Life is a play; a tragedy for the actors and a comedy for the audience. A tragedy as every actor eventually is scripted out of the play and dies. A comedy as the actors that their selves seriously. People are the actors and the gods is the audience. We can always choose who we are, actors or gods....
Those who know the soul experience a peaceful death; for when the self and its home (the body) are no longer, they will be one with the Everything. Yet, at their passing, their loved ones will grieve and mourn. Newborns cry as they transition from one with the Everything into finite beings. Yet, those welcoming newborns rejoice. Those peacefully departing and those entering the material world know the joy and peace of oneness with the Everything. Those distracted by daily life are often oblivious of the oneness before and after the material world. They grieve when others leave and rejoice when others arrive. Misery loves company....
When good times lead to worse times and bad times lead to better times, that's called "regression to the mean". When good times lead to better times and bad times lead to worse times, that's called "momentum". The Way depends on identifying and balancing these countervailing forces....
Sometime in 1967, I went to the Garrick Theatre in New York City to see Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention perform a sparsely attended show. It was a rainy day and Frank wore a rain hat which brought a few streams of sweat rolling down his face. After the show, I went backstage to meet Frank. My sole question was: "What do you look like without that prophylactic hat?" To which Frank responded: "Like a real man." Frank was a real piece of work; not one of infinite copies or an overpriced fake. The following year, Frank produced a song, some of whose lyrics have ever since resonated with me as funny and profound: "What is the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose Some say your toes But I think it's your mind." Nothing to the eye is inherently ugly or beautiful. However, the mind, by comparing things, deems some things uglier or prettier than other things. The mind is the ugliest part of the body, for it's the only part that makes things ugly....