I've had a number of conversations with people lately regarding Buddhism, and the desire to "lack" desire, that is, to control one's world--one's mental reaction to the world/events around them--through subjective will alone.
My most recent conversation occurred yesterday, and the person with whom I spoke said she wished to break free from the "constructed world."
Now, before I continue, I'll just say that I was highly enamored of buddhism as one point in my life, so I don't treat these conversations lightly, nor do I think anybody who is trying to better themselves should be made fun of, necessarily, unless making fun of them will help them get to a better place faster.
Having said that, I think there's a serious urge by a lot of people in their 20s and 30s to break free from the heavy, stressful corporate factory that produces intelligence through regurgitated examples, patterned behavior and speedy responses. There's an art--and a value--in appreciating silence, in letting the world churn inside one's brain for a moment before strapping on blinders and deciding how something should be cut up for the best consumption. And there's an art in repeating something that's very difficult, over time, with determination. It isn't fun intelligence; it isn't sexy.
But having said that, I do think--now, in my life, after many years--that consumption of various sorts guides us in the most fundamental way. We decide who we like partially based on how we like their consumption patterns, how we consume (food, people, air) cuts across all major moral issues, and it provides us with a release (alcohol/drugs/sex) of pleasure or anxiety (if restricted) and the feeling that we are right, that we are on the right path, or that everything will work out (house, suit). We show people what we have through consumption (weddings, automobiles college degrees), what we believe about ourselves (clothes, necklaces, coats, bags), and what tastes we think are the best (music, wine, food).
There's definitely something attractive, in our overly saturated world of choices, in the prospect of limiting choice and denying oneself something. To live a simple life. Of course, that means that we can have higher status because we don't have to navigate all of the choices. Other choices really pollute our purity and make us doubt ourselves, unless, of course, someone external restricts them. Then we hate that person and demonize him or her.
I get this:
1) We're not meant to sit behind desks all day long. I mean physically. And mentally too. It just doesn't beget too much productivity. So some of the way we've structured our current world is inefficient for peak productivity from everyone.
2) Another thing that doesn't seem to be working: No singular emotional connection to the world and other people. We, as a group of people, feel slightly alienated, and really, really, insecure about the fact that we could really be alienated. I don't like thinking that I'm alienated any more than the next guy. This can lead to a kind of manic fervor to produce outward signals that we're not alienated, i.e. we're involved. In something. In what? I don't know. Something. Okay, but my career is boring and insipid you say? Well, I volunteer for X. Or I really enjoy Y. Seems like the idea of traveling is to find one's connection to other people and the world in a big and expansive way.
Things to keep in mind as a response:
1) We adapt to anything and everything. So, that "foreign" city has unhappy people who are isolated too. If you move there, it will, eventually, no longer be foreign.
2) The world exists, and there's hierarchy and "constructions" of meaning everywhere. We won't always like them. We're not simply free to chose which meaning we like or don't like. We have real emotional and physical needs that impact our condition.
3) A lot of our personality is decided for us already, and our reactions to the world are specific, yes, but the patterns they form over time are predictable. We have to know ourselves more, and how we react, not separate ourselves from all reaction, although perhaps that separation is useful at first.
4) There are limits on how much we can change our emotional responses to situations/people. Because group success was so important for our ancestors, we've got a hard nosed response to a lot of situations and people even if they don't warrant it. You get the feeling from some people, right? I mean, the first time you meet, if you make a good impression, something clicks, and forevermore there's trust. Other people can hold their suspicions forever too. That happens because part of our brains are always scanning to come to very quick conclusions that we can act on, and another part of our brains are rationalizing our behaviors. We don't really want to get rid of this quick scanning part. We might be paralyzed if we did. What we really want to do, I think, is figure out our personal quirks, and be able to separate the emotions we own from the ones other people are sending us. That's not easy, because people are sending us a lot of different emotions all the time, what with all their consumption, and we want to consume and show them what we have right back.
I don't think there's a way out of that circle, ultimately, and I do think that travel is just another point of commonality. It isolates you out into a relatively unique individual and says to others that have traveled that you are available for relations of some sort. That you share a common core. Too many common cores, too big a marketplace, and we can get overwhelmed, sure. But we don't want to perform a lobotomy, we just want to be very sure of our own choices.
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