True Tranquility

Before read, I would like to preface this blog post with this: I have never, ever shared personal information on the internet in this fashion and probably will not for a very long time after today, but for some reason, on today of all days, I have had some sort of insight on life as a whole and I decided to share it.

In the past few months a person has, to be bluntly honest, completely intimidated me. I don't mean intimidated in some crude physical sense, but on an intellectual and emotional level. Most who know me would say that I am at the very least an extremely confident person and at worst, proud. I wouldn't disagree with either evaluation presently. Because of this confidence, when I meet a person who is superior to me in a field I care about, I immediately have a fiercely competitive outlook towards that person. Usually, the person in question is not even aware of my attitude. In the past, I saw this as a way to have a step up on the "competition" (whatever that was), but after I met this one person, this inner competition began to falter. It took several months-- just about an hour ago actually--but it ultimately failed.

What led to this failure was not this person's intellectual triumph or some dramatic achievement, but simply their outlook on life. A simple statement, really. I heard through a friend that the person I have talked about gave a bit of advice to my friend. He said, "Don't become like Jean-Marc and attempt to let acquisition of knowledge be your life goal." Initially, when my friend told me this, I blew it off and thought of the comment as presumptuous and pretentious. But for some strange reason, this comment lingered inside me; it creeped up on me at least weekly and even though I shrugged it off, the advice continued to trouble me. This afternoon the house of cards finally came crashing down. 

I have thought for a while now, that all I needed to live happily was a continuing education--a never-ending, ceaseless education about anything and everything that interested me, but today when I was driving home, I realized that this thought process would never sustain me. Why? There is so much to know of the world that no matter how much I learn, more can always be known. There is always something else to know. No matter what. I like the idea of this, but I realized that it will not sustain me. It is not something I can cling to in times of worry or stress. So I asked myself, what can give me true, lasting tranquility? What can provide some sort of inextinguishable flame of placidity--of peace?

The first idea that came to my mind was simple: nothing. Nothing lasts forever, and everything always fades away. No material object in this world will last forever. No relationship will last forever. No ideas will last forever. So the next step in thought for me was this: to attain true peace one must be able to realize that nothing will last a lifetime. One must be willing to let things go. One must be able to continue on, no matter what circumstances may surround them, no matter what person, idea, or feeling leaves them.

I am definitely not saying to treasure nothing. I am not saying to place no value in anything. What I am saying is that no one should let any one object, idea, or person become a remedy for any problem. Why? Because at some point, somewhere down the long, winding road of life, that thing will leave or cease to exist. Then what will one use to endure hardship? This path only leads to addiction. Addiction to anything at all.

My main message--my main discovery--is this: realize that everything, everything is temporary. All things will end. All things will fade away. Your house, your job, your friends, your relationships, your car, your books, your philosophies, your heroes, even your very life. And while this thought maybe jarring and depressing initially, it provides for a way of thinking in which one can be able to survive any hardship. 

My advice is simply, be. 

Live your life without needing an addiction to live happily; understand the temporal nature of the universe in which we live.

And maybe, just maybe, we can all gain piece of mind. I sure hope I can.