I was able to experience happiness by having my need for food (I had only eaten breakfast that day) and my desire to return home safely both met. Your mileage may vary. Some people dislike solitude very much, and the walk home would have been far more challenging and uncomfortable. Remember though, I also had the option to call for a free ride home and the Kebun Indah driver would have picked me up. I chose to take the walk.
I also have a preference for an empty tummy at times, and especially when I am getting body work. I find fullness of food gets in the way of my experiencing pleasure. I could have gone straight from the massage to eat, but I chose to go to the internet cafe first. Partly because I had a delicious organic chicken curry sandwich there the other day and partly because I can relax easier when I have my work behind me. On this day though, they were not serving food! Who knew? Not me. I could have left and eaten, but I chose to wait until my work was completed. (That I think is another indicator of my workaholic gene – something I am in process with. This experience may have been an opportunity for more consciousness on that topic; so noted for moi.)
These preferences really are a “good news bad news” situation. Skipping lunch to have a pleasurable massage, getting work done first so I can relax later, meant I got really hungry! Being really hungry, like being really tired, opens the door to immaturity. Sleep and food are primal needs. When we are deprived of them, it is much easier to revert to a primal state, a state more akin to childhood than adulthood. And consciousness tends to take a seat in the background unless we are conscious of our choices. Both the choices we made to arrive in this predicament, as well as the choices available to get out of it.
Since I find it useful to explore the cobwebby corners of these sorts of predicaments, I’ll pose another question. What if I had not found any open cafes? Then what? Well, I have a few pieces of fruit in my room and I knew that there would also be some food that I could ask for back at Kebun Indah. Secret Cameraman had also sneaked some chocolate into my bag, and that was an option too. So I was not going to starve to death on this night. It is useful to have that factual data to go up against the _feelings_ of “I’m starving!”
Maturity has the ability to discern the difference between actually starving to death and getting _sustenance_, albeit not my favorite or preferred meal. Maturity understands (and watching the TV show Survivor helps!) that one of the benefits of getting really hungry is that just about any food will taste good! Maturity appreciates that having some food is preferable to me than having no food, and that is enough for a moment of simple happiness.
