Posts Tagged ‘human nature’

Know Thyself

Posted: April 10, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Who am I?

A great question to ask oneself every day.

Who am I?

A meditation session prompt.

Who am I?

A spiritual practice in and of itself.

Who am I?

To be asked out loud and inside one’s head.

Who am I?

A name, a body, a gender, an ethnicity, an age, a job, a hobby, an economic class, a caste, a consumer, a thought, an emotion…

Who am I?

My thoughts, my opinions, my pop culture tastes, my bank account, my family name, my emotions, my judgements, my clothes, my car, my clout…

Who am I?

A question that seems so simple and easy. But when you take away all the basic, shallow, material answers, what is left?

Is it like asking the question where do thoughts come from? Where do dreams come from? Why do I breathe and blink automatically? What happens when we die? What will my next thought be?

Is it like one of those questions? Cause the answer isn’t one’s name, job, height, weight, or what we do for fun.

Who am I?

I found looking into that question, seeking the answer, to be as worthwhile of an undertaking as any I have ever engaged in. Finding answers from people like Alan Watts, Ram Dass and Eckhart Tolle brought something into my life that I desperately needed and feel most people are in desperate need of.

Like taking off soaking wet clothes after coming inside from a rain storm.

Who am I?

Oh, I’m not the constant streams of thoughts and emotions? I’m not how much value I can create in the capitalist system? I’m not the voice in my head? I’m not my memories? I’m not my successes? I’m not my future projections? I’m not my failures? What a relief.

Who am I?

I could not have hoped for fulfillment or contentment beyond a sugar high if I hadn’t learned the answer to that question. Maybe that’s when I first started living. I know that I am grateful to have the answer. No magic pill. No cure all. But without it I was truly lost. A slave to my moods and to things outside of my ability to control or influence.

Who am I?

Minimizing Mental Disconnects

Posted: April 9, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Common sense isn’t so common.

There is no universal experience after all. Every human being who has ever lived and will ever live will experience the world differently.

So how can there be common sense?

What is common to one is radical to another.

In myself and others I notice gaps between perception and reality when it comes to simple everyday type things. Not the big stuff. Not the metaphorical stuff. Not the complex stuff.

We all have mental disconnects. We forget. Our judgement lapses. We miscalculate.We overextend. We underestimate.

Mental disconnects, I know I’ve had plenty. Just yesterday I thought I was really firing on all cylinders. It wasn’t until midway through today that I realized I forgot to do two of the most important tasks I had planned for the day before.

I didn’t think about them at all. I had them noted. I knew I had to do them. Yet the thought to do two separate, planned tasks, escaped me for a day and a half. Yikes.

Mental disconnects. That’s the term I’m using for them.

Trying to minimize them comes more and more into focus as the years go on for me. I guess it can fall into the same category as trying to minimize mistakes.

I suppose one could put mental disconnects in the same category as self sabotage. Another interesting concept many people try not to think about. I know I’ve dealt with self sabotage, and not just in the distant past either.

Those seemingly innocuous concepts that also double as dirty words because of what they imply about humans and the human condition. Those things fascinate me. Because we are not perfect. I know I’m not.

Mental disconnects cause trouble and setbacks and problems. Not individually big, but they can compound. Trying to minimize mental disconnects is the work of a lifetime. A way to give meaning to the seemingly meaningless.

Is it a simple error in judgement? Or is it a mental disconnect that implies self sabotage? The quest for self improvement and personal development isn’t a quick, easy or simple one. If it was, the world would be an unrecognizable utopia of billions of people being the best version of themselves.

I know when I figure out a mental disconnect that has caused me trouble I feel accomplished. I feel I’ve done something worth while. Like fixing a leak or changing out a flat tire.

I feel that if I can figure out some of the smaller ones, eventually I’ll get to the bigger ones. You know, the life changing type things. Life is a serious of small steps and little things strung together and compounded over time. If I figure out the little things that go wrong, maybe that will lead to large scale solutions.

Maybe, possibly, but a worthwhile endeavor.

There’s work to be done, miles to go, but worth the trip.

Our Journey Doesn’t End Until We’re Gone

Posted: April 8, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Time only moves one way.

Whether it’s a construct or not. The sun rises and sets each day. The planet keeps rotating. We keep living until we don’t. Change is the only constant.

There is no arriving. There is no way to freeze time. All we can do is be fully in the moment. To breathe it all in. Take it all in. Commit the moment(s) to memory as best we can.

Then the next moment comes.

And the next one.

And the next one.

And the next one.

Time only moves one way.

We keep living, until we don’t.

What we think, what we feel, what we do doesn’t make time speed up or slow down. The moments don’t stop coming because we’re in a bad mood or having the best day ever.

There is no reset button.

Time only moves one way.

Stoic philosophy has taught me that people have been living as if they were going to live forever, for as long as there has been civilized society. Our survival instincts are swapped out for cruise control.

We’re all guilty of this. Seize the day is a ticket to hedonism. Denial of our death is equally irresponsible. I know when I look back on my life, I see large swaths of wasted time.

I’ve almost died twice. Yet within months of those incidents, I was certainly back to wasting time as if I had an infinite source of it.

When I look back at some of the memorable moments of my life. Whether it be accomplishment or failure, those events are followed by lots of wasted time. What is wasted time? Well, we all have to define that for ourselves based on our values.

Moments of failure were followed by periods of morning. Moments of accomplishment were followed by periods of celebration. It was as if I thought time paused until I was ready to do the next thing, to start the next journey.

But life is the journey. From the moment we are born until the moment we die we are on a journey. It doesn’t stop while we sleep. It doesn’t stop while we eat. It doesn’t stop while we use the bathroom. It doesn’t stop while we commute. It doesn’t stop while we’re doing chores. It doesn’t stop while we’re doing busy work. It doesn’t stop while we’re intoxicated. It doesn’t stop while we’re sick.

Life doesn’t stop, the journey doesn’t end, until we’re gone.

I found stoic philosophy after my first parent died. I embraced stoic philosophy and my meditation practice both that much more when my second parent died.

Keeping death in mind is no magic pill or cure all that makes us live our best lives an ever increasing better version of ourselves, but it does help with perspective. I know my life was lacking in perspective for a long time.

Pairing perspective with perseverance is a good one two punch for knocking me back on my path when I veer off course. Both perspective and perseverance are helpful, pragmatic concepts to utilize on a journey.

And we are on a journey. Life is a journey and it doesn’t end, until we’re gone.

Being Aware of Being Swept Away

Posted: March 26, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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It is not just easy, but normal and natural to get caught up in our thoughts and emotions. We don’t even notice that we’re swept up in them until time has passed and we’re in the same physical position for x amount of time.

I think this is why doom scrolling became engrained in the culture and human nature so fast. Scrolling through social media is the external manifestation of our internal scrolling through thoughts, emotions, memories, and projections.

Awareness kicks in eventually for most people. Often times after an amount of time passes that we’re ashamed to admit to ourselves or to anyone else.

“I was spacing out for how long?!” “I was scrolling through Instagram for how long?!” Two sides of the same coin.

Awareness is the way out. But like everything else, it must be cultivated. Cultivated through repetition. Practice makes progress. There is no progress without repeated action consistently, persistently. Easier said than done, just like everything else in life.

Meditation has helped me to cultivate my self awareness. Journaling has also helped me to cultivate awareness, as long as I occasionally review past journal entries so I may become aware of potential patterns of detrimental thought, emotion, and/or action.

Any journaling is better than no journaling. We have too many thoughts in our head to not take some time, some of the time, to just vomit them onto paper with a pen or pencil.

Any meditation practice is better than no meditation practice. We are too scattered brained to not take some time, some of the time to find stillness, focus on our breath, and attempt to bring inner state into alignment with the present moment.

Both journaling and meditation are put to better use for us when they are done purposefully. Mindless writing with no review can be called journaling. Sitting with our eyes closed, with new age music playing in the background, while we think aimlessly could be called meditation.

To cultivate our awareness, so we can break the cycles of getting swept away by detrimental thoughts and emotions; journaling with review of past journal entries, like extended breath focused meditation sessions with a mantra; are more useful tools to bring about the results we are looking for when engaging in self improvement practices.

Neither of which are one and done magic pills. No such thing. I still find myself getting swept up in thoughts and social media scrolling. Just five minutes before I started writing this essay I found myself standing next to my workstation, scrolling on my phone, unable to remember why I even picked my device up.

I do know I caught myself quicker than I used to. I know I get sucked into salacious social media content less often.

I know I still space out and get caught in streams of past memories and future projections. I also know I do so less often and for smaller periods of time than I used to. Even compared to this time last year or this time last month.

Little by little. One day at a time. One step at a time. One choice at a time. One action at a time.

Awareness is the way out.

Practice Makes Progress.

More Literal & Metaphorical #WeightTraining Please

Posted: March 26, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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I love weight training. It is one of three things I recommend to every human being. It is one of the things I love that is actually good for me.

Weight training has positively impacted my life as much or more than any other external concept I’ve encountered while I’ve been alive. I’ve been regularly weight training for two thirds of my life now.

I don’t plan on stopping. All physical exercise is a marathon, not a sprint. Weight training is not something one does for a season, it is something one does for life.

Every year that goes by more and more scientific studies come out showing greater and greater benefits of weight training. Broader benefits and deeper benefits. Physical benefits, mental benefits and social/emotional benefits. Benefits for children and benefits for the elderly. Benefits for living longer and benefits for living a higher quality of life.

There has been and will continue to be resistance to weight training because of it being intertwined with bodybuilding. Male bodybuilders are to weight training as female instagram influencers are to yoga pants. They go hand in hand but only represent the egomaniacal extremes of the user base.

Most people want to exercise and benefit from weight training for practical health benefits. Not because they are seeking external validation from strangers via their smartphone to compensate for an internal lack.

For every fitness influencer covered in athleisure shape ware from head to toe while they photoshop their selfies, there are 10,000 people who would benefit from going to their local gym, a few times per week, to see and feel tangible physical benefits of exercise, surprisingly quickly.

Warm up, lift some weights that challenge their effort and comfort level, do some cardio, stretch, cool down, go home, shower, and eat. Anything beyond that moves into intermediate and beyond which one can find infinite information on in the growing podcast and youtube fitness video sphere.

Weight training helped me in the deepest, darkest times in my life. From depression, to burn out, to grieving the deaths of both of my parents. It helped me to feel good, feel challenged, feel accomplished, feel pride, feel growth. I wish that for every person I meet which is why I recommend it to everyone regardless of demographic or type.

Weight training also makes for great analogies and metaphors. Meditation, another thing I universally recommend, has been called doing bicep curls for the brain. Seeking general challenges and discomfort has been called weight training for life.

More weight training for all and more weight training metaphors please.

Notice how I am yet to bring up aesthetics. Except to poke at the social media narcissists who use perceived visual fitness achievement as a fix for their addiction to attention. Aesthetics is a by product of weight training and exercise in general.

Exercising for aesthetics can be a path the dark side of the fitness world. See fit fluencers and steroid abusers. People who are chemically and surgically enhanced, making a living, by living and lie. Lying to anyone and everyone, including themselves, that their aesthetics can be achieved with discipline, consistency, and whatever products they are selling.

I’ve had multiple IFBB pros tell me when it comes to who is on gear/has had cosmetic surgery vs naturals; muscle mass volume to body fat percentage never lies, ever.

So use common sense, although I’m not so sure how common that is anymore.

But common sense would dictate all humans engage in some form of physical exercise unless they spend their days engaging in physical labor for the job/career.

Use it or lose it. That applies to your body and your mind. Physical and mental ailments and deterioration are often brought about by physical and mental inactivity. The happiest and most spry elderly are the most active. The saddest and slowest youths are the most sedentary. Use it or lost it.

More weight training for all and more weight training metaphors please.

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