The Beginning of Bliss
Essay: How to begin to achieve your deepest desire (Topic: Beginnings)
This story was written for the Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) Symposium. The STSC is a small, exclusive online speakeasy where a dauntless band of raconteurs, writers, artists, philosophers, flaneurs, musicians, idlers, and bohemians share ideas and companionship. Each month STSC members create something around a set theme. This cycle, the theme was “beginnings.”
What do you truly want in life?
What is your deepest desire?
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life.” - John Lennon
Most people, if they seriously reflect on this question, will say what they truly want is “happiness.” While there is wisdom in this answer, might I suggest that what we all really want is slightly different, and deeper than mere “happiness?” After all, “happiness” can sometimes be found in the cheapest of dopamine hits, and if we can find “happiness” in hedonistic pleasures, then it surely is just the other side of the coin from its darker cousins: “pain” and “sadness.” For, happiness is magic. And everyone knows that all magic comes with a price. And the price we pay for the magic of happiness that we receive today from a person or object, is the pain we must endure when that person or object is gone.
Still, we say we want “happiness” because it’s hard to assign an actual word to what we really want. What we want is just slightly beyond words. What we probably are yearning for might be something akin to what mystics call enlightenment or bliss: a deep spiritual peace, joy, calmness, and acceptance of the beauty of the infinite gifts that surround us at all times.
And how do we attain such a state? How do we attain bliss?
I certainly am no mystic, and I don’t claim to have achieved enlightenment outside of the few small glimpses of it that we’ve all had in rare magic moments, but I think to attain it we have to look to the artists of the world. For what is the essence of being an artist? Artists must share meaning with us through their works and surely that must mean that artists must, at least, glimpse eternity. And where do they find this meaning? Where do they find inspiration for their works?
It all begins with noticing. Noticing the infinite beauty of the world around us. Noticing the beauty in the small things that most people miss.
We must understand, internally and deeply, that we will cease to exist in a proverbial blink of an eye, and that the only way to attain LIFE, to attain enlightenment is to pay attention and notice beauty. We must learn, like artists, to be in a state of flow, to be in “the zone”, not just when we’re painting, or writing, but as much as possible, even perhaps, at all times. For this flow state puts our minds in a state of possibility where we notice significance in things that normally escape us. We notice connections between ideas that we would normally miss. And in this opened state, our trivial worries and anxieties don’t just seem small, but they disappear, and the realm of possibilities becomes infinite. Bliss.
But so few of us do this essential act of noticing. Why?
Because noticing is rarely enough alone. It must be paired with another urgent human drive, one that I believe, if we ignore, will kill our chance at bliss, or even happiness. And that other drive is the insatiable human hunger to create. The Creator created humans in its image which means humans were created to create.
The universe, all of Creation, gifted us with Space, Time and Motion. And what has humanity, collectively, done with those gifts? We mimic Creation, with creative acts of worship of our own. We present back to the Universe our own gifts of artistic creation: Visual art to decorate Space, Music to decorate Time, and Dance to decorate Motion.
There are infinite ways for us to create. Yet so few do. I wonder why?
Because, the two acts we’ve discussed here, noticing and creating, are intertwined, we must pursue them in tandem. This is the key that many fail to see.
I’m sure there are exceptions, but it seems, to me, that it would be difficult to live an uncreative life, but to somehow notice beauty so deeply that you live in “the zone”, for what would be the driving motivation of noticing without some drive to do something to with what you’ve noticed?
But for the artist, for the creator, it’s easy. For the artist has an overarching goal: to create.
And the first step of creating is noticing something interesting.
The two acts, like Yin and Yang, provide the fuel for one another. The noticing inspires a creation and the act of creating inspires a desire for more noticing. And the very act of creating involves play. You must play to try different ideas out. To put what you’ve noticed down on paper. There’s a reason we call it playing an instrument. And once you start, you enter a virtuous spiral designed at each step to keep you in the moment. To keep you in the zone. To keep you in a flow state. To keep you in bliss.
That virtuous spiral is this: Notice -> Play -> Create. Notice -> Play -> Create.
It’s so simple that children know how to do it intuitively, at least until we teach them how to grow up.
So I implore you to start noticing, and then start creating, it is the beginning of bliss.
***
In an attempt to gain the bliss that we all pursue, I also have been noticing small moments in my life, and have been writing down each day at least one small moment that I noticed, that inspired me, and that I am grateful for.
Continuing with the theme of “Beginnings” I’d like to share a short poem I wrote about what I noticed, while dancing with my wife, celebrating on New Year’s Eve, anticipating the new year, just before midnight, January 1st, 2023:
The bright moon…beaming.
The Caribbean stars…singing.
A live band…feeding
energetic dancing, & horns…bleating.
Our eyes…meeting.
Our hearts…beating.
Our chests…heaving.
Perspiration…beading.
The champagne finale with fireworks…leading
Into a new year we’re desperately…needing.
What I notice about this is that it's quality.