THE GRINDSTAFF FAMILY

The World Is Really Flat

My observation of the little world we live in is that it is in reality flat. Not flat like we are floating on-top of a giant book, but the world in general is two dimensional.

Individuals are not two dimensional but have an infinite number of facets that shine and twinkle, and at other times are bitter and black. Joy is followed by pain. Sickness by surgery and then more pain. Individuals are generally good. Individuals want good things. Most of all people want to be happy. It is too bad that for most life is full of misery and pain.

In the eyes of the great philosophers happiness can not be realized unless we experience pain. The reality is that we judge our current state of happiness or misery based solely on our previous experiences. For some having a roof over head and a warm meal is happiness. Others are not happy with mansions, power, money, cars ext. As organisms we need so little to survive, and so little to be comfortable.

I have fallen into the trap of wanting more to be happy. In the process I am not enjoying the beauty that is around me every day. I have comfortable shoes, I live in a good apartment, I drive a Toyota Corolla, I have a beautiful wife, 2 kids, a laptop computer, a cell phone, clothes on my back, food in my mouth. I don't have cable television. Sometimes this makes me unhappy. Which gets to my point that the world is flat. We all have one goal: happiness. Yet in general we don't have a way of attaining true happiness. What is this life for: fast cars, fast women, thrills, and chills. This seems to be the goal of so many, and society as a whole idolizes these ideals on TV, and in the movies.

Individually we have ups and downs. Collectively we want happiness and peace. Yet the drive to always have more and collecting the objects of happiness that tomorrow will be garbage is not true happiness. Cheep thrills will always be cheep.

Maybe I can take it upon myself to be content with my lot in life and enjoy what really makes me happy: My God, My Religion, My Freedom and My Peace, My wife and My children. Please let me not be as flat as the world around me.