Posts Tagged ‘human nature’

People Get These #Ideas In Their Heads

Posted: January 9, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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People get these ideas in their heads.

People meaning me, meaning us, meaning everyone, ever.

We get these ideas in our head that we need or should or could or will.

Good ideas, bad ideas, neutral ideas, beneficial ideas, detrimental ideas.

We know we can be our own worst enemy. Yet itā€™s solemnly publicly acknowledged outside of college philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology classes.

Self sabotage. I donā€™t have to explain what that is. We all know it through repeated experience. Both in important and irrelevant things that weā€™ve done to ourselves over the course of our lives regardless of age.

I could ask an 18 year old and an 80 year old to tell me a about a time they self sabotaged something that could have been a really good thing in their life, and theyā€™re likely to reply; ā€œyou just want one example?ā€

People get these ideas in their heads.

Out of nowhere. Like a meteor. It strikes and buries itself in the land.

Accepted as fact that itā€™s always been there.

Thatā€™s just the way it is, theyā€™ll say. They being the voice in our head.

Has it always been this way? Have I always lived this way? Is this helping or hurting me? Well itā€™s how Iā€™m living. Itā€™s how Iā€™m thinking. Itā€™s how Iā€™m perceiving. Itā€™s how Iā€™m feeling. Itā€™s how Iā€™m acting.

I wouldnā€™t think, perceive, feel, and act in ways detrimental to my own existence, surviving, or thriving would I?

People get these ideas in their heads.

#Habit Building is About New Not Old

Posted: January 9, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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It feels like Iā€™ve spent my entire adult life trying to improve my habits.

At least the periods of time I care to remember. Which are the periods of time in which I cared to care and tried to try. I also remember many instances of the internal resistance to trying to build new habits being so strong, it felt like a literal force from within my body pushing me the opposite direction.

In 2023 I read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. One of the best books Iā€™ve ever read. I strongly recommend it for a host of reasons. While reading the book and after reading the book, one of the concepts that stuck and that I noticed when consuming other material related to habit formation, is the necessity of focusing on and doing the new thing rather than focusing on not doing the old thing.

That was a light bulb moment for me. Reading about that in the book, I knew both in my heart and in my head that I had spent the majority of time when trying to form new habits on what I didnā€™t want to do versus the new action I wanted to cement.

This concept legitimately helped me and is actively helping me now. You reading this blog is a product of me focusing on writing and publishing my work, rather than focusing on the time spent not writing and fixating on the details of what I want to write through the paradigm of perfectionism.

I like writing. I like blogging. I wanted to write again. I wanted to blog again. I posted an article that I liked one day last year. I just wrote it, revised it, and posted it. Then when I sat down to do the next one, the old habits of focusing on the topic, the title, the body, a catchy opener, and a well wrapped up closing line all creeped into my mind and put a writerā€™s block in front of the habit of blogging.

A couple of months later I read Atomic Habits. After finishing the book I read various articles and watched various YouTube videos on habits. The concept I found myself implementing the most in my day to day life was thinking about the new action, rather than thinking about past actions, past mistakes, past failures, etc.

The value of this concept is directly proportional to the action taken. Itā€™s real value that can be measured externally, based on the real action one takes. Iā€™m very grateful to have this paradigm taking hold in me. I hope it can do the same for whoever reads my words.

Late Stage Theory vs Reality

Posted: January 8, 2024 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional, Excess and Algorithms
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Exploited workers in false class solidarity with the billionaire class, seem to always want to use hypotheticals and theories to justify the poor living conditions of a vast majority of working age human beings.

Just the concept of, ā€œearn a livingā€ is a skewed paradigm of existence in a world with more than enough to go around for all humans to live comfortably.

Being able to live comfortable was the American Dream was it not? Wasnā€™t that the entire concept of the economic middle class?

Itā€™s human nature for people to always want more and for others to always want to do less. Sure, but we default to an economic system of exploitation? Exploitation of ignorance. Exploitation of resources. Exploitation of labor. Exploitation of emotions.

But itā€™s the greatest economic system in history in the greatest country in history says the people currently reaping itā€™s benefits. And their bootlickers who confuse having a comma in their bank account and lots of shiny new adult toys to show off online. Just donā€™t dare ask them about their debt(s).

Quiet & Disidentify From Noise

Posted: January 6, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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For me, itā€™s mental noise I need to quiet. For others, they need to stop talking.

Ram Dass (quoted in the graphic above) was a spiritual teacher, who, I havenā€™t studied a lot of, but whenever Iā€™ve listened to his talks or seen of videos of him speaking, would almost always give me goosebumps at some point. In a positive way of course. His cup runneth over with love and compassion.

Contrast that with the spiritual teacher I have studied the most, Eckhart Tolle. Eckhart rarely gives me goosebumps, but who communicates in a way that connects with me deeply, on whatever subject or subtopic he speaks about. I try to watch one of his videos on YouTube every other day.

Iā€™ve also read both The Power of Now and A New Earth which I whole heartedly recommend. Theyā€™re very long and dense, so going with the audiobook version is probably the most pragmatic way to go. Iā€™ve done a read through and a listen through of each.

As Iā€™ve gotten older, Iā€™ve become more quiet. Iā€™m sure I talked more and was louder and more obnoxious in the my past than my ego and memory will allow me to believe. But I am now, and for a decent number of years have been a more quiet than talkative person. I recommend it. A great quote that I find evergreen and true is; ā€œthe loudest one in the room, is the weakest one in the roomā€.

At times Iā€™m too quiet for my own good. But I find that to be a better way than the alternative. Especially in a culture where more and more people not only think what they have to say is valuable, but worthy of immediate and constant broadcast.

As Iā€™ve gotten older, my mind has not followed my mouth in becoming more quiet. Iā€™ve been meditating for around fifteen years now. On and off. The relative consistency to habitual consistency kicked in ten years ago. Meditation is one of the only things I recommend to all human beings without exception.

The practice of meditation has quieted my mind more than it was before I started the practice. Like anything else it is not a one time, cure-all, magic bullet. Hence why it is called a meditation practice. But it does help me. Thereā€™s more and more science showing how it tangibly helps people.

The greatest gift meditation has given me up to his point, is to help me quiet my mind and to disidentify from my thoughts. Individual thoughts, thought streams, mental movies, the voice in the head. Meditation has helped me to reduce their influence, their frequency, and to stop confusing those things with who I am.

So there is less mental noise. So I can hear more. So I can learn more. So I can do more. I donā€™t know about you, but I have a lot to learn and a lot to do that will help me live my life the way I know I want to. So every little bit helps.

Radical Acceptance of #HumanNature

Posted: January 1, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Judging seems to be a default setting in humans.

Itā€™s not just easy, itā€™s as natural and normal as breathing.

I know I have been guilty of judging others negatively, but what I was actually doing was projecting negative thoughts about my own flaws onto them. And Iā€™m not accessing my long term memory when I think of examples of this.

Iā€™m not sure if becoming more accepting of human nature comes with age or with experience. I just know that as Iā€™ve gotten older, and had more experience interacting with more and more people, I am (slowly) becoming more accepting of the fact that to be human is to be irrational.

I think that if we all take a minute to look back on some of our decisions in just our recent past, weā€™ll find the actions of an irrational person.

Studying philosophy has helped me with this. Reading books by Robert Greene has specifically helped me with this a lot in recent years.

To accept our human nature, is to be forgiving, to have empathy.

We need more of a lot of things in this world, but empathy, that is something that a majority of us can agree upon. Something free, simple, within all of our ability to control and influence.

Having more compassion for myself and empathy for others is an evergreen new years resolution for me. Being more aware and accepting of the irrationality of human nature has helped provide fuel for my ability to empathize to grow.

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