This and other experiences in Asia over the years gave me intimate insight into the lives of peasants. I was virtually one myself, at least financially speaking. Although I never worked long days in the rice fields, I had settled into what amounted to a peasant life style.

Fast forward about a decade to Sweden. There I settled into an area of Stockholm inhabited by the wealthiest Swedes (the King also lived in that area). I never settled into a Swedish life style though, my more peasant-like one being more comfortable. I couldn’t help notice and compare the lives of the upper class folks I came to know there, with the peasants I had lived among in Asia. One thing stood out like a sore thumb: these wealthy folks seemed no happier than poor Thai peasants. Odd to say, if anything, they even seemed a bit less so.

Looking back, I understand it better. Living creatures (including us) live out their days struggling against the inevitable (i.e., the entropic path in Buddha’s First Truth”…birth, growth, decay and death” ). The instinct to struggle (the survival instinct) is built into life’s DHA. In the case of peasants, the struggle instinct is fully engaged in the simple operation of basic survival. Not so for wealthier folk. On what does a rich person’s struggle instinct struggle? It certainly isn’t engaged in practical down-to-earth survival!

On the other side of this struggle instinct, in life’s equation, is the innate drive to seek ‘happiness’. I’ll call that the contentment instinct. Like the ‘fight or flight’ equation, each must find balance between struggle and contentment. On one hand we stir, move forward and work; on the other, we are still, return and rest. So far so good. When our struggle instinct engages itself in down-to-earth challenges, it is operating closer to the hunter gatherer circumstances of its evolution.

Wealth (i.e., more is better) promises us an escape from nitty-gritty challenges. Surly then we can live struggle-free, content in comfort and security. Actual success in achieving ‘more and more’ (we call it progress) has unintended consequences: What, pray tell, will one’s struggle instinct strive for then? Changing circumstances doesn’t delete DNA. The acquisition of wealth doesn’t neutralize the struggle instinct. Oops. Woe to him who willfully innovates while ignorant of the constant.

The striking thing I remember from Sweden was how wealthy folk worried about trivial things, like the selling of South African grapefruit in Sweden, while Thai peasants worry about practical challenges like the price of lard with which to cook. It appears that being spared from struggling on practical basics can easily lower overall contentment and happiness. Actual wealth delivers profoundly less than it promises. This more-is-better illusion is one of nature’s most potent hoodwinks. Instinct overrides reason, and we take the bait even though we think that we know that ‘money doesn’t bring happiness’⁽²⁾. As Christ said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God“. So, be aware and beware!

⁽¹⁾ I had planned to settle down in Thailand. When money ran really low I went off to Vietnam to work and save money. The plan was to return with a grubstake and upgrade the bakery. That plan changed, but that’s another story. Suffice to say, at that tender age I lacked the experience to know that plans are little more than visions based on past experience. Life, on the other hand, flows out moment to moment into what is called indistinct and shadowy.

⁽²⁾ Wealth is relative! If you are starving and you find food, you are profoundly wealthier, at least until your food runs out. The Thai peasants were wealthy relative to the many folks I saw in India, Ethiopia, Niger, for example. A truer definition of wealth is found in the Tao Te Ching’s, He who knows contentment is rich, or as Henry David Thoreau put it, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone”. From this standpoint, Mother Theresa’s view that America was ‘poorer’ than India holds more water. Mind you, it is not that people in India don’t want to be rich; they do. And when they succeed, they will be as ‘poor’ as us.

By the way, among other things, wealth ‘frees’ me to struggle at writing down as coherently as possible what I see. By the same token, wealth ‘frees’ you to struggle to see if there is anything coherent, even useful, in what I say. The struggle continues and we’re happy.

Modern hunting and gathering

It has been my habit for decades to eat nothing much until late afternoon. That  goes against the standard ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ rule, especially seeing how I get up at 7am. Sure this may be a little stressful to my body, but that turns out to be a good thing. As with most everything, it isn’t the what that matters, it is the how much that ‘breaks the camels back’.

Consider this excerpt from Anti-aging: A little stress may keep cells youthful,  a recent article in Science News.

“The study focused on individual cells, but for whole organisms the finding could shed light on a link between stress and life span. “A little bit of stress can actually prolong life,” says molecular biologist Richard Morimoto of Northwestern, a study coauthor. Mild stress activates the heat shock response but does not harm the cells, he adds.

One mild stress that can activate the heat-shock response is a calorie-restricted diet, which has been shown to extend the life of all species tested so far, including mice and dogs. Calorie-restricted diets increase the levels of Sirtuin 1, or SIRT1, an aging-related protein. “

Ancient hunting & gathering

Nature, in her wisdom, makes hunger her main tool of progress. What is desire, but imagined hungers. I’ve found that keeping myself on the hungry side helps focus my priorities. I’m less likely to get drawn in by secondary hungers  (desire, lust, hope, etc.) when I feeling primary hunger.  Not being so drawn in to those, I can best accomplish my private end.

The main difficulty I face living a civilized life is the ready access to food. All I need do is open the fridge to feed hunger. Being able to satiate it so quickly paves the way for those secondary hungers (desire, lust, hope, etc.) to rush in and fill the void. Many millennia ago our ancestors in the wild had no such void to fill. Like wild animals the world over, their hunger was fully utilized in the immediate and ongoing daily pursuit of food.  Ah, those were the days! Although, medical care was pretty dismal back then. And so it is, something lost, something gained.

Keeping mindful of this tendency is invaluable. Conscientiously done, life turns out much better than otherwise I find. For me, chapter 14 speaks to this:

Hold fast to the way of antiquity
In order to keep in control the realm of today.
The ability to know the beginning of antiquity
Is called the thread running through the way.

So, what about the future. Shouldn’t we look ahead for potential opportunity or dangers which lie there? Actually, the real opportunities and dangers are found in the present. Being here in the moment is the best way to take advantage of opportunity and avoid danger. The future actually does take care of itself when I am fully engaging in the present. For me, chapter 64 speak to this perfectly:

It is easy to maintain a situation while it is still secure;
It is easy to deal with a situation before symptoms develop;
It is easy to break a thing when it is yet britle;
It is easy to dissolve a thing while it is yet minute.
Deal with a thing while it is still nothing;
Keep a thing in order before disorder sets in.

Looking out to the future actually robs from the present, and besides:

Foreknowledge is the flowery embellishment of the way, and the beginning of folly.

Speaking of foreknowledge, I tried my hand at foretelling it for awhile. In the 70’s I learned to read palms, cast horoscopes, do the I-ching, Tarot cards and a few other things. The most fascinating part of it was how people reacted to me telling them their past, present and future. Those that had faith from the start in what I was doing not only bought every word, but often amplified it. They believed!

Those who didn’t have faith from the start were less than convinced and neutral at best. It only went to show how our expectations play a huge role in how and what we see. Anything that seems to support our expectations reinforces them, and anything that doesn’t we usually discount heavily or ignore.