"How's your day?"The topic of money is banal and easy to avoid. Do we all worry about money? Some of us are born with the ability to save (you are the types who leave the marshmallow on the table). Do these delayed gratificationers worry about money? Or is it the grasshoppers like myself who tend to live and spend spontaneously that worry most. Why did I buy that RV? How in the hell am I going to pay for it now?
"Not so good. I'm having a metaphysical crisis -- a crisis of identity. It seems to be over my largely unconscious beliefs about spending. Money drives me crazy."
"Interesting. Well. Look, I think I'll eat at my desk today. I've got a pile of email to sort through."
More than 20 years ago, I was steaming wallpaper off the walls of my new apartment. I had just dropped off my lover a block away from her house so that her boyfriend wouldn't see us together. She told me then, that she couldn't see me anymore. She still loved her boyfriend and I was a mistake. I don't remember how long I stumbled around willing myself not to feel any pain, but when I ran the steam nozzle up and down the walls of that crumby old apartment, I cried. Not the kind of tears you wipe away when you hear a story like the boy who burned 80 percent of his body when he returned to his inferno house to save his baby sister. Tears for a story like that are sweet and they don't last. You wipe them away and then you go on to the next story or the commercial about the new Subaru.
The tears I cried in that empty apartment were wrenching. Involuntary. They came from an unknown place that felt like dying. I was afraid of them and tried to resist their flow, but I soon gave in and let them come with howling sobs until they were done. Then I got up off the floor and finished removing the wallpaper. The wall under the tattered dusty rose paper was the colour of robin eggs crushed at the bottom of a birdhouse. It was shiny, polished, and stained like an old tea cup. It was impervious to my grief and my longing. My failure. My future felt empty. I was a driver in a highway car racing up an incline on a moonless night. As I approached the crest, I had a primal kind of fear of not knowing what was on the other side in the dark. My headlights were pointing up and the road ahead of me disappeared into nothing but darkness. Was there a cliff? A sudden sharp curve? I hated the feeling of travelling alone into the unknown when all I want was to be loved by the one I loved.
My pain tonight feels like that. Like my heart is broken. Not by love, noble love, but by banal boring money.
I paid all my bills. I made the extra payment on my motorcycle loan. I socked away some cash for next summer's camping trip and next December's gift giving and there was nothing left. No money for a jaunt to the city or a movie or a burger. My boys played at home, watched TV, fingered their video games, and saw nothing new. Learned nothing new. I kept busy with chores and avoided them because I didn't like the feeling of watching them waste their time. We made it through the day. They are sleeping and I am trying to write. There will be church tomorrow morning. Then lunch. A book to read. A nap. More TV and then back to work.
Sacrificing my immediate spending desires is like facing the void over the crest of the hill. It does not return any echo of what I want. It is black nothing. My eyes ache from gazing into it as if the darkness sucks the sights I have already seen from my brain like an occipital lobe stroke. It is taking my life from me second by second as I try to see what I want to see instead of the black nothing. Wanting is the problem said the Buddha. His first noble truth says that all humans suffer in this life and the second noble truth says that we cause our own suffering because we crave. I suffer tonight because I want what I cannot have. It is the wanting that causes my suffering, not the object of my wanting or the story I create about something outside my control that causes me to want. When I offered my love those many years ago and received rejection in return, I suffered. Now I only want to rent a movie or drive into the city for some shopping or buy a new bottle of scotch but I can't. My pay cheque and my past choices to buy expensive toys (to satisfy my craving) are rejecting me. Add to this the pressure to pay for piano lessons, replace worn out shoes, the school ski trip, the karate tournament next month, and my sweet son's eighth birthday next month and the pain, the frustration, feels the same. I can't satisfy my craving to consume and to be entertained and to avoid facing the void because I have to support my growing family. I have to be responsible and pay back the money I borrowed. I am caught without my armour. My armour protects me. It makes me feel better. My armour is escape (movies & theatre). It is soothing (whisky and music). It takes me anywhere but here facing the unknown alone.
My dear wife of 18 years just sent me a note on my phone to tell me that she is bringing me bubble tea. Her uncomplicated love for me reminds me that I don't think about the woman who broke my heart way back when. Somewhere along the path, I've accepted my loss and found another love, a lasting one. If I can do that, then maybe I can embrace my craving heart and give up my fear of the void. Maybe I can learn to live on this strict budget, not give in to indulgences, pay my debts, and support my family with a free and balanced heart. If I do that, then maybe I can give up this unwholesome, yet natural desire the Buddha talked about
-----
3 comments:
I believe you have captured so well what a lot of us men feel: the sometimes overwhelming burden of providing, providing, providing. I've felt that panic and cried those tears too and I know heartbreak as well. Bud, you are not alone it that. And if we were everyday friends I would surely be happy to "loan" you $100 right now and never ask for it back, (plus you could drink my scotch). There's a saying I like: "we have 2 hands, one is for helping ourselves and one is for helping others." Both yours are overworked. That, to me, says only one thing: someone needs to help YOU. Only a good man would feel this deeply responsible. As hard as it is, ask another good man (or woman) for help or, like your last paragraph suggests, help yourself. I hope that doesn't sound too preachy. I say those words to let you know I've been where you are--I know the void too.
Doesn't Buddha also say something like...when it feels like our world is crumbling it's actually our ego crumbling because we are so attached to our fixed identity? That idea helped me get through something very difficult. Maybe it could help you too?
Douglas Adams wrote that Earth was a strange place, where most of the problems and unhappiness was caused by the movement of small pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole the pieces of paper were quite happy
I think Buddism is the ideal to work towards - but its very easy to talk about materialism in a world that relies so heavily on having money. I have just enough money to pay my bills, but little left over so i spend most of my month constantly re-calculating to see how much we have to live on. The actual idea of going out and doing something that is beyond the reach of somewhere i can reach for free (ie even without turning on my car engine and burning petrol) is often little more than a dream - and i suspect that many people are in the same boat
I like the first comment, although I don't think only men struggle with pressures/desires to provide as well as dissatisfaction or pain because of unfulfilled cravings. I like the idea of asking a friend for help, a moment of comfort or refortification...not necessarily a winning lotto ticket. It's difficult to find the *right* friend/relationship in the *right* geographic location to call upon. I loved this post. So honest.
Post a Comment