I think we have too much in life. What does that mean? We have such an array of joys to choose from that we have become great at consuming but almost unable to appreciate anything. We no longer need to appreciate anything because we never want for anything.
I think about life fifty years ago. It was much harder but each joy was so sweet. Think of the memories of your birthday celebration, they were easy to remember because the celebration was simple and sincere.
Your mom made a cake and you had barbecues or something easy to make a lot of, maybe some ripple potato chips too. Was that not the best meal you ever had? How about the activities of your celebration, maybe red ghost, green ghost? Perhaps you played hide and seek or had a fire ring around which you sat and toasted marshmallows.
Today a child’s birthday is much more involved and harder to construct than a wedding celebration from times past. The cost is greater, the theme is more involved, the guest list is larger yet the memories are fewer. It's too much, too soon which makes the memories so easy to forget as you never are allowed the time to learn to savor what you receive.
The pleasures and freedoms we receive come so fast and furiously that we feign thirst the first time life turns the faucet even slightly clockwise. A drop of recognition used to slake our thirst for days.
Today we must drown in the self-obsession of social media or we are left desperate for a room consisting of a crowd of mirrors and a party of one. Loneliness is the cost of selfobession, at least one of them. Where does it all end? Do we focus on ways to multiply the joys, pleasures and excesses we never deserved in the first place? Can we find a way to be thankful for our blessings when we can’t remember even one because they are so numerous?
It seems to be a progression of life although I wouldn’t say it’s a natural one. I look at music as an example; it seems like every genre eventually becomes so bloated with excess instruments and more electronic wizardry that we eventually can’t absorb it all. The sad thing is that the talent that might really satisfy us is drowned out by that stream of what we think we deserve. Someone usually comes along and presents such stark talent that we all remember the joy of simplicity and hopefully feel ashamed of all of that excess.
What we really need to do is turn that faucet down ourselves. To have the discipline to say a little is enough and more will never satisfy us. To learn to be thankful and to realize that the times we have little are just as precious as the times when we have enough because these two slices of our life combine to make us happy. It’s like the pause in poetry; without it the best prose does not have the same meaning. The times of want allow us time for selfexamination and appreciation. We need to become tasters and not gluttons, we need to become thankful.
