闲人

看三年前的部落格，竟然和两个星期前的有所共鸣。这里重温一下。怎么，好像那时以来没有什么成长似的。

Life is annoyingly simple.

It just boils down to "What to do at this very moment".

I played around trying to think of the proper way to phrase this.

"What you should do" implies outside forces imposing rules that you think you have to follow but... not necessarily. I should be studying. I should work hard. I should do my best. I should... I should. When I say the words "I should", usually it's about something that I feel I should do but I don't want to. Neither do I need to.

"What you need to do" is not totally appropriate either. I don't need to get out of the way of a truck crashing towards me. Getting out of the way is merely a helpful thing to do to achieve my objective of not dying so soon. Conversely, I don't "need" to eat food that tastes good. I don't need to be a psychologist. I don't need to take care of myself. But I choose to. I want to.

"What I want to do" doesn't work because it's not always helpful. Humans have less than perfect perception. We want things that are impossible, that are harmful, that don't give us the happiness that we think they would. We are overgrown babies that manage our desires somewhat better but still succumb to acting in harmful ways towards ourselves and others because of those desires sometimes. Acting on "want" is not always a good idea.

So, what to do?

For the simplicity of things I came up with three angles off the top of my head. Shoulds, needs, and wants. Often conflicting. What I should/need/want to do at this very moment is often not the same. If what I should do, need to do and want to do is the same thing, I would do it and there would be absolute absence of doubt. Things would be simple.

The hard part is the integration, the creation of balance between opposing forces, the wisdom to see through the reality of shoulds, needs and wants, among others, to know "What to do at this very moment".

Life, is annoyingly complex.

I learnt from kendo that things can be as simple or as complex as you can handle. Take a step, swing your sword. For the beginner, that's it. Take a step, swing your sword. As this simple motion becomes second nature, you look at your balance, your posture, how high to raise the sword, how much energy to put into your cut, how to control the sword at the end of it. And that's the limit of what I know now, and yet there is so much more. Life is the same, you can only do what is within your limits. But your limits are not static, they change depending on the decisions you make.

I think that, if you keep "what to do at this very moment" in mind as often as you can, you will get better at knowing "what to do".