There is a currency more potent than gold. There is a God more powerful than the views of other people.
Its name? Pain. It is a drug that can't be shaken off. I've battled this culture of pain for a long time, until I realise that the best way is to walk away. People and communities mired in pain, addicted to its justifying embrace, will never want to wake up.
You tell people the great, big secret, that there is really no need for pain, and they will try to inflict pain on you.
It's all bullshit.
In Kino's Journey, episode I don't know which, Kino traveled to the Land of Visible Pain. That country is so technologically advanced, there is no need for manual labour or work of any kind. But the people work still, in giant halls, in front of adding machines, supervised by robots.
What were they doing? Recalculating the computations of their computers. For what? For stress. Because stress is their only way of determining who gets more resources.
I see this manifest in people who stay in abusive relationships, who want the pain so they could bitch to their friends. People who want to feel wronged. People who are addicted to being victims.
Like a drug, it is addictive - that's coming from first-hand experience - and like a disease, it is infectious.
Buddha addressed this a few hundred years before Christ. His mission was to understand suffering and how to escape it. His teachings are there for all to see, but no one is watching.
In Islam, most of the conversations I have read concerning Muhammad reveals a rational mind. Not the crazy, bearded suicide bomber Fox News would have you believe.
He'd say, "Go and fast, bitches!" And then some guy said, "Oh, sorry, I fucked my wife during Ramadan, in the day."
"Okay, so go feed the poor as penance."
"C'mon man! We don't have any food to feed the poor!"
"Okay, then take these dates - my dates - and fucking feed the poor."
"But, dude, we ARE the poor. The poorest-ass podunk people in the town."
"Okay, so go and feed yourself. Safe journey, broseph!"
Today, Islam is made difficult by PIS-M, Lim Guan Eng, DAP, Mat Sabu, and your mama.
In my short career, I have had two nervous breakdowns and been hospitalised for stress four times. My insurance records recorded these. Once for kidney stone, another time when I had to have surgery, yet another for chronic abdominal pain. One time, I thought I was going deaf.
All that pain, and it was really quite unnecessary. I explored meditation and New Age philosophy to understand pain and how to live a life without emotional or psychological pain.
It all stems from the ego and the desire to be SEEN as better than everyone else. Not to BE better. Just to be SEEN as better. Pain is ultimately self-serving and stupid.
Every day, when I wake up, I must make a choice whether or not to live a life of pain and subscribe to the dumbass culture or live free.
I would like to say that I have gotten over pain, and that there is a nice ending to this rant with me growing wings and flying over Malaysia, shooting lasers and dropping bombs on politicians.
The truth is, the only way to neutralise pain is to accept it and dissolve the thing by being still.
So fuck you, I'm going shopping for a Blackberry, a fridge, a rice cooker, pots and pans and stuff.
Cheerio!
