When I had the app, I would spend hours at a time scrolling until I found content that made me feel something. Anything. The butterflies. A good laugh. A good cry. If I stayed longer, I was convinced I would feel something new.
Yes, it's been over a month since the app disappeared from my phone, but my old habits reincarnated in other forms.
I read now, a lot. I read a variety of books. Books that make me feel smarter. Books that make my heart beat wildly. Or make me incredibly sad. Whatever feeling I'm searching for, I have a book for it. I have a song for it. I have a word for it.
I never feel...full. Never quite.
Or maybe I do feel full, but whatever fresh feeling I'm feeling eventually goes away. Then very quickly, I'm in search for the next thing.
It's as if at any sign of emptiness, I hurry off.
Never realizing or appreciating the fullness when it's there. Or, yes, maybe I do appreciate the fullness but I fear every moment and at any sign that it'll dissipate.
Sometimes, I push myself. I wonder if I could feel more full than I usually do, if I were to do something else.
The search for gratification never stops.
My attention span is much shorter than what it used to be. I'm one sad potato.
Am I now reduced to what I search to consume? Search to feel?
In Buddhism, the search for happiness is ridiculous. Happiness is a feeling. Feelings are fleeting. By searching for happiness, we suffer. Ironic, isn't it? We suffer our way towards that feeling. That fleeting ideal.
And as desperately, we try our best to hold onto happiness for as long as we can. While we're happy, we wonder when it'll leave us. How long will it stay?
The search to feel is a craving.
If we can cut this craving, and at least for a moment, wanting no more than what we already have, we can achieve a bit of peace. Counting our blessings. Stop the scramble. And exist.
Of course, I'm a hypocrite. And I'll always want to be happy. However, nothing is as secure as peace. But then you could argue that peace is also a feeling? So heck?
Is it?
Hm. Haha, I have no answers. Just a jumbo mumbo of thoughts in a pot.
What I do know is when I go outside after a long day, after hours of reading through government homeworks, after playing countless rounds of RWBY arena games on my phone, after exercising my shivering knee (yes, my knee can shiver-- ahhhhh it's weirdddd my friends), I open the front door. I visit my favorite plants. I sniff the refreshing cold air.
And I'm there.
"There." A moment retrieved and saved. My mind clear. My face up to a sunless sky, or a sunny day, or a starless night, or a night decorated with lights.
Everything is okay. For a moment.
Perhaps I'm wrong. Or heck, I'm dead dead wrong.
Peace is a feeling too then huh? But does it matter? Does it matter if I work my butt off to feel happy? To feel peace? Does it matter if I take deep breaths when I'm angry?
Woah, oh no, I'm on a loose tangent again.
It could matter and it could not. What I do know is experiencing peace, opens my heart. It opens my mind. It makes my breaths deeper. My eyes see farther. I feel like I've expanded, somewhere deep.
The beyond. For a bit.
Sending an itty bitty bigly heart,
Ngoc
P.S. I miss you my friends. You know who you are. :(( :))
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