So, I've touched on the joys brought by good people in life - the feeling of harmony and content. Shall I dare delve into the subject of bad karma and discord brought by the not so great people in life? Let's dive in. Everyone knows of what or whom I speak: those people that perhaps make you cringe or that you avoid, but cannot seem to escape. Toxic "waste" at times pervades your warm little life despite your best efforts and your firmest resolutions of being above the tangled mess that is discord. We'll call it discord because I despise the term drama as fervently as I avoid what it describes, and I am, perhaps, a little kinder than some in my descriptions.
I have looked into various ways of coping with discord or shunting it in the first place. Some of the things I have come across include "picking the right people and right situations," dealing head-on, the always mentioned ignoring the problem or person, and a little more organic, tantric solutions like chants, hymns, and rearranging my furniture for better feng shui. Let's go with the first thing mentioned-- the prevention method of avoiding bad situations or, keeping with the proper vocab, discordant people. We all seemingly have an inner sensor that detects something/someone that gives us internal pleasure, and by pleasure I mean the tiniest pleasing sensation: steaming, cheesy pizza or sharing common interests in conversation with a person we find ourselves attracted to (for simplicity's sake, let's just keep this nonromantic). So, it is not genius to surmise that we as humans pick our situation and our people based on the pleasing feelings these render. (Our inner sensor is dinging as we take a bite of that pizza.) This reasoning would lead us to believe that avoiding uncomfortable, unpleasing situations and people would naturally come easily because these go against our grain. I identify that I do not enjoy the taste of an olive; so from here on out I will avoid olives. I identify a person who does not bring me pleasing feelings or harmony, and, therefore, I avoid he or she. Right? To the majority of us out there, this is our reasoning, and, yes, it is true. It is simple human nature. Then why are we presented over and over again with the unpleasantries that we are supposed to be able and willing to so strenuously avoid?
Here's the explanation I give to myself:
Yes, this is simple human nature, but humans, people are not simple. We are complicated and contradictory. So, maybe someone senses something or someone unpleasant, but continues to expose him/herself to it because of a twisted, sado-masochist sense of extended pleasure. This is all together in a different realm from the pleasure from that pizza. This, my friends, is something we go to the psychology books to find. This is why, despite our desperate attempts to avoid unpleasantries, we are presented with them almost daily. Maybe it is ourselves that enjoy this twisted, toxic pleasure despite its harmful effect on ourselves and others, but often it is another's faults, failings, and peculiar ways that cause us pain and discord. So, when you can't avoid it how do you deal with it? Laugh. Laugh and write.
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