If I were to ask you what your idea of bliss is, what would you say?
I asked a few people, and the answers tended to fall into a few categories: financial windfall, tropical relocation, and sex with an ideal partner. They all make a kind of sense we can understand. Who wouldn’t like to have these? But for the most part, when asked what bliss meant to them, folks presented a version of inactivity. Being someplace special or having some kind of amenity at their disposal was wrapped up in it, but they mostly just want to relax. To sit in place in the sun on the beach as the tide rolls out. To recline in an old chair by the fire and read a good book. To leave work so they can travel overseas and just see things. No labor, no projects, no purpose except to enjoy.
But for me, pursuit of a purpose and enjoyment are inextricable. My idea of bliss is to choose a thing that I want to work on and accomplish, and to be able to do it, unfettered by responsibilities that interrupt and steal time. The idea of total inactivity does not appeal to me, except after a long day of work. Doing nothing, experience has told me, is actually awful.
I have been wrapped up in the race of purpose my whole life. Every day, finding the motivation to pursue, pursue, pursue. Imagine the great things I can do, then fall in love with the work of doing them. Then, exult in the accomplishment by imagining the next thing. I have disconnected with the part of me that slows down and finds solace of any kind in relaxation for the sake of relaxation. Relaxation that is not just a relief from some labor of some kind, but is an intentional act. An occupation of itself.
And I have chosen this. But I did not know how deeply this disconnect was affecting me until recently in my life. Until I forced myself to experience the other side of the coin. As it turned out, doing this was extraordinarily difficult. But the rewards are many. I am still trying to grasp the triumph of tranquility, the purpose-that-is-unpurpose. And it is not bliss, at least not to me. But it is valuable, for a different reason. It is a widening of one’s cumulative intellect: There are whole worlds of perception and understanding within lengthy, peaceful repose that are invisible to the eternally goal-driven mind.
If you’d like to read about how I came to this understanding, and see some pictures of the setting for the experience, click here.
The Octopode 