Detachment
“You know what the Budhist say ? Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent.”
But wait, I said. Aren’t you always talking about experiencing life ? All the good emotions, all the bad ones ?
“Yes”
Well, how can you do that if you’re detached ?
“Ah, you’re thinking, Mitch. But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let the it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it. Take any emotion – love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions – if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them – you can never get being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.”
“But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, “All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize the emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion from a moment”
(Tuesdays wit Morrie, page 101 – 102)
But wait, I said. Aren’t you always talking about experiencing life ? All the good emotions, all the bad ones ?
“Yes”
Well, how can you do that if you’re detached ?
“Ah, you’re thinking, Mitch. But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let the it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it. Take any emotion – love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions – if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them – you can never get being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.”
“But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, “All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize the emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion from a moment”
(Tuesdays wit Morrie, page 101 – 102)
When I read this page, which discuss about the emotions, I pictured all my past experience that had penetrated me and I’m questioning myself whether I let that all emotions penetrate me fully.
For some emotions, yes, I did. I let them penetrate me fully so I could easily let them go. But for others, I could not.
The reason is simple, I have once let them penetrate me fully, feel the pain, the fear. Let myself threw into all that emotions so I would be able to say that I have been there.
So, when that experience come again, I could not let myself throw into all that emotions again. Once is enough. Only “stupid” people will let the thrice experience play with yourself (..According to my beloved boss …)
And maybe because of that, I always have a “reservation” in every experience that I met. Not because I don’t want the emotions going through my life, the answer because it is difficult for me to detach that even though I know what is the “name” of those emotions.
I still questioning Morrie advice to Mitch, wish I’ll be Mitch and have that discussion with him. For sure, I will ask Morrie, how should we prevent our self from that emotion or we just let our self dive in that emotions again and again ? how if we still can not detach that emotion ?
It’s only a wish …..
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