Lately I've been reflecting on the elements of personal growth and change which have affected my life. I've also become keenly aware of similarity of the patterns of my own growth and change with those of other people who I have met and known. It seems that everybody goes through cycles of discovery, growth, destruction, and rebirth. The cumulative measure of these cycles is often hard to anticipate, but we all hope to end up as a better person that who we were when we started. I think that a lot of people get stuck in grief and sadness and I think that there is an addictive quality to these emotions which tempts people away from happiness. I think that this addictive quality is based in the simple fact that when you are sad you feel like you have nothing to lose. There is a thrilling quality to this emotion and I have felt it myself. When you are unbearably sad you feel unquestionably alive and vital and the world seems like a terrible place, but an expansive place and a place of limitless potential. When you are sad you think of all the ways you could be happy, and this is an easy and effortless process.
Happiness, on the other hand, is a much scarier and more frustrating state of being. When you are happy, it is hard to ignore the gaping chasms beneath you. When you are happy, it is hard to summon the energy to continue to improve yourself each and every day. Emotions plateau and these plateaus are often mistaken for peaks, and the downhill spiral becomes ever more tempting. I have wallowed in grief and I have known people who wallow in grief and I believe that it is one of the toughest addictions to break and perhaps it is impossible for certain people in certain situations and that this sadness, this victim-complex, this urge to look at the world from the bottom-up with eyes twitching hatred and confusion, this delightful and damning state of being becomes a constant state of being and the world shifts to accommodate this new perspective and everything becomes relative to the grief. And I think that someone people forget about their childhoods and lose the dreams of their future selves.
Here's a photograph I took at Mammoth Caves National Park:
