It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on here. It’s not because I don’t want to but it’s because with the pace of my life I just don’t have the time to finish what i write here. Ideally, i’d love to have maybe 4 more hours at least in a day. (Oh well). Anyway..
When i first started blogging about Karate, I found that there were many like minded people, all of whom were interested in Martial arts at one stage but slowly fizzled out. I myself can say with complete honesty that sometimes I am too tired to train by the time I finish work if i even get the chance to train at all on some days. Anyway I know that title is a little vague o but I hope you’d share my sentiments if we were to explore this further.
First, some facts: Did you know that the sale of footballs and other football related paraphernalia are at their highest during the world cup or any similar large televised global event? Similarly did you know that Martial arts sign ups always increase when a film is out? Ah! Now you get where i’m coming from. Our class gets smaller an smaller, only the ones really in love with Kyokushin stay. Some come for completely the wrong reason. I have made it my resolve never to hold back anymore when someone tries to hurt me in class, and while it compromises a little on “we shall refrain from violence” and a little bit of ethics here, it is just as well. I’d rather not walk out with a torn ACL or broken nose.
I now fully understand why it is difficult to sustain enthusiasm for something, its not the environment, its not the class or the people, its the circumstances and the fact that real life impinges so much on what you love that there is a constant battle to balance responsibility and personal fulfillment. The struggle to be happy is one that we fight everyday, but really i remember once being told that satisfaction equals true happiness, and yet while happiness leaves your head in the cloud momentarily, satisfaction like good wine lingers in your palette far longer than just a ‘brief moment’ of blissful indulgence. It is however said that satisfaction also fuels greed because satisfaction is like a bottomless pit, on the one hand fulfillment and contentment is achieved but at the same time levels of satisfaction become harder to achieve each and every time.
We often then mistake satisfaction as a benchmark vanilla feeling, and I think Sophia Tolstoy (for those who don’t know she’s Leo Tolstoy’s wife) put it best “I am a source of satisfaction to him, a nurse, a piece of furniture, a woman – nothing more”. Its always easy therefore to take satisfaction for granted, and in doing so one realises that when happiness is temporary, short-lived and so often too taken for granted.
We as human beings experience many things in this life time, one new experience often begets another, one emotion separating an incident or traumatic circumstance. And yet as we go through several cathartic phases in life moving forward and soldiering on, we soon find that through the icy depths of winter, in the darkest corners where we least expect to find salvation, we come out resolute and renewed.
Osu no seishin.
