Experiencing passion without clarity and only as desire affords the opportunity of either satisfying that desire momentarily or being aware of one’s dissatisfaction. It is possible but undesirable to experience life as a shifting of attention from one dissatisfaction to the next and so on.
When one is accustomed to satisfying certain desires momentarily, dissatisfaction may be incorrectly portrayed as the energy which moves one towards the possibility of intermittent satisfaction. If creativity, playfulness, and joy are not considered in any understanding of motivations, then that understanding is inadequate. Theories that emphasize homeostasis portray people as looking to avoid unpleasantness, which is the less interesting half of the story because it does not afford a foundation for consistent happiness. It may be more accurate to use the concept of homeodynamics.
Homeodynamics is the idea that people look to move forward in a somewhat balanced manner. As opposed to homeostasis with a goal-state that is experienced as not-bad, with homeodynamics the desired goal-state includes both survival and wellbeing–a situation that is good and improving. In this way, homeodynamics allows for a sense of consistent progress through engaging with one’s surroundings as opposed to a homeostatic avoidance of momentary discomforts. Homeodynamics encourages engagement to a greater extent, then, whereas the logic of homeostasis is somewhat more organized around avoidance of negatives. Engagement offers the possibility-without-guarantee of a richer appreciation of one’s surroundings.
I will use “satisfaction” or “satisfactions” to refer to a situation that is not-bad, momentary, passing, and alternately use “appreciation” to refer to a type of awareness that is always at least possible but perhaps never guaranteed. On one hand, once understood, satisfactions are more reliable–food will always fill an empty stomach, while looking for appreciation is not guaranteed to be a successful search. On the other hand, appreciation is more reliable since one can appreciate eating–and every other satisfaction–and one can also appreciate the mental clarity that is likely when one’s stomach is empty. It is possible to find constant satisfactions of desires without finding an appreciation of life, and it is possible to find appreciation of life as a whole–as well as many aspects of life–without looking for constant satisfaction of desires. I use “passion” as the basic energetic or vital quality of being alive. In this sense, passion is the basis for pursuing both satisfaction and appreciation. While I value appreciation, I do not discount satisfaction. My purpose is to encourage an expansion of awareness that includes appreciation.
Experiencing passion with clarity puts one’s attention consistently and repeatedly on quality rather than quantity. Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are always about having enough of one thing and not too much of another–an avoidance of imbalance. Clarity of awareness is about quality–not amounts of this, that, or the other, not about the contents of awareness. In our experience of time, one’s attention is repeatedly brought to quality. In our awareness of quality–through intentionally improving the quality of our awareness–we begin to recognize the consistency or texture of clarity and the consistence or continuity of quality. Instead of quantifying experience, we clarify. We can see the seemingly unending desire for more as showing humans to be greedy and inherently unhappy, or we can view the pursuit of happiness as inherent in humans or perhaps even in evolution. If we look to only avoid unhappiness, we may not arrive at happiness. Since we experience life as moving forward through time, we may need to include progression instead of only stasis into our ideas of motivation and happiness.
Due in part to the human desire for a comprehensive understanding or a comprehensive sense of self, we either lump moments together or string them together. In lumping, we recognize similarity by quality. All happy moments are similar in some quality, even if that quality is hard to pin down conclusively. In stringing moments together, we make meaning or attribute causation either “accurately” or superstitiously. We believe that happiness came from causes, even if those causes are hard to pin down conclusively. Then we further make a sense of self and world out of these lumps, tied together by these strings. While this method might be endorsed by Dr. Frankenstein, it might not be endorsed by his monster. Most people go about their lives trying to satisfy the monster instead of persistently appreciating clarity. I would argue that we do not discover enduring happiness by searching the graveyard of the past for the best lumps and strings available. I say an enduring sense of joy is brought to awareness by discovering and appreciating the consistency of clarity.
We recognize the difference between moments by qualitative changes in awareness. When awareness is given to that which is external to a sense of self, when awareness is distracted from a consistent sense of self, movement signals change. (This is very reasonable, and fits with my quotation marks around “accurately” in the last paragraph.) But mystics present the possibility that there is a basic consistency or continuance of awareness even though changes may be noted. In a spatial analogy, the consistence is usually presented as analogous to deep–as in the depths of the ocean–and movement or change is presented as shallow or superficial–in the same sense as the changing of waves on the ocean’s surface. This spatial analogy, though, may be more accurate when consistence is seen in the sense that the ocean’s surface is water, the depths are water, and the water on the surface as well as that in the depths is wet. Due to an individual progression towards understanding or an approximation of communicating this understanding, it is often suggested that one simply go deeper. I contend that one will find water on the ocean’s surface and one will find water in the ocean’s depths.
To continue this analogy, attempting to momentarily satisfy each desire as it comes is like trying to notice each wave as it passes. Some people have discovered a greater sense of peace below the surface, so when they are troubled by passing desires, they go deeper, they sink below the waves. This is similar to a type of meditation that may be called absorption–one’s sense of self is absorbed in awareness similar to going deeper below the surface; one may be aware of changes but does not choose to follow those changes with one’s attention; volition remains stable. Momentary appreciation, on the other hand, asks nothing more of each wave than what that wave brings. This is similar to a more spontaneous focus of meditation; one’s attention is wholly invested in each change as unique; attention shifts with each moment, but the completeness of investment remains stable.
Pursuing either type of meditation provides the possibility of discovering the nature of awareness, but it may be helpful to recognize this simple difference. When this difference is recognized, we might find that there are some times when it makes better sense personally to enjoy the profundity of awareness, and that there are other times when it makes better sense to enjoy the spontaneity of awareness. This is similar to enjoying a full stomach for being full and an empty stomach for being empty. Circumstances change, but appreciation is consistent.
When we appreciate deep and we appreciate shallow, we do not cling to one or the other, and neither troubles us. Each wave, each moment, is fine as it is; at the same time, there is always more to existence than what is “seen” (or what is within any individual range of awareness). Any argument between appreciating depth or appreciating spontaneity is an argument where the protagonist argues for the wetness of water, and then, the antagonist argues for the wetness of water too.
Being dissatisfied is like being in two places at once, being divided. We recognize where we are, but we wish to be somewhere else. We are riding one wave, but wishing to ride another wave. When we change waves (the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence), we inevitably find ourselves in a similar position–riding waves and wishing otherwise. One answer is to go deeper, but this new change is still dealing in change. If going deeper is just a matter of escaping the surface, we may find a deeper dissatisfaction along with the possibility of a deeper or more consistent–but still momentary–satisfaction. In such a case, we have traded dealing in superficial satisfactions and dissatisfactions for dealing in profound satisfactions and dissatisfactions. This ties our awareness of joy to external results. Instead of riding one wave and wishing for another, we luxuriate in the depths and wish to not surface.
What if it is possible to appreciate surfing and sailing; appreciate diving and remaining; appreciate the original nature of water as capable of change, spontaneity, and depth; and appreciate the individual discovery and experience of these multiple moments? In some cases it is helpful to imagine this possibility and then look for the means of discovery; in some cases it is helpful to begin with the means and flesh out the understanding as we go. As I see the current situation in most people’s experience, we have not questioned the lumping and the stringing along; we have assumed that these methods are necessary. This assumption influences our communication of appreciation and the means of achieving consistent appreciation; the lumping and stringing serve particular purposes in particular situations, but as assumptions, they divide one person from other people and even divide people’s sense of experience from awareness of appreciation. These divisions set up an arena in which one person loses, and then another person loses; or, one moment is dissatisfying and then the next is dissatisfying. But these divisions and dissatisfaction are tied to the assumptions, not to the nature of awareness or the nature of existence or the nature of self. Divisions describe space, but quality does not need divisions or the space for division. In other words, water is water in a small glass, in a big glass, in the ocean, or as clouds floating overhead. Quality of awareness is like the basic nature of water. It can be recognized on the surface or in the depths, recognized in one wave and also in the next.
When we change our allegiance from thinking in terms of space and measurement and begin thinking in terms of quality, we do not bind our awareness to the divisions which expanse in space allows. This is an important consideration since objective space actually exists–objectively. At the same time, subjective awareness exists–subjectively. We assume that there is a division between objectivity and subjectivity, but this assumption is the only thing that justifies our belief in this assumption.
If objective reality and subjective reality are different ways of describing one reality or different parts or textures of one reality, then the division may be helpful in understanding different aspects of reality, but retaining the division as an assumption may falsely dissect reality and unnecessarily divide awareness. If reality is one, if it is consistent, how would we know?
In the moments where we do not experience desire, it is unnecessary to answer, or to even consider, such a question. But when we experience dissatisfaction, it may be best to ask questions which–when answered well–may actually achieve clarity. What is the quality of awareness?
Copyright Todd Mertz