The Trouble with Pure Bliss

There is a very dangerous idea that’s been floating around, oh, for about 40 years now and it’s time for all the sane among us to extend a hand, and an olive branch...then swing the branch with the full intention of striking this idea very roughly until it finally abates.

The idea in question is the immediately attractive, yet completely bizarre drive towards a state of permanent bliss. Where does one begin to deconstruct this insipid notion?

First, I should say that moments of bliss are great, and are in fact, blissful...however the desire to achieve some sort of mind-numbing permanent state would cancel, most certainly, bliss itself. The idea, the feeling, the spiritual value of bliss is to be found in the measurement from itself to less blissful states such as anger, frustration, sadness, loss etc. The devaluation of these "lowly" states is the crux of the problem for the misguided pure-bliss-seeker.

No sadness = no bliss. No struggle = no bliss. No loss = no bliss. No destruction = no bliss.

Consider that we may require, and indeed would do well to cultivate an embracing acceptance of, the less pleasant emotional states of being and unavoidable realities that are inherent to our mortal existence. Without these states, there would be nothing to move us: no art, no music, no community, no sex, no urgency, no food...no reason for life to exist. Permanent bliss would be the end of us, and if the universe had begun with a Big Bliss, it would have poofed into non-existence from sheer boredom.

All life struggles to finally show its beauty.

Those who advance the idea that one should strive for a life of pure bliss, may be setting those who actually listen to them up for major disappointment and an ironic turn away from any bliss at all.

There is not a single one of us who will not face many challenges including the loss of loved ones, injuries, set-backs, and all the attendant emotional responses to normal life. It is our ability to continue during these times that "grows" us, and in turn our growth that stimulates those with whom we interact. It is not healthy, normal or sane to respond to loss with bliss. It is healthy, normal and sane to respond to loss with sadness and experience grief. --Of course anything can be taken to extremes and there is also the reality of clinical depression and debilitating sadness...this is not what I’m talking about.--

When one burns a hand on a hot stove, the body’s healthy response is to send pain signals to the brain letting us know we’ve been injured and that we should immediately remove our hand from that hot stove...then fluid and blood are sent to the burn-site which creates a protective blister. We have a habit of looking at the blister as "bad". We do the same thing with emotional "burns", seeing sadness as bad or grief as bad, when these responses are healthy and appropriate.

Is there anything more rage-inspiring, or at least confusing, at a moment of loss or struggle than some well-meaning bliss-seeker telling us "everything happens for a reason" with a big silly smile on his/her face? Why is that? Perhaps there is an intuitive imperative, of which we are just barely aware, that tells us what we need to hear instead is "please feel free to feel crappy right now, reasonless and sad." There is nothing worse than being told we should not be feeling the way we are feeling.

---And yes, for those who are sure "everything happens for a reason"...I think you are close and I dig the sentiment, and maybe we can take it even further, so you might try this sentence instead: "Everything happens for your benefit"...just don’t say it when someone needs to feel rather than think. Trying to divine reason from mystery is the sort of hubris that led to witch burnings and The Inquisition BTW...it’s dangerous folly...just try assuming it’s a benefit and spend your time creating something new with your energy. (this whole thing will likely end up on another post).---

Back to our topic:
If the body responded to burning with bliss, it would be welcoming death when some ointment and a band-aid would have sufficed...Perhaps the best way to deal with life’s challenges is not to seek permanent bliss, but to develop responses that pull us through, while allowing us to feel what we need to feel. Trying to chase away the blues with a wish is a sure way to keep the blues around for a much longer time. Instead, let them in, write a song, enjoy a primal scream from universal grief, create some orgasmic friction, let yourself weep for crying out loud.

Convinced that we should be in a state of bliss, most of us will feel completely inadequate when we can’t get there, and those precious moments of bliss will be ever more elusive...this is called paradox and it is where most truth is to be found. Writer/Minister Matthew Fox explains this perfectly in a related topic, he writes, "Basing spiritual experience on the mystical is like basing baseball on the grand-slam homerun, effectively eliminating 99.99% of the game from inclusion and barring most people from wanting to play." (paraphrased)

Instead of seeking bliss, maybe the best way to feel better in this life, is to cultivate an expectation that there will be times in all our lives that are not so pleasant, and to see those times as equally important, necessary and good for us as any moments of bliss.

The universe clearly requires loss to achieve its motion. It earns its voracious appetite by performing cycles of destruction and creation. There is a lot of destruction required for things to keep moving, to continue to offer astonishing creativity, to anxiously search for something more amazing than the last thing.

Therefore, the only logical, intuitive and sane thing to strive for is acceptance followed by creativity and perseverance. For life to continue, we need every single one of Bliss’ less friendly cousins around as well. Cheers.