If I were a god

We are in the midst of a heatwave here. Well anything over 65 I consider to be too hot, so I will clarify and say that it is a heatwave for others as well. (broke 100) Without A/C, I had to sleep with my windows open for the past week. I also have been trying to go to bed early (midnight-ish for me), because my neighbor lets out their three very large, very loud dogs around 8:00 am. They just do not stop barking while no one is in their house. Non-stop. I really can not sleep through this. And with the windows opened at night, I found that almost exactly at midnight, a large flock of birds seem to have some sort of party in the trees outside of my windows. Non-stop. In bed, not being able to sleep because of the noise and the heat and feeling frustrated that I will be forced to wake up when the dogs are put out, I thought, "If only I were a god, then I could fix these problems. I would cool it off with large rain clouds. I would cause the birds to go somewhere else. I would have unspeakable things happen to the dogs and their owners. Morgan Webb would be in bed next to me. Etc." I was half asleep, so I thought "Etc."

Then it hit me. Why do I need to be a god to do this? What about my life makes this a desirable condition? Sure, that whole "actions at a distance without moving a muscle" sounds way cool and much more effective than running around like a madman at midnight chasing birds away in my underwear (how the birds get into my underwear is a different story), but what about the side-effects? Obviously no one else has a problem with the birds, or else I would see one of my neighbors running around at midnight... So, what I really want is to not hear the bird noise, the dog noise, and not feel the heat. There is no reason for me to change the "real" world such that it would affect other people, I just want my experience of the world to change.

And that is where I realized that I am god of my world. Or, I could be. If I can edit out sensory input that makes me suffer, then I would actually achieve that which I sought. Meditation, that was the key! Learn to control the uncontrollable... Then, thinking about it further, why attempt to censor sensory input? I mean, sure, the mind/body does this all of the time, but is there a better way to get what I want? Yes, I thought, I can change what I want! Any suffering I feel is not because of any external sensations, but my internal interpretation of them!

So, all of the suffer in my life, in all other non-dog and non-bird related forms, is due to what I think about the things that happen to me. And this is something I can change. And so can everyone else! You might not be able to change the world as others see it, or change the world how you see it, but you can change how you feel about it.

-Edward

PS But still, it would be much easier and cooler if I were a god and could just make it all stop. If only there were a "Be a god in 5 easy steps" kind of book...