I have discovered the secret to happiness—at long last.
It has been in front of me for quite some time and I never saw it; I
mean really saw it. I have heard others suggest it on countless
occasions, but it never quite latched on. I have even said it myself with
the same result. It never registered. But lately it has.
What I am referring to, many will have no taste for, especially in America,
the land of big egos and totally irresponsible consumption. I will no
doubt be reviled and ridiculed by the crass corporate types and the rest
of the mediocre mainstream for what I am about to suggest, but that is
irrelevant. As a matter of fact, I think I would be a little put off if
they did not so castigate me, and look down their noses at what I have
to say.
As a form of prelude, I would like to offer an example of what the secret
is like. I once heard a story (very likely apocryphal) about an elephant
that had been trained to be restrained by a piece of string tied around
its leg. Such a large animal can of course break a piece of string with
virtually no effort at all. But the elephant did not know this. It lacked
the capacity to realize, and realization (as Alan Watts once
suggested) is a form of salvation. If the elephant had commanded
the power to realize, it would have, at the same instant, also commanded
the power to free itself (to save itself).
The secret to happiness is very similar. If you have the power to realize
what you must do, you have the power to become happy.
So the question is, "What exactly is it that you must realize?"
The answer: that you are nothing.
If you believe that you are something, as we are all taught in school
when we are virtually preached to about how special we are, then
you grasp an abstraction that can easily become a heavy weight. Something
requires maintenance. Nothing requires nothing.
I consider myself a street philosopher and consequently will not hesitate to
use street language to stress my ideas. So, with your indulgence, I will now
put it in the language of the streets. The sooner you learn to get over yourself,
and realize that you are basically a piece of dogshit, the sooner will you be
able to embrace that ever-popular ideal called happiness.
Now of course I use the term dogshit as a metaphor. It essentially
suggests worthlessness, as in the popular phrase, "worthless piece
of dogshit."
We place far too much value on ourselves in America. If you pay close
attention, you can't help but notice eventually that everyone in this
country seems to be suffering from the same malady, an inflated sense
of their own self worth. If you truly think that you are worth something,
then you are going to suffer for it. The feeling of worthiness
is a heavy load to carry around. Somehow, the idea of burdens
does not balance with happiness. And I can think of no bigger
burden than that of your own self.
As I said, what I am suggesting is not an easy task. And in America it
would most certainly be considered a task. The average person,
upon hearing something like this, would more than likely just scoff at
it and reply with something like, "Oh, that's just a bunch of bullshit."
It is difficult to resist our social programming. But it is that very
programming that is making us unhappy. That programming has conditioned
us to believe that we are a significant something, that we deserve
certain considerations and/or rights. As a result of believing
what we have been taught, we have also, at the same moment, taken up a
bag of rocks to carry around with us wherever we may happen to go.
The truly happy ones in this world are those who travel the lightest.
It is with good reason that such people are called enlightened.
And never ever forget that the only way to become truly enlightened is
to realize (there's that word again) that there is no such thing
as enlightenment.
