Not So Important After All
I’m so shocked that I don’t know that I can explain it. I will try, however. I guess it’s like the relief an addict would feel after years and years of feeling he cannot live without the high his habit gives him, finally discovering how liberating it is to be freed from all that craving and dependence. He had no idea that what had seemed such a huge part of life had actually been detracting from life. Or perhaps it’s like someone who has always craved riches discovering contentment and happiness without money, and finding the result more wholesome and empowering. Or maybe I could liken it to a child who thinks when he grows up and can do as he pleases, he will do nothing but gorge himself on vast quantities of ice cream and candy.
Deprivation can do strange things. Very many years ago I fasted not from food but from fluids. I found myself longing for a particular soda that I had not even thought of since childhood. Once I resumed a normal diet, my yearning for that soda vanished, and I have never bothered to try to find the soda.