Oh, my pleasure :-)!

Yeah, I guess so. In theory fulfilling your dreams should be this amazing experience, and it might be, for a day or two. At least that's what the back of the shampoo bottle says, when I'm bored enough to read it. Hell, maybe it will take years, but sooner or later you'll be getting that itch again. I know I do.

Part of the issue might be the overdrawn, unrealistic expectations we tend to have, rather than striving towards things on principle. On the other hand, the same Buddhist mandala depicting the hell of hungry ghosts argues that the wheel of life is being propelled by a mix of hatred, greed, and delusion at its center. Kinda relating to the whole idea about desire being the root of our suffering. The things we want, the things we don't want, our hopes and dreams, about as much as our fears and anxieties. Life IS suffering, but not necessarily in the agony kind of sense, but in terms of a type of chronic dissatisfaction, no matter if we fulfill our dreams or not.

Ok, so good so far, life is suffering caused by desire. What now? Should you desire to not desire? That's paradoxical, but Buddhists seem to argue for a start maybe just desire less. The paradox itself seems to be partially related to the idea doing and non-doing, which is paradoxical as well. What's personal action and what isn't? Clearly, if someone was hanging with one hand from a cliff and you just stood there doing nothing, that would be an action?! So now you're stuck and don't know what to do anymore, but either way you're still here. So what is it? And who are you supposed to be in the first place?

To me life seems like a deterministic chain-reaction, even though there might be some randomness to the equation. Either way, you're part of this sea of co-dependent phenomena influencing each other in some kind of unfathomable dynamic, where every action or non-action ripples through time and space. Like waves. In terms of that philosophical Daoism seems to argue your individual suffering might come from you trying to go against the dynamic, like holding on to a dream when it's time to let go. Or maybe remaining stagnant when you should've started paddling.

The Daoists got a few neat metaphors. In context of the ideal of "effortless action" they argue pulling on grass doesn't make it grow any faster, for example. But then at other times they argue effortlessness is actually the result of persistent hard work, but then maybe the absence of any type of forced effort at all. I guess it's a mix of all that, all depending on the situation.

Either way, I hope you like word salad :-)

Have a good one,
grebmot