When you do something meaningful, you will feel a gentle breeze of satisfaction moving through your inner self, a river of happiness flowing within you. May all beings be happy and healthy.
What do you do that you consider meaningful?
The answer to that question (I would presume) is as diverse as humanity itself.
For some, that would entail spending quality time with those that they love. For others, it might be a dedication to an expression of themselves. For others it is a continuous march towards bettering themselves in countless ways. And yet for others, it might be the value in being alone in a place that makes them happy and which gives them a sense of fulfillment and contentment that is unparalleled elsewhere.
Regardless of the vehicle, method, location, accompaniment, or lack thereof, there must be some quality in ourselves that drive us to ever greater plateaus of happiness and satisfaction.
When we are lacking that essential ingredient, our lives feel considerably more vacant and our overall sense of fulfillment vacates in favor of a longing for hoping/wishing that such a quality would return again… and soon.
Some find their most meaningful experiences in the fulfillment of other’s needs. Their lives of service to family members or loved ones give them a sense of purpose that is unmatched by any other form of engagement.
For others, it is in the pursuit of an art. It is an unreachable destination, populated with countless attempts and almost arriving, ultimately defined by a continuous pathway towards an absolute that will never truly be realized.
Others, leverage their minds and physical skills to achieve one of millions of potential outcomes in which they drive themselves through a continuous string of self improvement exercises, pushing ever deeper into the world that brings them value and purpose.
What is the common thread between all of these and countless others expressions of the human spirit?
Satisfaction.
Satisfaction may well be the most unreachable destination, even if we believe that we are truly on its doorstep, ready to enter.
For is anyone or anything truly ever satisfied? Or is it possible that we are fed enough satisfaction to satiate ourselves for a reasonable period of time, prior to our awakening to a deeper fire in the belly that pushes us beyond that point of satisfaction and gives us cause or reason to continue our pursuit beyond the place at which we believed we were satisfied?
When we are truly satisfied, do we become complacent? And with that complacency, do we become one shade more dull that we were when we were pursuing that which fueled the metaphorical fire in our belly?
Da Vinci said art is never finished, it is only abandoned. He kept the portrait of the Mona Lisa with him until death. To some it was considered the most important painting in history for its use of perspective, chiaroscuro, sfumato and brushless painting technique. To others, it is an old image of a woman with a mysterious, benign smile. To Leonardo, it was a work that he had never fully perfected and continuously beckoned him to solve the missing variables in his mind.
Happy Saturday!
Brian Weiner 