I have determined to my complete satisfaction that there are six quintillion living beings on Earth at this moment (give or take a few quadrillion), and the one thing we all have in common, besides the certainty of death and an over-fondness for sweets, is that we’re in constant motion. We experience a chronic discontent that drives us to do everything from rolling over in our sleep to stabbing a friend in the back, from changing a hairdo to turning a slab of marble into La Pietà. It doesn’t matter if you make shitty TV or flip shitty burgers or pass shitty laws, what does matter is that, for some reason, you want something to be other than it is. Pain, boredom and fear are great motivators, but any excuse will do. We need our discontent so we know how to spend our energy. Maybe you don’t even want to roll over or stab your friend, but energy demands expression (ask any Border Collie). As long as you live, you’ll generate energy. When you’re a hundred years old you can just sit on the porch and watch the world go by, but even porch chairs rock or glide or swing.

Ever see tiny-ass organisms under a microscope? What are they doing? They’re squirming around, right? Why are they squirming? Because they’re programmed to think or feel, on some level, that something needs doing, probably involving survival, procreation or bikini waxing. The sense that something needs doing causes discontent which gets expressed as motion. We live in a state of perceived not-rightness and we’re always squirming to make our situation more good or less bad, or to at least stay put. That’s the difference between alive and not alive in the dreamstate; alive stuff is always squirming, not-alive stuff just sits there with a stupid look on its face. 

Your high school guidance counselor probably never mentioned that getting stoned and playing video games in your mom’s basement was as valid a career path as medicine, law, or rodeo, but many have discovered it for themselves, and who knows, maybe Cheetos, Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew are the sacraments of a new religion and orange-lipped couch potatoes are the progenitors of a nobler race of men. I don’t believe so, but I don’t believe dolphins are mammals either, so what do I know? As life-negative as the tune-out, turn-off, drop-out lifestyle may seem, its members are driven by discontent as much as their pants-wearing counterparts. We can mock their failure to launch and sedentary hedonism, but they know what they want and they found it; it’s hard to argue with happiness.

We weren’t born to be happy, we were born to make shit and preserve shit and break shit, and it’s our discontent that drives the process. On the shoreless sea of nothing forever, there’s nowhere to go and no rush to get there, so relaxing and drifting makes more sense than flailing and paddling. Conserving energy doesn’t matter, directing it does. What most of us do is set course for a dream destination and start rowing toward a mirage; fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and people gotta paddle. In 1984, the economic basis of Oceania is warfare socialism; it doesn’t matter who the war is against or why, only that it’s continuous. Similarly, it doesn’t matter where the human herd thinks it’s going, or that it’s knowably going nowhere, only that it keeps going. 

Observe what happens to many retirees and empty-nesters when their lifelong outlet for energetic expression is abruptly cut off. They are suddenly unneeded; useless, rudderless, aimless. They still have much to offer, but no one wants it. The mirage disappears and they’re left with nowhere to go and no reason to row. They take up fishing or macramé, retask the kids’ rooms to fitness at first, storage later, as purpose disappears and focus is lost. To see what happens when the veils of a lifetime are all peeled back, I direct your attention to the black comedy About Schmidt.

Ego tells us that we’re the star of the show, but no-self is knowably true self, meaning that, despite our unshakable belief in our selfhood, Brahman is the only one here. It’s important that we play our characters as if central to the storyline, but we’re just shadows on a wall or pixels on a screen. Whatever’s going on is for the benefit of consciousness alone, and what appears to be going on is six quintillion little lifeforms buzzing around in small, dramatic circles. I guess that’s what passes for entertainment in the dreaming godmind.

Nothing we do matters or means anything, but it’s critical that we keep doing it anyway. One person builds castles while another maintains them and another knocks them down, and the thing they have in common is drama. Discontent begets motion which begets drama which seems to amuse, or at least distract, Big Daddy Godmind. Why godmind exists at all even its ownself can’t know, but as long as there’s awareness, there must be appearance, and appearance has to be amusing, or, at least, as not-boring as possible. 

The dreamstate is a no-loitering zone. Not everyone can be rich and powerful, some of us have to be scumbag politicians and shelf stockers and insurance scammers. Maybe you dream of building a better hay bailer or composing a catchier jingle or slaying a bigger dragon, or maybe you strive toward growth, evolution or ascension, or maybe you just want to feed your kids and keep them safe (and off the couch). It doesn’t matter why you’re in motion, only that you keep moving. As long as the music keeps playing, we keep dancing. Six quintillion living beings can’t be wrong, can we?