Every now and then, when my mind is open and lazy enough, I am suddenly struck by what an incredible thing a life is. How much energy has been expended in me, around me and because of me—because of my existence. And then, to think that currently there are something like six billion people existing with similar energies floating around them, who burst into this world from a womb and changed everything around them from then on.
What surprises me further, in these moments, is that we are not constantly blown away by this fact, and the simple miraculousness of it all in the first place. That we could have a world like ours exist at all is such a miracle that I am amazed even G‑d was able to pull it off.
Then, just as quickly as this thought enters my mind, it is gone. Suddenly, I am annoyed again by children who sit behind me in the airplane. I look at a mountain in Arizona and think, "Well, that is just a piece of dirt, isn't it?" The world is suddenly a statistic again, just one planet among many instead of a metaphysical entity that is constantly producing an unimaginable spiritual energy.
It makes me scared to be a parent, feeling this way. I want to cherish my future children with every part of my being. Yet, a part of me knows that sometimes even the best parents get bored, annoyed and sick of their poor little children. And, let's be honest, one day those children are going to grow out of their fascination with their parents and the world, and grow up to think the way that I do in my advanced age.
So what's a person with a desire to connect to truth to do at this juncture? Do we accept that as we get old our perception of the world will deteriorate before our eyes? Or do we fight back with all our energy, trying desperately to grip onto the strings that we see coming lose from our grasp? Neither answer seems right, does it?
There is a story of two Hasidim who visit a village hostile to their philosophy. The people of the village are suspicious of them, and so one man comes up to the men and asks, "What thoughts preoccupy your mind most: worldly matters or G‑dly ones?"-- presuming that a Hasid would undoubtedly say the latter.
One of the Hasidim says without hesitation, "Worldly matters, of course."
The two were left to go about their business after this happened.
When the two were alone, the other Hasid turned to him in shock and asked, "How could you possibly say such a blasphemous thing?"
The first Hasid looked at the one who asked him the question and simply said, "When you believe in something, you do not need to obsess over it."
We should strive to internalize the beauty of spirituality and G‑d, but it is a dangerous business to get addicted to that initial feeling of amazement at the world that surrounds us. We feel this feeling for a reason: to use it as a springboard into a place where we are no longer observers of this incredible world, but are its shakers and movers.
Many of us get bored because we think in polarities. We think we are either bored or entertained. And so if we are not entertained, we are convinced we must be bored. But those are both essentially passive emotions. True spirituality begins when we move from passivity to action.
Thus, the world may not be as entertaining, but that is only because we will be the main characters in the drama we were only able to observe in the past.
