Oh how hard we yearn for comfort and leisure while the world continues to pile on more and more on our already over spilling plates. How we phantasize of a time where we can breathe out in contentment and have nothing to do, nowhere to be and nothing hanging over us, to lounge and bum around and not do a thing uncomfortable or effort exerting. It’s a nice utopistic daydream and it seems it would feel good. It seems like something to aim for indeed. It would feel wonderful of course, but only for a while, only as a transient space of rest before we start something new engaging our whole person, calling us to fight, figure things out and prevail.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian literary genius and a man thoroughly interested in fundamental human nature figured out this duality of our desire a long time ago. He painted a very funny and true picture of our own internal search for chaos and places that challenge us, depicting the deep boredom we would feel if everything was just given in our existence. He said: “Shower on him every blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, give him economic prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes, and busy himself with the continuation of the species, and even then, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick.” but why would we play a nasty trick on ourselves, others or the world? Boredom. We’d play a trick just so anything even remotely interesting disturbing our Eden would happen. It’s in our nature to deal with conflict and unruly circumstance and learn through it. You know that phantasy you have/had about a perfect lover or partner, the one who knows you even before you speak, agrees with you to the last detail and completely understands all you are. If you were to really find such an unlikely match you’d first revel in this perfection and then soon, very soon you’d be bored out of your mind because there is no challenge in this relationship, no growth, no opposition. It would be just a hum, a dull hum making you increasingly spiteful and resentful so you’d go out and cause trouble just so you could feel alive.

It seems we’re alive exactly at the crossroads, where some things are stable and known, and some are chaotic and unknown, waiting to be explored and mastered. So if you were to be showered with every possible blessing, floating on your back in a sea of happiness, had not a worry in a world and were completely free to stuff your face with cake and indulge in what Dostoevsky called busying yourself with the continuation of the species, today fondly known as Netflix and chill, you’d go mad. You’d break something, get in some sort of trouble, would poke the sleeping dragon even if the damsel is saved, you’d go into the unknown and play roulette with something dark. This is who we are. Rest and bliss are wonderful aims but they only work as a duality, in context of rest from something and for something. Every single system in your body was built to move, explore and learn, not to be safely stored in blissful stagnation getting fat, lazy, entitled and dumber than it could be. You need the struggle, to keep spinning to stay in balance like a whirligig. If the movement stops fall is inevitable.

Eternal problem free bliss is a beautiful dream, and a dream it should stay. Enjoy your cake and chill, but then wipe your mouth, put some pants on and go find something to build.