I have often written about the sorrows of life. Buddhists start with the proposition that life is sorrow and that the only way to deal with it is to relieve oneself from the craving and attachment which are the sources of sorrow. I believe that the Buddhists have a very realistic way of looking at the world. I doubt that you can be happy if you always expect that everything will be wonderful. If you recognize that life is sorrow, you can begin to appreciate the things that lift us out of sorrow and bring us happiness and pleasure.
One of the things that brings us pleasure is the feast of Christmas. While Christmas is a religious festival, and I am a nonbeliever, nevertheless, I appreciate how much pleasure it brings us. It is celebrated at the time of the winter solstice, when nights are long and days are short. It is a time when many people feel depressed by Seasonal Affect Disorder. I’m sure that Christmas, and all of the ancient festivals that preceded it, were created to help people overcome the feelings of depression that accompany the season. Even if we don’t believe in the sacred holiday of Jesus birth, we should celebrate Christmas with all our hearts.
Moreover, there is good reason to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. He may not have been God, or the Son of God, but as depicted in the Gospels and tradition he was a beautiful person whose teachings still affect the world. How could this holy man in the tiny country of Israel have so profoundly influenced history? It has to be his teaching. Although it is difficult for mankind to follow his teachings, they give us a goal to reach. Just reading the Sermon on the Mount is enough to guarantee his place in history. I gladly celebrate his birthday on Christmas day.
I have written about how we are all born with an evolutionary tendency toward optimism. It is a genetic adaptation that is, no doubt, partially responsible for our survival as a species. Somehow, in the face of tragedy, disappointment, pain, and sorrow, we are able to hope for better things to come. Somehow in the face of old age and its accompanying disintegration and eventual death, we are able to go on living and even enjoy ourselves. You would think that we would all be profoundly depressed at our coming fate, but most people are able to go through old age without too much sorrow.
One of the reasons that we are able to face the sorrows of life and the problem of aging is because of the many pleasures in life. In another essay I wrote: “It is wonderful to enjoy the pleasure of love and sex, to feel the beauty of a lovely spring day, to appreciate great art, literature, film, and theater, to take joy in the play of young children, to take pleasure in food and drink, to dance, to sing, to laugh, and sometimes, even to cry. Bart Ehrman tells us that we should confront the evil in the world by enjoying life, and that part of that enjoyment should be the helping of other people. Perhaps that is the answer to depression.”
Opposed to all the sorrow in the world there are things that make us feel that life is sweet. Even for someone in his 70s, like me, there are things that sweeten the day and lift me up. When I get up in the morning, I go into the kitchen and make coffee. I sit by the window drinking the coffee and looking out at the bird feeders and bird house in our back yard. Drinking coffee, made the way I like it, gives me great pleasure. I don’t know why the birds make me happy, but they do. One time when Julie and I were watching a squirrel try to climb a Sheppard’s crook that held a bird feeder, and that we had greased to prevent squirrels from climbing, Julie’s daughter came in and, seeing what we were doing, said: “You two need to get a life!” Nevertheless, watching birds gather around the feeder and watching a bird go in and out of the bird house in the yard gives me a thrill.
Almost all people love beautiful weather. When you look around on the first really beautiful Spring day, you will notice that people are smiling and have a bounce in their steps. I can remember certain days at Lake George in New York when the sheer beauty of the day, the lake, and the mountains filled me with rapture. Over the period of my life, there are particular days that stand out in my mind because they were so lovely. I’m sure that evolution has given us a love of the natural things of the world. We feel connected to the earth because we come out of the earth and are an integral part of it.
For me, one of the great pleasures of life has been reading books. Even back when I read difficult, abstruse texts, I enjoyed it. I always came away with the feeling that I was learning something. I read novels and page-turners for the sheer enjoyment. I have read many of the world’s greatest books, and I feel that they have enriched my life. One thing all my reading has given me is the ability to write well. One of my greatest joys in life has been the ability to write newspaper columns. I have also written a book, though it has not been published.
I find that a compliment to my love of reading and writing is the pleasure I take in computers and the internet. The word-processing capacity of computers has made my writing much easier, faster, and better. I was thrilled the first time I was able to get on the internet and get information from around the world. E-mail has enabled me to stay in contact with my children, family, and friends wherever they might be. Each new development gives me, and most other people, great delight. Now through Skype I am able to see and talk to my children who live far away. I may not be up-to-date on all technological developments, but I can appreciate how much enjoyment they give the people who are.
I have always enjoyed looking at great art. I don’t know why, but when I am in a museum, a wonderful feeling overcomes me as I look at the brilliant creations of great artists.
I love good movies. My taste in movies may not be that of a sophisticated movie-buff, but I do get a lot of enjoyment out of certain movies, especially action movies.
I also love sports, especially football, basketball, and baseball. It is a relaxing delight to watch a sports event which takes your mind off all the worries in life. When the sports event becomes a white-knuckle thriller, it is even better. I think that the reason we root for local teams is because that heightens our enjoyment of the contest.
I get a lot of pleasure out of humor—my own and other people’s. I love to tell jokes and stories, and zing one-liners at people. I think that humor is for me, and for many people like me, a way of dealing with the hard things of life. If we can turn things around and upside-down, they are not so scary. When I was a kid, my favorite performers on television were the comedians. I loved The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Jackie Gleason Show, and Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar. As a young man I felt that shows like Monte Python’s Flying Circus were created just for me. I have always loved shows like MASH, Cheers, and Seinfeld. Laughter is a kind of drug that releases tension.
The greatest source of pleasure in my later years has been music, especially the lovely melodies of classical artists. Lately I have been listening to more and more, and discovering beautiful pieces of which I was unaware. I have listed many of them in the profile on my blogs, and will not do so here. Needless to say, there are some compositions that can lift me out of this world. There have been times when a beautiful piece of music has brought me to tears. I am not ashamed at those tears. I also love many popular songs and have made lists of my favorites. I envy the lucky people who can sit down at a piano or pick-up a violin and play their favorite music. For them music must be a special and powerful pleasure.
Perhaps the highest form of pleasure is love. We love our parents, our brothers and sisters, our children and grandchildren and even our dearest friends. It is likely that this love is programmed into us as an evolutionary adaptation. But it is still one of great joys of life. I never thought that I would care if I had grandchildren, but when my daughter called me one day and said that she was having a baby, my whole body filled with happiness.
There is also the kind of love we feel for our lovers. Even apart from the sexual pleasures we get from these relationships, there is a powerful psychological gratification to them. When you add sex to a very good love affair, it is almost transcendental. Nature has given us sexual pleasure as a way to increase our procreation of the species. Like many of the gifts of nature, this is a marvelous one. I feel sorry for those people who go through life without ever experiencing it.
There are many other things in life that bring us happiness and pleasure. Among them are good conversation, recognition of our accomplishments, talent, success, respect, prosperity, good health, and good children. One thing that Bart Ehrman mentions is helping other people. We may not have a lot of money to donate to charity or energy to work at some charitable endeavor, but when we do something for other people it always gives us a sense of self-worth. Thus, we should consider it one of the pleasures of life, one of the best. It is good because self-worth, self-love, self-respect are some of the things that can really make our lives better. If we have them, we can face the terrors of life with confidence and courage.
We are all fighting to overcome the sorrows of life. Each day brings more news of the hardships faced by people. It can make us depressed, but we can also find pleasure if we concentrate on the things that bring us happiness. One of those things is the season of Christmas. Most people love the season of Christmas, the lovely decorations in stores and at home, the beautiful Christmas Carols, the Christmas trees, the high spirits of people, and the giving and receiving of gifts. It is a wonderful way to celebrate the birthday of a good, kind, loving, wonderful man, Jesus of Nazareth. Merry Christmas!
No comments:
Post a Comment