birthright

Reflecting on how much energy can really be wasted on overcompensating, meaning pretty much anything that isn't really needed or intrinsically enjoyable but which we do anyways to make up for a lack of self acceptance/confidence in our raw simplicity/humanness. Maybe it's putting a lot of time and money into dressing up, getting jacked/fit, having status symbols to show off wealth/material success, getting likes and follows, maybe even gaining enlightened status or spiritual power. A whole lifetime can be dedicated to these kinds of pursuits.

Whatever the desired elevated state/position/appearance is, it often seems to be a kind of futile void filling that's become so common that it's considered normal. Whatever form it takes though, it requires constant upkeep and never really seems to reach completion, which means we can't really stop and rest. Clothes, muscles, possessions and sustaining high levels of attention, perfection or power all need to be continuously maintained and replenished to stay at elevated levels. Eventually, the only outcome is to let them go or burn out and crash.

Everything returns to its baseline neutral state eventually. Rise up higher than that and a fall is inevitable. Dip down low and...well, maybe a subsequent rise isn't inevitable for the living. Dissolution is an eventual possibility before a sort of regeneration to a new baseline in a new state.

The inconvenient thing, one of them at least, is that these pursuits are usually unconsciously driven. The underlying motivating force behind them tends to be hidden behind a screen of denial and projection. Our actions usually seem perfectly logical at the time. "I need to look good because x", "I need to be muscular/toned because x" , "I need to buy that because x", "I need to act y because x", "I need to be perfect because x". Whatever x is, it essentially implies that "I'm not enough as I am so I need something else/more".

There also tend to be certain misconceptions at play to rationalize attempts to become happier that aren't really in line with human needs. This is a real challenge these days because we've become so removed from nature/our natures and so innundated with marketing, misleading info and fractured and biased studies. Each of us has our own sets of faulty programming which can take a lifetime to sort through, and often the only way to really do so is through trial and error.

Before the advent of mass production and psychological marketing, humans were simple. We made shelters and hunted, we sang, danced and played simple games, we socialized and mated with those around us, we created art and rituals to reflect and process experience. That's pretty much it. We didn't have all these labyrinthine systems and mass-promoted expectations for our energies to be wrapped up and drained by. And to a certain degree, energy = happiness. A visceral sense of wellbeing is, in a way, a biproduct of an abundance of energy. If energy is frittered away without sufficient rest and nourishment to replenish it, we tend to just hover around feeling meh, tired or worse. So since resting becomes impossible in the pursuit of the unfulfillable, and since most of our natural forms of nourishment have become poisoned or distorted in some way, the intrinsically generated happiness that was once as much the birthright of humans as it is for cats and dogs became elusive.