"Thus every mortal from himself does
flee."
How
absolutely timeless!
If you
have the means, change your location and pastimes whenever you can, because
different places and different faces, a whole new set of excitements and
titillations, might keep your mind occupied just enough, just long enough, to maintain
the illusion of being happy.
Empty
inside? No worries, as they say! There is so much else to fill that silence
with noise. Go on a vacation, no expenses spared. Laugh at the quaint locals,
blunder about the sights, and pose for photographs, smiling from ear to ear.
Then post your delightful experiences to social media. Look at you now—you’re a
rock star!
Your
husband earns enough to support seven or eight families of “normal” people, yet
he always seems to be away on business trips, and he always travels first
class, because his company takes care of him that way.
What
does he get up to in Beijing, or in Mumbai, or in Moscow? Don’t give it a
second thought, because he will take you away to Maine in a few weeks, and
you’ll have that lobster dinner you and the kids love so much. Remember, those
kids you are too busy to raise yourself, and quite happy to pass off to someone
else during the year?
I didn’t
dream up any of the above, and it didn’t come from my morbid imagination.
I once
sat down for coffee with a woman after a Twelve Step meeting, and that is
exactly how she described the charade of her own life. I was probably of no
help to her, because I was too busy wallowing in my own misery. I know now what
I might have said, but all I could do then was nod and clench my teeth.
If you
need something new for every day, then you aren’t living for the day. If you
can’t find peace within yourself, you will find no peace. If you rely only on the
changing things that are given to you, you have absolutely nothing to rely on.
But no,
that is not what I should have said, as much as I might have done well to think
it. Words of compassion are enough. Commitment to one thing, to love, is
enough.
Written in 5/2011
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