My Life

This is very interesting and you express yourself beautifully.

My take (I'll run with the drink metaphor):
Everyone has very similar drinks. It's easier to compare by looking for differences than similarities so this is how most people talk about their drink to others. And so from the get-go we have an exaggerated sense of difference which distorts our experience.

We can make choices but we also have predispositions (genetics, past experience, etc) which may bias one option over another.

1) We can chase the sweetness in fear and rejection of the bitterness.
2) We can ferment in the bitterness and resent the fleeting quality of sweetness
3) We can detach ourselves, numb to both sweetness and bitterness, and search for empirical measures of the drink.
4) We can be open to experiencing all qualities of the drink, both sweetness and bitterness the same but not clinging to or trying to bottle any particular aspects of the drink. (kind of in recognition of "the whole is more than the sum of its parts").


#4 sounds pretty awesome to me but its also the hardest to learn. I mostly oscillate between #2 and #3. Whenever I stumble upon # 4 I quickly cave to the urge to try and capture my affect. I'm working on it though. I dunno If this makes sense. I'm having a hard time articulating my thoughts