...The good times last longer, and the bad times are easier to take. Moods are not reality, but they certainly affect it. You can govern them rather than them governing you.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." originally penned as the opening line of a novel by Dickens, "Tail of Two Cities" caught me by the throat when I first read it.
It strikes me that both perspectives have a role to play. Perhaps they even need simultaneous attention. It is not so easy to do, much like trying to see both images in an optical illusion at the same time.
Our selfhood includes a tangible sense of being, and a sense of isolation, along with a yearning to belong. These traits are all in conflict.
If each of the five senses are all brought to mimimal perception one at a time, the remainder are all enhanced very quickly in response.
But if you were to manage to effectively damp all the senses at once, an unusual state of mind might occur. A sense of identitylessness. Of beinglessness. Of ex stasis. Nothingness. And at the same time, a sense of effortlessly being one with everything about you. I am not so sure this is an illusion.
But be careful what you wish for. For some, such feelings as these are bliss, nirvana, soothing, perhaps even joyful or at least content.
Others respond with fear and horror. Perhaps it has something to do with where you are in your own spectrum of being.
Moods and attentional maladjustments are now the central focus of the "mental health" industry. And the emphasis is more and more on adjusting chemical imbalances in the brain with medications. Much can be done without them. To a great extent it is possible to learn to control moods without pharmaceutical help. Worth a try. Cowards die a thousand deaths. The courageous die but once. Most of your troubles may disappear as soon as you stop dreaming them up.
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