It would be nice to have it all. But who can have it all? Who can sail through life never needing to face a hard choice between a ‘precious this’ and an ‘enticing that’? Or a ‘nearly intolerable this’ and an ‘almost devastating that’?
Every opportunity has its cost, the cost being the sum of everything else that one must forego in embracing that opportunity.
I’m at a point in life where a comfort-pleasure-indulgence nexus has collided with a fitness-strength-awareness nexus. I’ve been trying to span both, embrace all, and have ended up self-wounded, empty-handed, and with no one to blame but myself.
Time to make a choice. I ponder advice I first encountered while a teenager studying the Chinese classics (which was part of a journey that included studying Mandarin Chinese and calligraphy also):
The five colors blind the eyes.
The five tones deafen the ears.
The five flavors dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Therefore, sages emphasize health, not pleasure.
Choose this, let go of that.
-Tao Te Ching (see my comment for an Alan Watts interpretation of 'the fives')
Health, for me, is a more personal thing, pleasure more social - though neither exclusively so.
Time again to be a happy man. Whatever it takes to be a happy man.
"Strive for true happiness. For, even if you don't attain it, your journey will be illumined."
- (I put the quote above in quotes because I wanted to attribute it to somebody. But I can't. I just made it up.)
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