i'm happy cause you're happy
last night, two of my friends and i met up after work and sat down for a little food and drink. we get to talking, the little updates in our lives, the big things, my qualms, their dilemmas... the works. i underappreciate the quality and range of topics we can go through. for three young, albeit grown and recently self sufficient, men, it's refreshing. the fact that we had all met in university, chatted online for the good part of two years, then managed to actually transition into physical friendship is also something that manages to wow me to this day. i'm unsure how many times i've spoken about it on this blog, but i think the biggest challenge for me has always been how to deal with other people; as i get older, i realize that there is no one, set in stone formula (at the detest of my very self-described "logical" brain) to maintaining relationships. you have to be okay with letting people down, pushing to see each other, feeling "annoying", the right people will tug the rope the same way.
rope tugging aside, sitting in the booth, i kept feeling this very strong emotion of "happiness" hearing one of my them talk about the good stuff happening in his life. it puts an insane smile on my face and redness in my cheeks. it's an emotion that that supersedes empathy or joy. in the same way you cant describe the love a mother feels when her child laughs, this emotion is simply uncapturable in the english language. a google search of "im happy cause my friend is happy" tells me the dharmic term or concept of this is called mudita and described as "pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being". as much as i would like to say i know the first thing about buddhism, i don't... i'm white, i grew up a loosely practicing serbian orthodox christian, i know my saints and basic scripture and that's it. though... and i will say this very loosely, i kind of fuck with the concepts being laid out in front of me. something something, the root of our suffering being this delusion that all of us are meant to be "separated", and you have fundamental practices in the religion meant to combat or go against that feeling. i can see that holding some weight in many aspects of my life. you need to have some communal awareness if you want to live a somewhat decent life, we are social creatures.
i haven't told anyone about this in my life yet as to not jinx anything, sorry if you're being spoiled now, but i went on another hinge date over the weekend. details aside, i had fun. the guy studied philosophy, was a registered marxist and is currently studying for his lsats. intellectually i was really turned on listening to everything, from his views on mathematics, to something about chaos theory, to how thought leaders emerge, it was a conversation i wasen't expecting but left impressed (maybe i'm a sucker for those types). i learnt that it's pretty common for famous mathematicians to have explored philosophy, from decartes' meditations, to einstein's essays on the "world as it is". they are held in pretty high regard in that community. coincidentally, this medium article about mudita even quotes einstein's letters. date aside, i had some time earlier today to stop by the book store near me and pick up a copy of descartes' meditations to read on my commute, i could get into this (not even thinking about the guy, but rather it seems like an interesting topic to me). i haven't had much of a will to read full books recently, and most of my reading has been the monthly copy of the american statistical societies' newsletter, random internet articles that get sent around, or webcomics, so the thought of actual literature being on my list is daunting. it's always january that ends up being the most transformative month each year, so let's see if i can repeat it this year too. good night.