Itch

“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” ~ Einstein

One night, the young master got on his horse, and rode away from his family and mansion home, princely duties and worldly wealth. When they asked him why he left, Buddha said because the house was too “dusty and crowded” for him.

Basically he didn’t know why he left. He just had to.

In another place and time, there was a child so lucky to be saved from the poverty of his social class, to be adopted by the King, and be raised in the King’s splendid palace. Problem is, none of that brought Moses contentment. Pretty soon, his attention went astray and he walked RAN back to his miserable, impoverished and tasteless kin.

Let’s start again, one last time.

There was a guy who was so lucky to marry a successful businesswoman. His wife completely trusted him with the management of her wealth. They had six beautiful children. The society looked up and spoke well of them for they had the world in their hands and were kindly about it too.

Mohammad, however, caught a serious bout of insomnia somewhere around his late thirties. The insomnia made him take long walks at night, occasionally resting in caves like a hermit. Puzzled by an itch that he could not name.

That unnamable, unreasonable “itch” was so powerful that it drove men out of their given comforts. Their itch started changes that rippled for thousand of years. It may look cool from over where we stand today; because we know how well Buddha, Moses and Mohammad did at leading social change.

However, had these men been our neighbors, we would have severely criticized them. Starting by calling them losers, jobless or just plain selfish.

What was wrong with their perfect lives? Why couldn’t they shut up be grateful?  Why did they – eventually – take up unpaid jobs that would bring hardship and sorrow to the people they loved the most? Did the boredom of living in comfort screw them up?

Or was there something more to life than the obvious?