Control, Concern & #Choice

Posted: February 24, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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I found it to be a tangible sign of progression on my path that I stopped be as internally triggered by external reality not matching up with what I wanted, expected or hoped for.

Have a achieved zen? HA! We all need goals to chase.

Maybe itā€™s just part of growing older and accumulating more life experience that teaches us, whether we like it or not, that external reality is going to do what external reality is going to do and the best we can do is attempt to influence it then completely let go/detach from there.

I have gotten better at that.

There is a balance there too.

One can give up altogether. Stop trying.

Giving up control is good. Giving up altogether is bad.

Identifying what is in our control and what is not is a pillar of stoicism. It is one of the things that initially drew me to the ancient philosophy that has helped so many people for so many thousands of years.

I remember in the depths of my depression turning to personal development/self help books. In my case, audiobooks. My education in America taught me to hate learning. I hated reading. I would learn to unlearn to paradigm of hating learning, slowly, over time. Renting audiobooks from my local library was a big step in that direction.

One of the first authors that drew my attention was the late great Stephen Covey and his iconic book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. A book I recommend to everyone that is capable of reading or listening to audiobooks.

More than his book were his speeches and interviews. Regardless of the material he preached, he had an amazing voice and a magnetic presence.

In his book and his talks he talked about two circles. The Circle of Control and the Circle of Concern. As one might guess, the circle of control is very small and the circle of concern is very big. Yet the attention we pay to each is often inversely proportional. I know it was for me when I first learned about the terms. I know that learning about those terms or any terms is in no way a cure all.

So it still takes constant effort over a decade and a half after first learning about what I have direct control over and what I have no control over. Iā€™ve studied stoicism through reading, listening to podcast, and watching videos for almost a decade now. No one thing magically makes my shortcomings or predispositions disappear.

But I am as grateful or more grateful for the progress Iā€™ve made in this area of my life than anything that has ever happened to me or anything I have ever done. Because putting my focus, energy, and effort towards things outside of my control has been a source of tremendous suffering for me. Life experience has shown me it is a great source of suffering for many if not most of the people I have ever met.

Meditation, stoicism, journaling, theanine, ashwaghanda have all helped me calm my mind, slow my thought streams down at least enough to realize I am in the witness and not a passenger.

Things happen.

I can choose to put my focus, energy, and effort into accomplishing a goal regardless of size or scope and then when I have done all that I am capable of doing to the best of my ability at that timeā€¦I can choose to let go and then I can choose to accept what is.

It is as it isā€¦

Let #Laughter be thy Medicine, Medicine thy Laughter

Posted: February 24, 2024 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional, Stimulus Space Response
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Laughter is good for the soul.

Genuine, deep, belly laughter is the way to inner peace.

Not nervous laughter or polite laughter or doing the physical, literal equivalent of typing lol at the end of every line of a text message or DM.

Laughter that makes your whole body moveā€¦thats the good stuff.

ā€œa merry heart really does a spirit, soul and body good like medicineā€ Proverbs 17:22

Itā€™s easy to forget how good laughter is for us. So easy, itā€™s natural.

During bouts of depression or even just a string of bad days, when something struck my funny bone it was like the parting of the Red Sea.

Living life makes us forget, laughter helps us to remember.

Real laughter has aftershocks like an earthquake.

Our breathing changes, our muscles tense then relax, we feel aligned and at peace. A temporary state of ecstasy we wish we could bottle and take on demand.

Real laughter bonds and creates memories with people and events.

It feels great, itā€™s spontaneous, unpredictable, unreproducible as much as we may want and may try. We try to replicate the experience early and often. But itā€™s different each time, a little less than the real thing.

We all wish we could capture it, bottle it, put it in a pill, pump it to our veins.

Laughter is pure. Itā€™s a reflex. Itā€™s involuntary.

It feels greatā€¦just lovely.

I just had a belly laugh that inspired me to write. I saw a clip online from something I used to watch as a kid. I laughed so hard if someone was walking on the sidewalk outside Iā€™d be surprised if they couldnā€™t hear me.

I laughed so hard I started swearing for no reason.

I laughed so hard that a half hour later my body still felt different.

What a wonderful part of life. What a piece of simple, practical magic.

Let laughter be thy medicine, medicine thy laughter.

#Awareness of What We Do & Donā€™t Control

Posted: February 17, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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It can be hard to focus on what we can control or influence when we have a harder time distinguishing between the two. Generations raised on movies, television, and social media have been socially conditioned to have egos the size of the Grand Canyon.

It often takes some negative external event to pop or at least penetrate the illusion that we are the center of the universe, we are the main character surrounded by NPCs, and/or we canā€™t always get what we want, when we want it, how we want it.

ā€œThe world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those who will not break it kills.ā€ Ernest Hemingway – A Farewell to Arms

I know for me it is a regular battle of focusing on things I have no control over whatsoever, realizing it, and changing my focus to something more productive or beneficial. But nothing in life of substance is a one and done. No magic pills to take or magic wands to wave.

Itā€™s human nature to focus on things outside of our immediate control in order to survive. What is going on in our environment around us is outside of our control. But how we maneuver within it to live to fight another day, is in our control. So we evolved with an outward focus rather than an inward focus.

So we constantly have to fight ourselves to prioritize what is pragmatic.

So much suffering comes from time and attention that turns into emotion spent on things completely outside of our control.

Equally or perhaps more frustrating for me has been the knowledge of this and still failing to execute properly. Identifying what is within my control, focusing on it, and still failing to take right action.

Awareness is the way out, but it still takes action to get there.

Recognizing and placing proportional value on what we directly have control over is necessary for peace of mind and quality of life.

Taking appropriate action consistently, habitually, that is a whole other ball of wax. But one can spend a lifetime chasing their own tail without the awareness of the difference between what we control and what we donā€™t.

One must take the time to genuinely think and write about this. I feel like with this issue deep thought and mediation are not enough. Our thoughts on this must be transcribed somehow to make a good faith attempt at attain wisdom here.

Luckily, choosing to make time, think deeply, meditate, write/journal, and reflection are all things we can control.

One thing at a time.

One choice at a time.

I think there is value there.

50% Under 30 Living at Home in #America

Posted: February 17, 2024 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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Is there a difference between societal norms and cultural norms?

Have either of those changed in the past generation (20 years)?

How about the past half century?

Living at home with oneā€™s parents into adulthood used to be akin to the scarlet letter. At least for men. A forehead tattoo with a capital L for the child, and there parents.

Go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, retire, dieā€¦

Millennials and Gen Z went to school, more than any other generation in history. Millennials and Gen Z got jobs. Yet more of us are living at home with our parents than ever before.

Nearly half of adults under 30? Thatā€™s a lot of lazy freeloaders. Or is it something else?

Are the most educated generations of men and women in history failing the system or is the system failing them? Are they failing society or is society failing them? Are they failing culture or is culture failing them?

Wages hadnā€™t kept up with productivity for half a century before the pandemic and the historic aftershocks of inflation. How many mind fucks can developing brains take before theyā€™re permanently fried?

Both my parents are dead, so Iā€™m happy to hear so many people 18-29 have living parents that they can live with. But I have a feeling they would rather leave the nest if they didnā€™t have to choose between rent and eating.

An upside to living at home is that it gives more time for organizing.

The empirical data on this issue seems to keep moving in one direction. Capitalist bootlickers will gaslight and deny saying that unemployment and the stock market are doing better than ever. As if either of those things has anything to do with suffering and quality of life for actual human beings.

Every year, every election cycle, every generation the rank and file seem to be asked to take less, do more, have less, save more, enjoy less, suffer more, think less, feel less, be less so that those with the most can have that much more.

Is this sustainable? Is this ethical? Is this tolerable? Is this how itā€™s always been? Is this how it will always be?

Perceived Momentum Solidifies #Habits

Posted: February 13, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Iā€™ve been a premium subscriber to Lumosity (brain games app) on and off for a decade now. I find it helpful. The older I get the more I realize my brain can use all the help it can get. Real, imagined, or placebo I donā€™t care. Donā€™t tell me about the labor pains just show me the baby.

I would use it reasonably consistently here and there then drop off. I would subscribe to the premium version when there was a sale on Cyber Monday or on New Yearā€™s Day something like that. Iā€™d start and stop and start and stop. Iā€™d unsubscribe and resubscribe. Does this cycle sound familiar or relatable?

I never confused it as a magic pill for a bulletproof brain. I just knew myself enough to know that Iā€™ve done enough detrimental work on my brain that a brain training app could at least serve as a beneficial use of time.

It has helped me at least a little. But what made it finally stick, just in the last year, was when I dropped the expectation of it helping my brain and doubled down on it helping me structure my time/daily schedule.

I realized that the value of just going through the motions, even half heartedly, provided as much value to me as putting full effort into using the app. How? Consistency.

I found that for me, the consistency of using the app everyday, without exception, even if I picked the quickest, easiest games, without enthusiasm or even a quarter of my concentration, did more for me that applying myself fully to the game once or twice a week and then forgetting about it for stretches of time.

As I did that more and more, and built up more and more streaks, a funny thing happenedā€¦my scores in all the games went up. I set my personal best records in all the games I played consistently. How? Consistency. I didnā€™t half ass it every time I opened the app.

But I did some of the times. When I was busy, feeling burned out, hungover, melancholy, distracted, multitasking, etc I still would take the time each day to open the app, and play the five games required to warrant completion and a little graphic at the end showing how many days I had completed my brain training consecutively.

There were however plenty of times where I was motivated, concentrated, caffeinated, enthusiastic and excited to play the games and try to beat my previous best score, to make up for a poor performance from yesterday and/or because I felt training extra memory or attention games would help me at an upcoming event.

This isnā€™t a paid ad for Lumosity (I wish) because itā€™s not about the particulate itā€™s about the general. Itā€™s about doing the thing consistently. Itā€™s about doing it every day, even half assed. Because if we do something everyday, half heartedness is inevitable but so is doing our best and so is doing better than we perceive we are capable of.

How?

Consistency.

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