humanity and acceptance

What if the thing you really hoped for didn't happen?
What if you couldn't stop that bad thing from happening in time?

(What if you were still okay?)
(What if the world were perfect as it is?)

Where is that true, and where is that not true?

I'm convinced that it's true for emotions. There are no bad emotions - they can all be good (informational signal), or can all just be. Acceptance can be learned, and it's kind of a superpower.

My emotions can be perfect as what they are because "I" exist in a larger frame outside of them. I can choose to accept my "self" as perfect in the same sense, of looking at myself from a larger frame where it doesn't make sense to hang judgement on the patterns in my body-mind system. Likewise the physical motions in the heavens:

“Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” – Alan Watts

I'm not so sure about the frames we choose to live inside. We could apply the same lens to the future of humanity - and if we accept all outcomes, then sure, any outcome is as perfect as any other outcome, because those cares don't mean anything in the external-to-humanity frame. But most of us don't choose nihilism as the solution to our attachment to certain futures for ourselves or our descendants. That seems like a place to visit, perhaps get stuck there for a bit, before deciding that's too close to wireheading as an escape.

I want to care... which does mean that I choose to suffer, sometimes. Caring is desire is attachment is suffering, right? There is a popular meta move to attempt to reconcile this:

"The World is perfect as it is, including my desire to change it" (attributed to Ram Dass)

Today, at least, I'm not sure this actually holds the wisdom of enlightenment. Does the acceptance of everything not leave behind The outer-est of frames doesn't seem to hold "perfect" insomuch as perfection is judgement, is dualistic. Perfection requires imperfection, and doesn't apply when something just is.

I can accept that the world is what it is.
I can accept that nothing inside the present moment could be any different.
I can accept that what is true is already so.

I can accept that I choose to desire particular futures.
I can accept the reality that those futures are unlikely.
I can accept suffering as a part of being (or remaining) human.
I can accept (I think?) that I am choosing (I think?) a frame that is not the fully-decontextualized truth.

Our frame is where we hang meaning. Meaning is what produces emotions. I can welcome and accept all emotions. I'm not entirely certain that we can "choose" a frame - maybe our hand is on the tiller, or maybe we're just along for the ride. But I'm definitely feeling a metamodernist sincerity in embracing the intentional experiential-truth stance as a transcendence of pomo relativism.

There's still a practice here to explore, I think: Of continually converting the desire for certain future states into acceptance of reality as each present moment arrives and flows past us. That seems like the moment to let go of attachments that failed to materialize - the moment to welcome and accept what has already happened, and work with it just as if we had not previously cared that it be something else. Sadness and regret will still be our companion there, as a signal to us that we have processing work to do. Holding our desires lightly probably makes that conversion work easier. Being realistic about how much we don't own or control seems helpful too. We only own our experience (which maybe also is everything).