It is not stress that drains life from us. That is a ruse designed to sell the accouterments of an endless, fruitless and failing effort at stress reduction. The problem is not stress but meaninglessness. And what is deadly is the combination of the two. Stressful meaninglessness and meaningless stress.
We are a culture built around consumption rooted in impossibilities. A life free from stress, a life free from struggle. We are a culture of “the weekend”, retirement, the holiday, time off, entertainment, stress reduction. We fixate on solving the problem of meaninglessness’ ache with distractions and momentary comforts.
In this endeavor we trade joy for fun, nourishment for entertainment, meaning for the fretful attempt at stress free living. Because we have lost touch, culturally, with what is meaning-full, a life centered on the hard work and the struggle inherent in actualizing and expressing The True, The Beautiful and The Good we seek distraction from ourselves in ever more aggressive pablum.
In truth human beings thrive on challenge and the creative response to challenge. The efforts and stresses of a noble work life, good life, with creative demands …. and the hard work of encountering and overcoming the obstacles to wisdom realization and the benefit of beings is tiring but also ennobling, enriching, nourishing and directly connects us to the inherent meaning-fullness of reality. – t.k., a small bit from a teaching on meaning and stress (follow Traktung Khepa on Facebook)
