On May 20, 2020 Mae Yo sent over another videos for me to view. Unfortunately, the link to the video is no longer active so I will proceed to describe the story and the below will share my thoughts/comments back to Mae Yo:
The Story: The video was a comic clip about two friends who while walking down the street see a wallet fall out of a a guy’s pocket. Friend A picks up the wallet and catches up to the guy who dropped it to give it back. But Friend had wanted to keep the wallet for himself, so Friend B scolds Friend A for returning it to the owner. He says tells him that there is no need to return something that is found, its finder’s keepers, and that he should have kept the wallet.
A few minutes later Friend B is ready to head home but when he looks in his pocket for the keys to his motor bike they’re no where to be found. He asks Friend A for help and together they push the bike many miles, on a dusty road, on a hot day, uphill to get home. After they arrive Friend A reaches into his pocket to get something, and Friend B’s motorcycle keys fall to the ground. Friend A had found them earlier in the day when they had fallen out of Friend B’s pocket.
Friend B starts scolding Friend A, asking how he could have kept the keys the whole time they were walking the bike all the way home. Friend A looks at Friend B and said he thought Friend B had said “finders keepers”, he didn’t want to be scolded again, like he had been with the wallet, so he followed Friend B’s advice and kept the keys for himself.
Alana’s Response to Mae Yo: The story is a classic double standard: in one case (or for a certain person) a behavior, like returning a lost item, is desirable. But in other cases that same exact thing is undesirable.
The other day, I was craving attention from Eric. He was busy working, and I was upset I was being ignored. We ended up having a conversation about it. A few days later, Eric, trying to be a better husband and improve his behavior, was fawning over me. Only then I had work to get done and I felt annoyed to get too much attention.
It got me thinking about why Dukka is inescapable in this world ( I have been doing an exercise every night before sleep where I think of examples of suffering in my day and try to understand the cause). I realize impermanence is key. Things can never be ultimately satisfying because:
1) My desire changes — first I want Eric’s attention and then I don’t. First that guy in the clip wants his friend to keep lost items then he wants his friend to return lost items. If our desires keep changing, how can we stay satisfied in this world?
2) The objects themselves change, when it was working, I loved the Porsche, but when it had to sit in the garage for months, costing me thousands of dollars in repairs, I wasn’t so keen on that car. But items themselves break and change, why do I expect to stay satisfied in them?
3) The circumstances out in the world change — having an SF apartment was something I took joy and comfort in just a few months ago, because it made me feel free, I could come and go as I pleased. But come pandemic time and suddenly it is a stressful burden, it is a shackle not freedom. It is something I had to figure out how to rid myself of, lest I keep paying and paying a monthly rent for a place I can’t even safely get to and use.
At the end of the day all it takes is time to pass and what is satisfying will become unsatisfactory.
What is more, my desires are always limited to one side, to one snapshot of what something is: I want a body, but only a young one, a healthy one. Not a sick or aging one. I want a kitchen, but only in a clean state, not when it is a mess. I want a partner, but only when he is paying attention to me not when I need to pay attention to him. But there is no way to only get one side in this world, both come together. So again, how am I going to ultimately find satisfaction?
I realize everything I do in this world is a quest for satisfaction. So to stop, I think I need to kill the hope that satisfaction is something I can own and achieve.
A Second Response From Alana: Another angle on the same story: The thing that does stay the same is “what’s good for me”. In the video, keeping is good if it’s good for the guy. Keeping is bad if it is bad for him. Eric’s attention is good when it is good for me, bad when it annoys me. The Porsche was awesome when it ran smoothly for me, and it sucked when it broke and I had to pay money and take the bus everywhere while it took months to repair…
But each story is proof the world doesn’t revolve around me. Eric gives attention on his time, for his reasons, in accordance to his ‘rules’ . The Porsche worked not when it was convenient for me, but according to the rules of its rupa, when the parts were all in a state that made the car run. In the video, the guy’s friend returned according to his own beliefs and understanding, not in accordance with what the guy thought was best.
If ‘satisfaction’ equals ‘ what works for me’ where can it be found in a world that doesn’t operate on the rules of what works for me?
A Third Response From Alana: One more thought on this topic: if “what is good for me” is my definition of satisfaction, and this world is not going to just do “what is good for me” then, on some level, the ME is the source of my dissatisfaction. Me/mine is the standard that keeps being the cause of my disappointment. Put more succinctly: if Alana wants what Alana thinks is good for Alana all the time. All the suffering that comes when Alana doesn’t get what she thinks is good for her is Alana’s fault. The cause of my suffering is me.
A Forth Response From Alana: Ok one more one more, but on a totally different topic: unintended consequence monster –when the guy scolds the friend for giving back the cash he obviously thinks he is doing the right thing, the best thing for himself and his buddy. But then, the unintended consequences monster rears its ugly head when his friend doesn’t return the keys.
This monster plagues my life — in small stuff: the face product that was great till the breakout, the car that was great till the garage bill, the chairs that were great till they required an entire room resign to fit. The monster comes with the big stuff too — a move to NY that was so great, so ripe with promise and adventure till I was utterly miserable.
I’m always acting. Always calculating the best outcome for Alana. But the problem is I don’t ever see the shadow side of my choices till the unintended consequences monster comes along. Even if I had the absolute control I dream of, I couldn’t escape the unpleasantness that comes along with getting exactly the thing that I want.
