I am fasting again, day 3, I’m hungry of course, a bit weak. As I made my fast drink — put minimal energy into what I will consume for the day — I did think about how fast periods really are a break from the burden of needing to prepare food, decide what I will eat, planning the day around meals. Eating, as delicious as food is, as much as I enjoy it, is a burden, it is an obligation.

It’s so easy to miss because, duh, eating is normal, and also, more or less, pleasurable. But just because something is normal or pleasurable, it doesn’t mean it’s not a burden: This is the perfect example of something I wrote in my dukkha write-up: “A burden is a burden, even when you pick it up without noticing its burdensomeness, or are reluctant to put it down:”

This here is how the mistaken identity happens…Everything we take-up in this world really is a burden, as soon as we claim, we are obligated. We grasp at shit we imagine will benefit us, will give us the future or identity we desire, but in the moment of seizing we assume a burden, from the get go we are forced to exert effort into trying to keep something continually shifting, marching toward cessation, in the state that we want.

Once we claim something, we are weighed by our own imagination of obligation to it, to our beliefs about what our actions in relation to that object mean about us: I am not responsible for other people’s bodies they are not ‘mine’, but how much shame do I feel when my body gets fat? What dose the sagging drooping chubby figure in the mirror that say about ME?

Once we claim something we are also bound by convention, by the responsibilities that are foisted upon us by society: I may be ready to divorce my spouse, in my mind they are no longer mine, but I am still obligated to alimony payments. I may be ready to walk away from all the shit piled in my storage unit, but I still need to empty it, hire movers, find places to donate it, because I signed a contract and the storage facility holds me liable to deliver back an empty unit at the contract’s end.

Once we claim something, we contend with the expectation others have around our behavior, and the consequences of falling short of those expectations: Won’t a spouse or children I walk away from want to extract some vengeance for my neglect, even if in my own heart I have reconciled to them not really being mine?

It is so easy to be distracted by the “normal”, and by the moments we enjoy, by the conventions that we accept and that are foisted on us, so we don’t really see what things are. But even food, this body, the need to eat is a burden – something so basic and its basic nature is burdensomeness.

In fact, so much of my life is about trying to ‘fix’ things, responding to problems that arise, relieving my burden, mitigating the burdensomeness of my objects. Then, when I have some limited and momentary success getting shit to a state I want, I see it as victory, of some affirmation of self, power, control. I use it to fuel hope that I can find satisfaction in this world, that I can beat the house, control my destiny, be and become…

During the lockdown, my fridge broke. I had stockpiled so much food for just this emergency and I was so, so careful, I was afraid to have a repairman in my home. So with youtube, a toolbox and the ingenuity that can really only arise from need, I fixed the fridge on my own. I felt like such a badass – I can manage my things, protect myself, rise to the occasion. I am good enough, smart enough and doggonit people like me!

But is that really the message of a broken fridge? Look a little deeper and the “solution to problems” actually prove that the innate state of this would is problematic, at least from my standpoint (I.E. ever changing, ceasing, not holding states we want, not abiding by our hopes/rules/expectations/desires) . A broken fridge proves breakability is the nature of belongings. Needing to acquire ingredients, prepare and plan for meals, being forced by my body to eat, it doesn’t prove food is yummy, it proves needing to eat is a burden.

All this made me start considering that it would behoove me to consider –beyond the glitz and the glitter –what things really are. What do I mistake as delicious, desirable, delightful that is really burdensome, or breakable, or disappointingly fleeting?