Bleat, carp, cavil

Spent too much time inside today, shunning the vapid sky, the insipid clouds. I read a lot, and researched travel destinations, but it was not satisfactory. A day of lazing around inside turns me into boiled cabbage. Limp. Bland. Watery. Dull. I tried to do some writing but all I could hear was the sound of my own listless brain. Finally, about 4pm, my restlessness peaked and I broke away from the house. I headed out on my bike, ditched it at a trailhead and walked under the trees. My wits slowly came back to me.

Mossy rocks... deep cool silence... tangled ferns... root-rippled earth...

Irritation and crankiness fell off me in clumps. Guess I was caked in the stuff.

And then.... it came! The Sun. Like a laser beam - vvvrrrap! - that cut through all the soggy remnants of my boggy mood and gave me an hour of pure happiness in the forest.

Shouldn't I have found a cure for this weakness by now? I'm turning 30 in under a month. I've got 27 days to figure out how to be a happy creature without regular sunshine. Honestly! I'm about to enter my 4th decade of life, and where is my equanimity? Where is the stoic maturity of heart?

I wonder why humans were given this spirit of discontent. It is such a powerful thing - just a tiny seed that spawns infinite varieties of both good and evil. It plagues us with unrest. Without it we would never have evolved into the beings we are. Is discontentment the same as desire? Can there be discontent without wanting... wanting something else? Doesn't prolonged discontent dig the hole into which desire pours?

I want more sunshine. I want to spend more time feeling connected to the earth. I want to feel more alive more of the time. My whole being longs for bright, glowing, golden sunlight. But I also want my music, want to feel inspired and to feel the drive of ambition and the reward of producing work. Want to write, want to create, want to collaborate, want to contribute, want want want!

..If I had all the sunshine I want, would I still feel motivated to work? Would I be too content to keep my ambitions and goals alive? Or would I just wake up one day with a horrible realization that I'd let my dreams go? But isn't my dream just to be content? Hrr, hmm, hrr.

I try to stay connected to these waves of disgruntled restlessness and work with them, watch them, learn from them. I know they're not going to just go away. Do they go away for anyone? It's a bizarre and ironic human trait, this Discontent. It's the biggest source of suffering in the world, but it's also what keeps us moving forward. Our curse and our blessing.

Who, when, what, why and where did it come from??

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