Trolls

One day, Mulla Nasrudin was sitting in the town square, watching a crowd argue about a new well being dug.

“Mulla,” someone asked, “you’re the wise one. Do you think this well will bring prosperity or ruin to the village?”“Not sure,” Mulla said. “But, it will definitely bring trolls.”“Trolls?”“Of course!” Mulla replied. “No matter how deep you dig, someone will always complain the water isn’t wet enough.”

Have you ever been annoyed or upset by trolls? Yeah, the same ones who poke you, pinch you, and try to hurt you just because they can’t be you, because they can’t get to you. You are able to ignore them for the most part, but they can be irritating, like stubborn fruit flies. You must have wondered, “Who are these people, kahan kahan se uth ke aa jate hain?”

Having said that, not just them, but I feel each one of us is a troll. In fact, the majority of us are a fairly representative sample of the most abusive trolls. Maybe not all the time, but at least some of the time. Bear with me…

Recently, I spoke about Friedrich Nietzsche and the profound effect he has had on all Western philosophers over the last 150+ years. As to why I think that every single one of us is a blatant troll, allow me to rope him in with one of his thought experiments, The Greatest Weight. ¹ Come on now, Nietzsche, over to you:

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!’

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’ If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, ‘Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?’ would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life?

In How To Be An Existentialist by Gary Cox, building on Friedrich Nietzsche’s core argument, he goes on to elaborate that if you don’t want to live your life over again, then you are not living it right. ² The resolute Nietzsche confronts you with, “Why are you doing that job now if you wouldn’t want to do it again in your next life?”

That is the moral acid test to the fundamental question that has plagued everyone at some point in their life: How should I live? If you are living a full life, you are likely to be in love with life. The very idea of making beautiful choices amidst uncertain moments of life will excite you. It’s those thrills and chills that make us look forward to the next moment, the next day. Subconsciously, we realize the beauty of life, and that’s why no matter how unhappy or unwilling one might be, people aspire to live on forever. We take medicines, eat well, and exercise, for example, to stay alive. I suppose our conditioned mind may complain, but our guileless soul understands and values the gift of life. It wants this present moment. We don’t want to let it go, particularly if our present is beautiful. Greek and Western philosophers called it amor fati: that one wants nothing to be other than it is, not in the future, not in the past, not in all eternity. ³

This is precisely what Krishna meant when he said, sarvatha vartamano ’pi sa yogi mayi vartate… that a yogi is the one who, established in the supreme consciousness, remains in the present moment.

But what has all of this got to do with trolling, you ask? When we are constantly complaining in life, when we loathe this, that, and the other, when we can’t discard our baggage like an old pair of boots, we are trolling life. ⁴ Most of us choose to complain and not improve. Rather than wine and dine, we whine and die. Such death may be moral (I don’t care even if it’s wrong), emotional (I can’t do this anymore), or professional (I’m hanging up the boots). We are that troll whom no one has asked to watch that podcast, but he does and then compulsively regurgitates his displeasure and disapproval.

Consider your life a mega celebrity, and sure, you have the right to disagree. If you disagree, however, don’t just complain; do something about it. ⁵ Trolling your very existence won’t help. It irritates life, and then it goes, “Who are these people, kahan kahan se uth ke aa jate hain?”

Remember, the grandeur and splendor of life belong to the one who celebrates it and cherishes it, not to those who hurt it.

Not troll, ⁶ but roll with life and see how magical it can be. For the water is always wet enough for all things porous. 

Peace.
Swami