I was watching this video by Pursuit of Wonder and came across this quote
We often build a castle when we only need a shield
And indeed, we often do. I have realised that most human endeavour is akin to building such intricate castles when a simple shield can rightly act as the bastion for life, for living, for now.
We spend our lives constructing these castles in all avenues of our existence, from ruminating over the past to obsessively worrying about the future.
On one hand, our proclivity to act in such a way is deep-seated in our psyche, through years of evolutionary wiring. On the other hand, we become at the mercy of such wiring, overlooking the fact that what every human being has is now. The present moment. It’s called the present because it’s a gift that comes and goes.
You and I and people love talking about their plans in life. University. Relationships. Careers. Entrepreneurship. Saving money. The common denominator of most of these things is banking on the future. The future which is never guaranteed.
So why spend all the time building all those castles when you never know if you will get to live in them? Because once we’ve erected those castles, now what? What are we going to do about them?
You see, once the first is built, it will never stop. The rat race continues. Our instinct to survive and conquer will keep on, motivating us to keep on building castles.
As songwriter John Lennon once said
Life is what happens while you are busy making plans
Our fundamental drive to plan for the next big thing or the next grand castle strips us of the ability to simply explore this limitless sandbox, which is happening right now, right in front of us.
For the grandeur of the castle will not stand the test of time, neither will our earthly existence and in spite of it all, we can still enjoy and savour the present moment as it comes and goes. Because that’s all we will ever experience.
No matter how great or bad you are, how impressive or mediocre our lives turn out, how fortunate or unfortunate our circumstances are, in the grand scheme of things, we don’t lead too different lives. We spend most of our time alive sleeping, eating, waking up, going to bed, and doing the same routines for our basic survival.
Who cares if some billionaire is having extravagant parties or building rockets into space? Or if the latest AI is going to revolutionize the world? These are all castles, so to speak, that we have built as a human race so that we can survive better and for longer.
But perhaps the complexity of it all fades in comparison to the happiness and joy humans feel on a neurochemical level when we engage in seemingly more primitive and fundamental activities, like bonding with a loved one or simply going out for a walk in nature.
See, these things are exactly like the shield, we can weild them without much preparation in advance. There’s no intricacy to them, but that’s exactly what makes them fulfilling and that’s all we really need.
I don’t have a robust academic study on this, but why do you think gaming companies like designing sandbox games that simulate primal humans trying to survive? You know like Minecraft and Fortnite Lego? Because that’s all we need. We go all the way through the Stone Age to the Industrial Revolution and the end of 2023, just to use our state-of-the-art technology to simulate ancient life.
In the end, the simple things will forever be timeless and treasured so long as we continue to live and to experience.
Happy reading and living
Barry 🛡
While planning for the future we forget to enjoy now. We might miss the now one day.