I approach the one-year mark of retiring from a 25-year academic career and moving to Thailand. Life has brought me great experiences, some attempts at reprogramming of ‘merikkkhan life propaganda and integrating cultural differences. I can see some real beauty in Thai culture and society. As well as some of the dark side of life.
I have a lived a life full of purpose while following my dreams/goals. Many questions frequent my mind… Who am I now at this stage in life? What is a peaceful, simple and slow life? The idea of safety and security remains elusive.
There is a frustration I experience with the uncertainty of not knowing what to do with myself and the desire for wanting a peaceful simple life. I find myself getting caught between the longing for control and being present with the normal chaos of existence. The frustration comes from the clash of these two forces: I want something definite in a world that is inexplicable.
Uncertainty
Uncertainty is unsettling because it threatens the illusion of what we might consider “mastery”. After 56 years one would think we should have developed some mastery regarding how to live a good life. Sometimes I want to know what’s coming, to plot a path, and to prepare myself for any potential difficulty or pain.
But life doesn’t yield to my well thought out and well-made plans so easily. The future is foggy at best, and knowledge will always be incomplete. This breeds anxiety. The mind starts to churn: What if I am not safe? Will I fail? What if I choose wrong? Am I not good enough? The inability to pin down desired outcomes becomes maddening.
The Fire of Desire
The human nature for “desiring” intensifies the frustration. Desire is a fire that wants fuel—whether it’s for love, success, pleasure, security, or meaning. But what we desire is often elusive or fleeting. Even when fulfilled, desires shift, evolve, or reveal themselves to be less satisfying than hoped. This creates a loop of craving and disillusionment: If only I had this, I’d be at peace. But peace doesn’t arrive. Desire feels like a mirage, out of reach, while uncertainty keeps reshuffling the terrain.
Human desire is hard to satisfy. We crave pleasure so much that no matter how much we get, it never seems to be enough. We keep pushing our senses—eating more, watching more, scrolling more—until the things that once felt good barely affect us anymore. So, we chase even stronger pleasures, even louder distractions.
But our bodies can’t keep up. Eventually, they start to break down from the constant pressure. Still, the mind pushes forward. It’s always looking ahead, imagining happiness as something we’ll finally reach if we can just pack enough good experiences into our lives.
If Not Now, When?
The problem is, deep down, we know we don’t have forever. Trying to squeeze a lifetime of joy—maybe even eternity—into just a few short decades. And in doing so, we exhaust ourselves chasing a kind of happiness that may never come.
Yet, we chase the future and the happiness we all want life to bring. Chasing happiness is like chasing a shadow—the faster you run after it, the faster it slips away. That’s why so much of modern life feels rushed. People rarely slow down to enjoy what they already have. Instead, they’re always looking for more—more success, more money, more excitement.
In this way, happiness stops being something real and present. Instead, it becomes something distant and vague, made up of promises, dreams, and the hope that things will get better someday. We end up living for what might come, rather than appreciating what we have and what is.
The Myth of Safety
I never really understood the idea for the need of a “safe space”. Because of life’s uncertainty, there can be no safety or security. The dinosaurs were made extinct by an unpredictable asteroid. Millions of people were killed by the Spanish Flu. To willingly stand, face and even walk into the insecurities of the world, i.e. death, is the brave hero’s path. I would like to think, it’s the only way. But I still go around and around in the mind thinking I know something and understand, when mostly I do not. Maybe the circle is part of life?
One of the worst vicious circles is of a person with an addiction. Which I believe we all are in one way or another. Some addictions are to substances, food, drugs, while others are to ways of behaving and thinking. To stand bravely and willingly face the horrors of the world becomes a difficult thing to do. It’s much easier to keep the patterns and habits that soothe our thoughts of impermanence and lack of continuity regarding our perspectives on life.
The human species are creatures built to endure storms, yet we will crawl back to the warmth of habit and repetition even when we know it’s not something we want to do. The truth is: facing the raw chaos of life — all the never to be answered questions, the existential void, the constant tide of change — requires a discipline and courage many of us have never been taught to cultivate for ourselves.
Instead, we cuddle up to the habits and rituals that dull the sharp edges of life. Habits that take us out of the present moment to smooth over the jagged “now”. We drink, we scroll, we excessively consume, we pray, we buy, we pretend. Attempting to find pleasure, but out of fear. Because the unknown is terrifying, and addiction — whatever its form — is a lullaby. It sings, “You don’t have to feel this. You don’t have to change.”
It is easier to soothe the ache than to be present to the pains and listen to them. Easier to numb than to be present. But the cost of avoidance is a shallow life — divided, untested, untouched, unlived.
Comfort/Happiness is Impermanent
No amount of comfort or joy or happiness is permanent. No habit, no drug, no belief system, no amount of distraction can keep uncertainty and death from creeping in through the cracks of life. We live in a world where everything we love is impermanent, including our own identity — the “I” we clutch to so tightly — is no more solid than the fog.
There’s an old Chinese story of a man who came to a great sage and said, “I have no peace of mind. Please pacify my mind.”
The sage answered, “Bring out your mind before me, and I will pacify it.”
The man replied, “These many years I have sought my mind, but I cannot find it.”
“Then there,” said the sage, “it is pacified.”
This is the crux of it: we are terrified of what we cannot define, of what we cannot hold. Death, uncertainty, personal identity — these aren’t problems to be solved, but illusions to be seen through. When we stop trying to “find” our mind, stop trying to control the vast and unknowable river of life, something shifts. The need to numb recedes. The compulsion to soothe at all costs begins to loosen its grip.
Facing The Truth
Facing life unarmored means to wake up each day unsure and uncertain. To be exposed to (and welcome) all the perceived negative thoughts about ourselves and all the emotions of sadness, grief, and failure While at the same time being in awe of the life we are living. It means holding space for the unknown, the mystery of life and being ok with not having any of the answers. That is a terrifying, and at the same time, a sacred thing.
The real question is: is there enough bravery to pause the addictive lullabies, and sit in the silence that follows? Because only there, in the vulnerable quiet, does true freedom begin — not the kind we buy, inject, or chant into existence, but the kind that comes when we stop running, and simply let ourselves be present with what is.
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