The First Noble Truth

Life brings suffering.

Exactly.

Life brings suffering.

 

And that pain is caused by desire,

by a pressing urge to live.

Sure, those yearnings can be killed,

putting an end to the torment,

but that is the moment one dies too, for

life brings suffering.

 

So, I choose instead to love,

seeing heartbreak looming;

try,

prepared to come face-to-face with failure;

and to lust after my cravings,

knowing it'll only lead to regret.

 

The one thing I will never do, though,

is to try to extinguish myself.

I will let my soul burn, burn, burn

and leave a trail of scorched earth

following me everywhere that I go.

***

(Minneapolis, MN -- May, 2017)

In the wake of returning home from the Peace Corps, having failed miserably, I was trying to make sense of the shift from being a promising chemistry student to someone with no money, no prospects, and not even enough motivation to drag themselves out of bed in the morning to hold down a real job. I read all of my philosophy books, watched a million YouTube videos, and explored the ideas in every different religion before deciding to lean into everything as opposed to separating myself from it. If life is like wine, I decided it's best to get drunk instead of being abstinent. No offense to Buddhism. Obviously, if you believe you've been reincarnated a million times and that you've experienced everything there is to experience, then finding enlightenment makes total sense. If not, then I feel like you should fill your life with as much living as possible, and that means to good stuff and the bad.