Buddha laid out Four Noble Truths. If I may for a moment indulge this digital space (where my audience is imagined anyway), I will piggy back off of Buddha and lay out my own noble truths (I can't believe I'm riffing off of Buddha's wisdom to craft my own noblesse oblige, but if I can do it with any great sage, Buddha is probably the best bet):
The Four Noble Quarks:
Forms have no fixed meaning.
We have an ethical responsibility to choose the right forms.
We must teach others how to choose the right forms.
We can play amid a sea of meaningless and meaningful forms.
I call these the "Four Noble Quarks" because a quark is considered the basic building block of matter and are constantly in motion (this will all become more clear, hopefully, by the end of the post).
Noble Quark #1 - Buddhism 101 (see first post in this 3-part series: https://www.amancenido.com/post/guns-barbies-and-prayer)
Noble Quark #2 - Ethics: Though forms are both meaningless and meaningful, we have an ethical responsibility to engage with the right ones (https://www.amancenido.com/post/ethics).
Noble Quark #3 - Education: We must share with others what we’ve learned about how to make the right decisions, as parents, teachers or advocates of important causes. Basically as everyone. So we don't make the same mistakes and cause unnecessary suffering.
Noble Quark #4: - Aesthetics (this is what I think is the best part): If we understand that everything is constantly changing, and are intentional about making the best ethical choices amid the flux, we can engage more playfully with the world around us, i.e. with detachment, curiosity, and imagination. Knowing that the possibilities abound, given the never-ending and abundant iteration of all situations, we can be more available to co-create with the diversity of forms that make up L-I-F-E. We can move from the myopic place of attachment to doing things a particular way, to the more expansive and breathtaking place of endless possibility. We can watch movies about a doll that we might have dismissed as a degenerate cultural artifact because of attachment to stale understandings of feminism, and can then open to new perspectives and ways of being. We become more sensual. With less energy directed towards mind-mapping our way through life, our senses are able to participate in the game of knowing. We indulge the smell of curiosity, the taste of spaciousness, the feel of laughter, and the extravagant beauty of wearing all pink.
On opening night of Barbie, my daughter and I dressed in wonderful assemblages of pink. The time to curate an outfit meant indulging combinations and accessories normally glossed over with the doldrums of everyday wear, not to mention the laughter that came with some of our absurd pairings. If we free ourselves from the mental handcuffs of complacency or routine, we discover new decadent layers. Wearing pink again can mean a deeper layer of connection with a pre-teen child. Donning a pink cowboy hat can mobilize an impetuous energy that can lead to unabashed, impromptu expressions of appreciation for others. And so on. Imagine if we accepted as a baseline for living, the principle of never-ending dynamism where something new is always around the corner, then we can play more freely and openly with the world around us. Fashion accessories, I love you’s, weekday dinner menus, blog posts, performance art, and career choices, are all then just tools or stylistic choices available to us from this buffet of life. We really can’t take anything too seriously or personally because it all changes anyway. The story never ends, so might as well tell our part of the story in a way that fascinates or inspires. Or simply lets us wear pink and laugh again.