Archive for February, 2024

Presence, Present, Granted & #Gratitude

Posted: February 6, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

Stop and smell the roses.

Stopping and taking a deep breath is more pragmatic and less cliché.

It is human nature to dwell on the negatives and focus on the outcome/result. This tendency robs us of so much positive potential.

Things could always be worse. Modern technology emphasizes how much better things could be as a foundation for trying to sell us things. But that technology also allows us to see how worse off we could be compared to millions or in some cases, billions of other people.

Others having it worse doesn’t invalidate our problems or our feelings. Power positivity becomes toxic when it tries to make us feel bad about feeling bad. But just because we feel bad in a moment, doesn’t mean we have to make that negative feeling our dominate personality trait.

In some of my darker moments, it has been of real help and real value to look back and see how far I’ve come in my life journey. Some of the accomplishments, some of the fun times, some of the rewarding experiences, some of my day to day habits that were once long term goals.

It’s human nature to take things for granted once we get used to them. Meditation and mindfulness practice has helped me with this. Present moment awareness and gratitude go with meditation like peanut butter and jelly. Breaking the cycle of constant thinking, dis-identifying with any negative emotions, being able to be grateful for who I am and for what I have are small wins each time I meditate.

Philosophy has probably helped me more with this particular aspect of life. A study of philosophy is a study of human history. Stoicism in particular has helped me greatly when I slid into poverty. Shifting my focus from what is outside of my control to what is within my control. But also comparing the ancient world to the modern world, one can’t help but feel grateful for many of the pleasantries and technologies that were unimaginable in the from the eras of Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius to the days of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Electricity, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, clean cold drinking water, access to a variety of fresh foods year round, climate controlled shelter. Those basic amenities are still to this day foreign luxuries to many people in the world.

It is not just easy, it is natural to take things for granted when we are used to them. We face many challenges each day and night. Being human isn’t easy. But we face and handle external challenges as best we are able to. So perhaps we can internally challenge ourselves; to swap out taking some of the basics in life that we take for granted, with gratitude.

List out a few of those things to be grateful for. Either in internally, out loud, or on paper and before long, one has an affirmation practice going. Keep that affirmation practice going, keep actively being aware of all the things we have to be grateful for, and a weird thing happens…we start to have more and more to be grateful for.

Publicly Traded Private Club

Posted: February 6, 2024 in Excess and Algorithms
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

What is the stock market? A central marketplace to buy and sell stock. The NYSE dates back to 1792. It was likely never explicitly stated that it’s a private club. Because of the term publicly traded company, many people probably assume the public interest is being served or that the stock exchange is a public place. It is not.

10% of the populated owns nearly 93% of the stock market. As the late, great George Carlin used to say “it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it”.

10% of the population…wow, and the government gave them how much bailout money in 2008?

I wonder how the public could have benefited from that money? Healthcare, pot hole repair, college debt forgiveness, homeless sheltering, food banks, community gardens, jobs programs, etc. But that’s going into fantasy land. A fantasy where the rich don’t get richer.

Is there a middle ground where the poor don’t have to get poorer?

It is something to see so much data and evidence pile up that America is living in a capitalist controlled oligarchy. The illusion of direct democracy fades for all but the heavily propagandized. Unfortunately the heavily propagandized is still the majority of the civilian population of America.

The evidence of that fact shows up every election season. Red vs blue, republicans vs democrats, neighbor vs neighbor. Tribalism weaponized to keep the unwashed masses fighting amongst themselves rather than looking upwards and their oppressors.

That third parties are still relegated to joke status because the duopoly has people convinced lock, stock, and barrel that they need to vote between the lesser of two evils OR ELSE, is also really something to behold every election season.

How many billions need to be spent on war and corporate welfare each year before something changes? Is there a number? Is there a flash point? Is there a turning point? Do we as a people have it in us?

It is easier to just get by. Take less and be lead. Settle on the sidelines and complain through small talk or comment sections.

However, it is also getting harder to deny reality. Even in a time of compounding misinformation and infinite propaganda, a study that shows that 10% own 93% of the stock market comes out. The same stock market that is used by every mainstream news source as the indicator of whether the economy is doing good or bad for the whole country.

So if 10% are doing good we’re all doing good? No. But every news anchor and every politician in America talks about how good or bad the economy is doing based on how the stock market is doing. So what does it mean if the stock market is doing good, 10% of the population are doing good, the media and politicians all in unison say we are doing good as a whole, but the vast majority are experiencing the toughest times of the past century?

Surviving Comes First Always

Posted: February 5, 2024 in Excess and Algorithms, Stimulus Space Response
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
1

Modern culture, built on a foundation of a capitalist paradigm, is about, more…always. Infinite growth on a planet of finite resources.

Media and entertainment as we know it in any form, was built by, in the service of advertising. What is the purpose of advertising? To inform, persuade, and remind. Information and reminders have long since exited the chat.

Persuasion. Advertising’s purpose is persuasion in the modern world. For each small business, non profit, and NGO one can point to that use advertising for the greater good, there are literally thousands of examples of advertising persuading people that they need more, more, more…always.

More things, more experiences, more goods, more services, more products, more placements, more, more, more…always.

If our eyes or our ears are open there is some entity using some form of media to persuade us that what we have and/or who we are isn’t enough, we need more, more, more…always.

We are expected to do more, be more, buy more, say more. Keeping up with the Jones’ is a full time job that like many real jobs, doesn’t pay enough to stay out of debt.

Being human can be hard enough. Modern life seems to get more and more complex year to year. Sometimes we’re not going to be our best self. That’s not only okay, it’s normal.

Optimal isn’t always optimal regardless of what the caucasian male with a podcast universe would have us believe. Hustle culture creates a thousand burn out victims for every one that achieves a measurable external success by trading away a minimum of two thirds of their life.

We can’t thrive if we don’t survive. Some days just doing enough to survive isn’t just fine or good enough…it’s literally all there is. A dead entity can’t optimize, it can only decay.

Enough is greater than more. Enough is optimal.

Those who always want more will never have enough and will always try to convince those with enough that they need more.

There’s nothing wrong with goals. There’s nothing wrong with growing, evolving, striving or achieving. There is value and maybe even necessity in metaphorically always moving forward and towards.

It is also becoming more and more of a necessity in an optimal obsessed world to remember that we can’t strive if we don’t survive.

Surviving comes first, always.

Accept then Detach from #Thoughts & #Emotions

Posted: February 3, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

It’s already hard to not identify with our emotions, without our culture ruthlessly exploiting our emotions perpetually professionally.

We’re never taught that we are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions. It’s usually the opposite or taught nothing at all. Figure it out as you go. On the job training. Job in this case being…being.

I’ve been meditating for over ten years, I’ve been studying spirituality for longer, journaling longer than that. I’ve been regularly studying stoicism seven years, started studying other philosophies on a regular basis four years ago…and negative emotions can still take me for a ride like a teenager in puberty.

Life may be simple, but easy? I don’t know about that one. The older I get, the more experiences I have, the more people I meet, it seems like living is hard.

If one were to say life is easy, they would at least agree that our emotions don’t add to the simplicity or ease of life. I feel confident in the determination that it is our emotions that are the primary sources of many of the difficulties and complexities of our collective and individual existence.

Are the things that happen to us hard and complex, or is it our emotional reactions that make them so?

Are the events of our life hard and complex, or is it our thoughts that make them so?

Detaching those two questions from spirituality teachers and gurus is worthwhile for all secular types. To be honest, most religious people I know would be wise to ask those questions regularly. I need to ask myself those questions more often, and I already had a couple of instances this week where I was asking myself those questions repeatedly.

Breathing, following the breath with our attention, walking, stretching, laughing can all help detach ourselves from the grip of our thinking mind and emotional reactions.

No one things is gonna make us go from A to Zen as if a magic wand was waved in front of our face.

But awareness is the way out.

It’s not just easy to get lost in our thoughts and emotions, it’s normal…it’s natural.

And if it was normal for us to get lost in productive thought streams and positive emotional reactions, then we’d be living in a utopia…and have you seen the news lately?

Newer Entries