Between a rock and a hard place
Between the desire to do what one wishes and the enjoyment of doing what one wishes, does a person act out of desire to find pleasure, or find pleasure in order to act out of desire?
This question often invades our minds, which claim cunning, intelligence, freedom of thought, and resistance to conformity, leading us to follow the collective herd of society, despite reality contradicting this claim. That word is “passion.” We have come to chase after it without knowing the road’s end or where it leads. Perhaps the passion we seek has hidden from us because it may not be what we truly seek in its true sense; we might be looking for something that is not the reality of what we want. If we find the passion we imagined, we discover it is not what we hoped for, nor what we envisioned in its essence and content.
What we often seek is something that gives us happiness above the normal level while performing what we think we love. In this state, we burden what we do with responsibilities that do not belong to it. If it does not amuse us as expected, we abandon it, and it falls from the list of things we love. But the one who truly loves a task performs it, even if it involves pain and exhaustion, because he recognizes it as a responsibility. Loving responsibility, enduring it patiently, bearing the pain of its consequences, and accepting the hardship one faces in its pursuit may be the other unknown meaning of passion.
In times of prosperity and comfort, for which we will be questioned, ideas and inclinations change, and many truths transform. What a person once did by nature or instinct, or out of human responsibility, has become a search for pleasure and passion, rather than seeking meaning and value to feel one’s humanity and role. Conversely, patience in adversity has decreased, gratitude for blessings has weakened, and the value of performance has diminished, until the concept of pure materialism took shape. Pleasure is now sought externally, from possessions, rather than internally. There is no longer an internal value that a person imparts to what he does through patience and comfort.
At the core of a person lies a heart; if it is alive, everything around it comes alive, including the actions one performs, which can gain value that elevates according to the heart’s elevation. If a person’s actions have a sincere intention, even if the act itself is permissible, it elevates his humanity to the ranks of those with insightful hearts. Limbs that perform their duties with pleasure, stemming from within, even if the outward appearance of the act lacks pleasure, reflect this. If the body grows tired, the heart finds delight; if afflicted, it gives thanks. What pulses in the heart toward external actions is what imparts human and spiritual value to those actions.
Between the fire of seeking pleasure in life and the fire of a heart ablaze with life, a person lives in a time where the person of value is seen as an outsider and finds no pleasure in the outward appearance of what he does. True pleasure lies in what a person imparts to his actions through life and value, with sincere intentions, in his daily duties and tasks, which those who chase fleeting, changing pleasures have abandoned.
I believe that the pleasure society seeks, if not linked to religious, ethical, and social values and principles, and to sincere intentions, causes society to relinquish much of its humanity and become a seeker of momentary and ephemeral pleasures, devoid of any real value. A person becomes diminished while believing he is freeing himself from the shackles of servitude to what he does. This idea also requires the destruction of the idol of claimed freedom and the accusation of servitude. Between the fires of passion and responsibility, tasks are neglected, humanity is distorted, and hearts lose their sincerity, purity, and direction toward God in what they love and do.
