dukkha: dissatisfaction with our time

“This age has always displeased me,” claimed Petrarch. This is dukkha, a dukkha I’ve shared. Petrarch’s words poked me into recognition.

In the last of his Seniles or “Letters of Old Age,” this founder of renaissance humanism and classical studies “wished to have been born in any other age whatever, and to forget this one” and “dwelt single-mindedly on learning about antiquity” through his dear friends, Cicero and other Latin masters via their works. It’s one thing to look and to learn from the past, but dukkha to condemn ones own age.

Leon Battista Alberti, another early renaissance writer, has a dialogue character critique the living-in-the-past attitude, “You seek immortality by being not fully alive while still living, through this obstinate study of yours.”

My personal tendencies of idealism, criticalness, and perfectionism, which have their uses, also facilitate dissatisfaction with the perceived realities of our times. And you? Do you have similar tendencies? Do you catch yourself mumbling about the weather? Do you ever utter the word “hate” in respect to the events of daily and social life?

Others in Western literary history might prefer the future. That, too, is a displeasure, a dissatisfaction, dukkha. Perhaps escapism, perhaps fantasy, perhaps ambition. I don’t suffer this one as much, what with climate decay, kleptoid fake intelligence, creeping neo-facism, et al. And you? Do you find yourself leaning into the future with excitement? Preferring the Age of Aquarius or something? Looking forward to the next rebirth that you believed you’ve earned?

Finally, something from a non-Western ancient, the timeless Buddha:

One ought not to long for what has passed away,
Nor be anxious over things which are yet to come.
The past has left us, the future has not arrived.

Whoever sees the present dhammas
direct and clear just as they are,
Is unshakeable, immovable, secure.
One should accumulate such moments.

When do you aim to live? When am I?

All quotes except the last are found in Livelier Than the Living by Catherine Nicholson in the June 20, 2024 New York Review of Books, page 8. Buddha’s words are from the Bhaddekaratta Sutta.