OPINION (AN COLÚN): Switching between pain, boredom and love

I READ recently that life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom. There's a great deal of truth in this. We are afflicted with physical and mental pain on a regular basis. Life is regularly firing its arrows at us. We defend ourselves as best we can but sometimes the arrows penetrate our armour.
No matter who we are daily existence is often a sorry affair and I think one of the best ways of getting through it is through solidarity with others and supporting one another.
It is for this very reason that I have frequently criticised a strong element in our culture which is excessively competitive, and perhaps emanates from a capitalist ethos. So often in life I've experienced people putting up emotional barriers between themselves and others. Sometimes this is crucial, because they are protecting themselves from obtuse behaviour and bullying; but it can also be a stupid way of inter-relating with one's fellow human beings. Dog eat dog, oneupmanship, is a very stupid response to the problem of existence.
We must emotionally defend ourselves but we also must keep a pathway open to our better natures. The trick in life, I feel, is to be well aware of the dangers posed by other people while at the same time refusing to become excessively rational. We must keep the door open within ourselves to the warming love present in the universe, to the mystical optimism which permeates the creation.
We humans are happiest when we love and are loved in our turn. To love and to be loved is the essence of marriage. A happy marriage is the most contented that we can aspire to be. There is no greater ambition, aspiration, or pathway to happiness than the contented love of spouse for spouse. A good marriage is the foundation stone of one's existence. As we venture in the world the things and people around us can feel incredibly bleak, like an emotional wasteland, but the warmth of home, spouse, children, animals, await some of us with a glow of promise.
As we venture in the world we are frequently reminded by others of our insignificance. This is a lie. Each one of us is incredibly significant. As we venture in the world the news constantly reminds us of the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life upon the Earth. The horror, the sadness and the ugliness is unbearable. Tyrannies and suppression of the human spirit seem to have the last word. But this is in fact a misapprehension. It is in fact joy and beauty which have the last word; because joy and beauty existed before the universe began; the universe exploded out of joy and beauty; and at the end of days it will resolve itself back into its source. Freedom is our essence. Tyrants and tyrannical systems are synonymous with corruption and greed. The tyrant is an addict. He loves being the centre of attention and being in charge of the purse strings. He is addicted to others' subservience and to greed. He talks about being strong, and loves being machismo; but he doesn't know what true strength is.
The source of true strength, of love, compassion and the creative urge comes to us as we walk in nature. Our busy minds stop for a while and we are intensely, beautifully 'there'. The writer Jack Kerouac said this moment came to him once when he was standing ' under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night.' It filled him with a sense of being ok, no matter what his worrying mind told him: 'It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die... I know this from staring at mountains months on end.'
Kerouac's description of his cold winter moonlit mystical experience is a mood which we all experience. Some of us forget about it afterwards; some dismiss the event or consider it unimportant. Others prize it like a jewel of inestimable value and learn from it. They understand the importance of creative work, of striving to be individual, being different to the norm; because they know that the mind of God is the very opposite of always obediently conforming to the ways of the world. Yes, we are herd animals; yes, we can feel very happy when part of the herd; yes, this is often a perfectly harmless thing; but sometimes we need to break free and express our individuality. In the interests of balance and mental health we need to do this.
A great writer called Erich Fromm summed it up nicely: 'Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individualists, that they have arrived at their opinions as the result of their own thinking—and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as those of the majority.'