Ode to Moderation
I stepped into the backyard for my morning vape. I looked at the grass and its green morning scent, the red maple trees by the street ahead and the grey sky with the impending Canadian winter written all over it. I almost didn’t want to vape, but I vaped anyway. I came back in. My apartment still smelled of last night's mutton curry.
Everything has to be in moderation for everyday life.
What I mean is that a green field stretching to eternity surrounded by a dense forest wouldn’t be bad for a weekend but I would freak out if I had to see all that during my each morning vape. They would remind me of childhood bullies and paranoid weed trips.
The same applies to mutton curry. It is good for once in two months. If I ate that thing every night I would probably be dead in two months.
And the car…It was idiotic to buy a five-thousand-dollar car just as it would be to desire the new cybercab from my situation.
Everything has to be in moderation for everyday life.
‘Everything has to be in moderation for everyday life’— What an unoriginal chorus for what is supposed to be an original genre of writing. But sometimes we need to hear the bloody truths like don’t drink or smoke too much, don’t masturbate too much or too hard, don’t eat too little, don’t think too much, don’t socialize too little, don’t read too much, don’t smile so little, don’t loan so much, don’t fuck with god so much, don’t cook too much, don’t spend too much, don’t earn so little, etc. But sometimes. Not all the time or at all.
For me, the biggest challenge with moderation has been with my desires. During the COVID lockdown, I wanted to be as powerful and rich as Elon Musk when his PR was at its peak. Ten years before that I wanted to starve like Buddha for truth. Of course, I didn’t pursue any of them. Today I don’t plan on being both. I wouldn’t mind experiencing a king’s life for a week or sitting under a tree without eating for a couple of hours but, for everyday life, I want just enough money in my bank account that I won’t have to think so hard before buying a pack of fucking milk and I want to know how I fucked my life the way I did. That’s moderation in desires and I am nailing it.
Everything has to be in moderation for everyday life.
Learn from dogs. Fill their bowl with rice and twenty chicken pieces, they will eat what they need and leave or hide the rest. Once in a while, they might try to eat out of greed but they ain’t eating all that shit at once every day.
When smartphones exploded into our lives, a friend from college got obsessed with gaming. He downloaded a popular strategy game and dived into it like a drunk duck. Didn’t eat, didn’t talk, didn’t listen, didn’t think. Two months later he walks up to me with a lean body, sunken eyes, a basic phone and says, ‘I have quit gaming.’ The damage had been done. He didn’t appear in the semester exam and he had forgotten how to think. Apparently, fear of the future and lack of money and friends woke him up early. There were others in my class who played the same game but they didn’t dive into it ass first. They were moderate about it. I don’t care about the semester exams, but I don’t remember any of them behaving like a headless chicken. I wasn’t too wise by not playing that game at all. Most of the time I sat among them looking like a pig among dogs. Not that there is anything wrong with that but it wouldn't have hurt to try. At least, I would have known what was immoderately fucking our fucked up culture this time. Would have had a little knowledge about people.
Everything has to be in moderation for everyday life.
I will leave you with the image of a relative of mine. Sixty-something, male. So obsessed with meditation that once when he came to our house he sat cross-legged on our couch, closed his eyes and started breathing in from his left nostril and out from the other. All this while the five of us were sitting there doing our best not to make the random relative meeting awkward by not even chewing our food too hard. Nothing wrong, it’s his life, he can shove whatever he wants into his nostrils, I know. But c’mon.
I need to stop writing this. I don’t think many are reading this anyway. Two if I’m lucky. But that’s too little. I don’t need millions like that Aussie guy either. I am a moderate desirer these days. I want to make something from my writing before I give up on my writing dream altogether.
Write in moderation: this is one of the characteristics of the original genre of writing I mentioned earlier.
I wish god thought like me and made Canadian winters a bit moderate.