While I was living in Portugal some years ago, I once took a day trip to the Douro Valley, where on dry hills grow the famous Port wine grapes. The train ride was quite rocky, but the tracks were mostly built along the Douro River, which ensured a scenic view of the parallel-planted vineyards and the serpentine roads leading up the hills. I went there by myself with no goal in particular. And so, when I exited the train station in a small town built next to the river, I just started walking in a random direction. After running into a few cul-de-sacs, I found a steep path leading up the vineyards.
I soon started panting. The heat was beating onto my bare neck. Sweat gathered between my spine and my backpack. I had brought neither food nor sunscreen.
On top of the vineyard, there was a small vinery that sold refreshments and, of course, wine. Feeling like a dried-out grape myself, I sat down at a shaded table on the deck from where I could overview the entire valley. When I looked at the menu, though, I felt my stomach twist. The prices were exorbitant. Then again, I was at the mercy of this establishment as I would need at least two more hours to get back to town. I had to eat something. I briefly considered drowning my stinginess in some wine, but that seemed like flawed logic, even in my overheated state. Eventually, I ordered the cheapest item on the menu (bread and olives) in Portuguese that I’d been practicing for months. The waiter replied in English: “Do you want any drinks with that?” No, I responded. I asked for the bathroom where I filled up my water bottle.
As I sat there, impatiently waiting for my food, I realized that this was all my fault. Weeks earlier, some friends had invited me to go to the Douro Valley, and I’d been excited to go. But on the morning of departure, I woke up to a phone call, not an alarm clock. “Hey, where are you?” my friend said on the other end of the line. “We’re all here waiting at the station.” I looked at my watch. It was 7:42 am. The train left at 7:54 am. Now, sitting here on my own, I wolfed down some pita bread drenched in olive oil. Had I set an alarm, I could’ve been here with friends. Had I been here with friends, I wouldn’t have needed to buy overpriced food. Had I been a little more prepared, I could’ve brought food, sunscreen, and a plan.
Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve.
Later that day, as I descended the serpentines, I listened to the podcast Secular Buddhism, where the host, Noah, shared a story about going on a business trip to China. There, he wanted to meet one of his suppliers, a guy called Chris. They’d been communicating via email for months, but this was their first meeting in real life. Noah sat down in the cafe where they arranged to meet, but Chris was nowhere to be found. Noah looked around, checked his watch, looked around again. Still no Chris. Eventually, a girl sitting next to Noah, whom he hadn’t noticed, looked up from her phone and said, “Oh, hi, are you Noah? I’m Chris.”
This was, in fact, the Chris that Noah had been looking for.
It’s ironic, but perhaps not surprising, that it took me months to realize I was in a very similar situation to Noah’s. I was out there in the vineyards, trying to have some sort of relaxing, blissful experience. I was trying to optimize my experience in some way. Lower prices. Less heat. More food. More friends. And yet, I was too distracted by my ruminating thoughts to realize the goodness, the beauty, that was already there.
So, what if, as Noah put it in the podcast, “the conceptual Chris blinded me from the real Chris”? What if my concepts and expectations of what a trip to the Douro Valley should look like blinded me from the real trip to the Douro Valley? I mean, I’d already missed the opportunity to go with my friends. That train literally left the station. And yes, I’d forgotten to bring food and sunscreen, and the food I ate at that vineyard wasn’t exactly a steal. All this certainly wasn’t optimal.
But so what?
I was still there. I made it. I had a view of the valley that could make a God from Mount Olympus looking down on petty humans jealous.
It’s been three and a half years since I took that trip. Maybe it’ll remain the only trip to the Douro Valley I’ll ever take in my entire life. If I’d had this perspective at the time, I’d have relished that view. I’d have licked the last drop of olive oil from my plate, not because I’d have wanted to get the best bang for my buck, but because it was a blessing that I’d found the only place to eat and relax within several miles. Besides, those olives were darn delicious.
The point here is not to crowbar reality into whatever I want it to be. Some events or experiences simply suck, and there’s no use in trying to sugarcoat them. Instead, the point I’m trying to make here is to see reality as it actually is. As I said, on that day, I was mostly preoccupied with what I could’ve done to make the day better. But all the while, I was ignoring the possibility that I was already having a pretty good day. I had a beautiful train ride, both there and back. I managed my hunger, didn’t get sunstroke, and caught unforgettable views.
What was the problem with that?
Every now and then, I catch myself looking back at a period in my life, thinking, “Ah, back then, I had it all. Those were the days.” My writing routine was sublime while I was living in Portugal. My bank account wasn’t a bottomless pit while I was still living with my parents. My desk setup felt far more productive in my old apartment. That, there, then was so much better than this, here, now.
But was it really?
What about right now? Is there really something missing in this moment, or am I downloading archived problems from the past into the present? As the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle phrases the question: “Ask yourself what ‘problem’ you have right now, not next year, tomorrow, or five minutes from now. What is wrong with this moment?”
The punch line is, of course, that unless you’re in strong emotional or physical pain, there is no tangible problem to be found. Most problems are pretense-problems that fuel themselves with past regrets or future worries.
The meditation teacher Loch Kelly has another way of illuminating this sense of effortless being:
“What’s here now when there’s no problem to solve?”
As much as I’d like to give an answer, concepts really are the wrong tool for this job. There’s only ever this. So, which version is it going to be?
Conceptual Chris or real Chris?
Conceptual “this” or real “this”?