The Price of Joy
A guru once possessed a magnificent collection of rare crystals acquired over his lifetime. They were on glorious display in a glass case in his home.
One day, there was a monumental crash as all the crystals rained down on the collapsing glass shelves. In the process of cleaning, the guru’s maid had obliterated them all. With great trepidation, she approached the yogi to tell him what she had done. To her surprise—and relief—he was completely unperturbed. Nonplussed. Unaffected by the news.
When asked how this could be as she had decimated his beloved collection, he told her: “They were for my joy, not my misery. So why should I allow them to make me sad?”
Simple wisdom: small potatoes.
Priceless
What is the inherent worth of a stamp? An ornately-shaped piece of jewelry? Custom-blown glass? A multi-faceted stone? A tower of bricks? A heap of the latest electronic doodads?
Your invaluable collection of collectibles is only worth something to other collectors. If your kids and grandkids couldn’t care less about YOUR stuff do you think anyone else does? As George Carlin put it so eloquently: To us, our shit is “stuff,” but to everyone else, our stuff is “shit.”
15 Seconds
Is it worth getting upset about anything? Because it’s all small potatoes in the end. That shattered vase? Replaceable. That punctured tire? Refillable. That broken heart? Mendable. That permanent stain on your favorite anything? It’s favorite status was impermanent anyway.
All of the stuff we deem important really isn’t worth a damn in the long run. Maybe even in the short run. State-of-the-art reaches a state-of-decay. What’s new grows old. What’s fashionable goes out of style. In the fast lane of life priorities change.
There used to be a value shift from generation to generation, from decade to decade. But the rhythm of meaninglessness has compressed: now it’s year to year, week to week, or even moment to moment.
Which movie won last year’s Oscar? Who was the highest paid performer? Who was today’s game’s MVP? Voted the greatest athlete of all time? The fastest, bravest, strongest, coolest, best-looking, most talented anything? Every milestone feels important. Progress! History-making! Until the next one.
Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame has compressed to 15 seconds.
Not to diminish that which we deem important. I’m sure Napoleon was doing great work. As was Jefferson. Genghis Khan. And Alexander the Great. Henry Ford. Louis B. Mayer. Freud and Jung and Einstein. Picasso and Matisse. Steve Jobs and Muhammad Ali. Furthering conquest and unity, understanding, industry and invention, pugilism and poetry, science, art and philosophy, sportsmanship and (proverbially) denting the Universe.
And now we know what they all have in common: they are ashes and dust.
In his time, Shakespeare had to write that sonnet. Beethoven had to compose the 9th. As each and every person has something essential that must be done. Today. For all time. Because it’s important!
What you do is of little to no importance.
But it is important that you do it!
~ Gandhi
As any achiever can attest, each achievement is temporary. In fact, everything is temporary. Change is the order of the Universe. Change fosters creativity. And the Universe is infinitely, divinely, supremely creative.
So is there anything about which it is worth disquieting ourselves? Worth inviting perturbations into our placid calm? Worth the cost to disrupt our equanimity (assuming we had it in the first place)?
Not really, no. Except in matters of life and death…
The End of the World
But is the thing bugging you a matter of life and death? Is it really the end of the world? Because even if it were, our world is a teeny-tiny infinitesimal blue dot in a galaxy of galaxies.
If our little speck were to blink out of existence would it make a dent in the Universe? A tiny impression on the infinitude? I wonder…
Because all the hardship and upset and war and famine and collective conflict and revolution and resolution and coups and quips and every birth and death ever recorded or experienced has taken place here on Earth. And Earth, as astronomer Carl Sagan pointed out, is just a “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
And that mote of dust isn’t even you and me — that’s the whole enchilada! The complete shebang. Mother Earth in her entirety. A lonely speck. Which scales you and me down to a couple of microns caroming around on the surface of that speck!
We are fleeting flecks living on a pin-dot particle
fretting about the evanescent specks of our existence.
And if the whole of the Earth is “a mote of dust in a sunbeam,” then why give into drama about our little corner of dust? In other words: Don’t worry about it.
Momentary Pixel Master
Shakespeare wrote, “All the world is a stage and upon it we are merely players.” Scaling that up, Carl Sagan observed that “Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.”
So, then, we are merely actors in a diminutive theater, playing upon a tiny proscenium. Engaged in battles and dramas to feel we are in control — in control of others, of our destiny, of our place on the stage. But it’s illusory. The whole notion of “control” is preposterous. Preposterous on a planetary scale. With a cosmic exclamation point!
According to Sadhguru, we’re all just “pop-ups:” A little thought bubble that pops into your awareness or a pop-up on your computer screen that disappears as quickly as it arrived. We’re here for a blink. The slightest of moments. And then we are gone. Poof!
For all our struggles, for all of our upset, for all of our longing, our striving, our relentless pursuit of more, more, more. Doling out damage to oursevles and others… The BEST we can do—the best anyone can do—is become “a momentary master of a fraction of a dot.” Specifically, the pale blue dot that is but a pixel in a photograph taken from deep space.
Sagan taught at Cornell University, where I studied. I caught one of his lectures before he died. His cosmic wisdom offered a message for humanity. You can hear it in his own voice below. (Coincidentally, the clip with Heath Ledger dancing at 38 seconds is from the first film I produced — 10 Things I Hate About You. Coincidence? Hmm…)
Space Spud
So what isn’t “small potatoes?” When it seems that through a wide enough lens, everything is. A cosmically small potato.
What’s really worth being worried about? What’s really worth being upset by? As any cause of angst or distress or vexation is an even smaller fraction of this tiny sliver of life we are here to experience. A slice of a slice.
So why get your nose out of joint? Why carry that chip around? Why let anything get your panties in a bunch? (Unless you want to have your panties bunched.) Because in order to justify your ire, to harbor your righteous rage, you have to believe your potato is actually the big deal you think it is!
Well, you’re not alone in believing so. But you’re wrong.
Yes To It All
A sanguine yogi was asked how he maintained equanimity in the face of the life’s vicissitudes. He replied: I simply say “Yes” to it all.
Yes to it all.
Yes to it ALL.
YES. TO. IT. ALL.
From one pixel to another, from one dust mote to the next, from my wisp of consciousness to yours: I wish you a lifetime of equanimity and peace, love and calm. Enjoy the small potatoes whilst they last.
Because the greatest small potato of them all… is YOU!