Wolfy Chai

Taking risks is scary when you know nothing good that comes can ever be taken for granted. Everything can be gone in an instant. Sometimes it feels like some people just bob effortlessly on the surface like a buoy… sure a big wave might come every now and then, they might go under for a second, but they always come back up effortlessly. Whereas you are trying to tread water with a heavy chain attached to your ankle, the second you get too high, the chain drags you under. You never seem to be able to recover. Life hits you with obstacle after obstacle, not merely logistical obstacles, obstacles that jeopardize all the work you put in, in the blink of an eye. obstacles you may never recover from. And just when you found a way out of the chain, it ensnares you again. Life becomes a marathon without much purpose beyond perpetual suffering. One has to make the choice to see something that is so exhausting worthwhile. Because for people like that, what else really remains? If you’re body is always in tremendous pain. If you never can sleep. If you are restricted to only a handful of bland, tasteless foods. What keeps oneself going? It is not fleeting moments of hedonism. Hedonism might be the answer for others who are “buoy” types. Things that keep their “bored” mind and fortunate bodies “stimulated.” Hedonism for a chain person is very different. It comes in the form of drug abuse, alcoholism, and sometimes suicide. This is not to say that buoy people don’t also partake. In the contrary, they often partake in them for the same reasons—an escape from suffering. Sure the alcohol or sex might feel good for the moment. But that is never enough. The biggest difference between the aforementioned types is that for chained people, moments of pleasure might turn into the complete absence of pleasure or relief. When you can’t grab for anything to keep you going, you have an existential crisis. You don’t know why you are here. You don’t know why you would choose to continue. Who is to say that this life and planet are the worst it will be? For some people a deprivation is having 3 cars instead of 5. Or 1 house instead of 2. For others, it might be scavenging the landfills for enough scraps to survive another day. Desperation and necessity dictates action. But questions get raised when nothing remains.