Posts Tagged ‘this happened to me’

Busyness ∞ Escapism is a Trap

Posted: June 5, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Busyness to escapism is a vicious circle and a trap. 

Either can be confused with purpose which is dangerous. Put together, they’re deadly for one’s spirit and steroids for one’s ego. 

Busyness is not productivity or discipline it is avoidance and anxiety put into physical action. Keep busy to avoid _______________.

Stay busy long enough and you need an escape. A treat. A vacation. Some me time. Some self-care. Candy, carbs, social media scrolling, video games, sex, drugs, binge-watching, a drink, a smoke, a weekend getaway, and so on. It’s all the same. 

I’m burned out from being busy but I still need to avoid __________________ so I need to take/do my favorite ____________ so I can feel ______________.

 

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal

A meditation and journaling practice are the simple answers here. Getting one’s thoughts out of their head by writing them onto paper, helps to clear the mind for a meditation practice to help detach and observe one’s thoughts mindfully while focusing on an anchor like one’s breath or body. 

But life isn’t simple and people aren’t simple. From a detached, safe, secure, bird’s eye view things may seem simple and easy. But life is not lived from a Goodyear blimp angle looking down. We’re in the trenches daily, minute to minute, breath to breath, trying to do our best with what we have. 

To stay busy long enough to earn an escape via entertainment is what many in first-world, capitalist-controlled countries, are incessantly conditioned to believe is what makes for a good life. Carrot and stick. Cheese in the maze. Do your job, earn your treat. Create shareholder value, have a pizza party.

However mental health is declining exponentially with every passing generation. Depression, burnout, and loneliness increased as consistently as the US Stock Market over the past century. Much like economics in America, a small percentage are doing very well while the vast majority suffer due to systemic failure. 

Therefore things like meditation, journaling, yoga, philosophy study, heavy weight training, nature bathing, cold exposure, deep breathing exercises, light therapies, legalized cannabis and hallucinogens, etc. all exponentially move from the fringe to the mainstream with every passing generation. Why? To counteract the systemic failures forced upon them, by the prior generations that seem to become exponentially more; fearful, greedy, and angry with each modicum of increased control and longevity they gain.

What do all the listed above, formerly; fringe, new-age, woo-woo, alternative, holistic, organic, practices have in common? They get a person present, focused, out of their head and into the present moment. Out of the delusion of the undue stress modernity thrusts upon them ad infinitum and into their physical bodies while detaching from their mind activity. They cultivate mental-emotional space, which can help put one in a space of non-doing and non-attachment. 

Cultivating that inner space, between stimulus and response, is how we break the vicious circle of busyness to escapism. Many great philosophers and spiritual teachers of the past and present have talked about this. Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Wim Hof, Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday, Mark Manson, etc. 

Breaking that cycle, getting out of or avoiding that trap; is how one builds, one conscious choice at a time, a purpose-driven life. And a purpose-driven life doesn’t mean one tries to save the world or become a monk living on a mountain, or a motivational speaker. It simply means you live your life for you on your terms.

You have the space to get to know yourself, deeply and fully. You can determine your actual values, your actual morals, your actual wants, and your actual needs rather than the ones externally assigned and forced upon you. Then you assemble your ideal life step by step, action by action, choice by choice, day by day. Then, the real work of living begins. 

Experience Has No Substitute

Posted: June 3, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Inaction is the norm in the first world. It’s hardwired into us since we no longer have to be hunter-gatherers but still have the brains of hunter-gatherers.

Back seat drivers, armchair quarterbacks, and hindsight critics abound.

Paralysis of analysis, has become the new gold standard of inaction origin, in the so called information age. I know I had a detrimental perception of action, doing the work, and getting the reps in on actions, abilities, and ways of life I was passionate about for a long time.

Resistance, as the great author Steven Pressfield puts it, is in all of us. We all have our own unique form of resistance that stops us from self actualizing. The most common terms for resistance are laziness and procrastination.

Laziness and procrastination are as easy as they are deadly. Deadly for our spirit, psyche, and self esteem. They feel so right in the moment of choice. It’s the devil we know. The warm blanket of certainty. What we think we want as long as we’re warm, fed, and dry.

Yet to lack experience is to not know what one wants. We don’t know because we haven’t done.

There is no substitute for experience. First new experiences to find who we really are and what we really like, for ourselves. Not what we inherited or were told or had forced upon us. Then we need repeated experience. We need to get our reps in to gain proficiency and hopefully maybe one day mastery.

Competence breeds confidence.

Action begets more action. Inaction begets more inaction. Inertia.

Fear of failure likes to crash the party when planning and early action gets put into place. Fear of failure is let in by the ego. Again, it’s natural, it’s normal.

“You mean I can try and not only fail but also might find out not only am I not great but that I’m not special?!”

That’s right. Taking right action is only the minimum. It’s the cover charge. Action doesn’t guarantee one’s desired outcome. Taking action guarantees a result. The result could potentially shatter our self perception.

Self perception is often, to put mildly, a delusion. Having the idea of who we think we are popped like a bubble is often what we fear more than external failure. It’s the internal perception atomic bomb that we want to avoid most. And with good reason. We aren’t taught how to handle ego death. In fact culture and society pushes us in the other direction. The more ego the better. Bigger ego = better person.

Better to keep lying to ourselves on the sidelines than face the truth in the arena.

Failing is hard, I know from vast experience. Being forced to see and admit one isn’t as good or as special as one hoped or assumed we were, that’s harder. A lot harder. I know that from experience as well.

Sometimes our mental/emotional cuts callous and we’re tougher, but sometimes they remain open wounds. Life can be hard and complex as it is. Going through life, accumulating more metaphorical open wounds, can make living much harder.

So it’s normal and natural to not even try and invest deeper into the stories in our heads. Double down on identifying with our life situation, our thought streams, our mental movies, our emotional narratives. I understand that. I spent, oh, probably the majority of my life in that space.

It’s still day to day, what isn’t? I know I had to live that way, and experience that way of living to know that that way of living isn’t experience and is no way of living at all.

I would never want to consciously go back there. Yet I’ll wake up in the middle of a day and realize I slipped into unconscious, detrimental habits and have been living on the sidelines instead of the arena for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months…

It’s day to day, action to action, choice to choice… what isn’t?

I’m finding as I get older that the fulfillment, contentment, and satisfaction of effort and action are far greater than the pleasure of passive consumption. Rest, relaxation, and escapism are not to be confused with purpose, but it’s easy to get them mixed up.

Inertia.

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.

Changes Are Horizons

Posted: April 6, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Does any concept lend itself better to metaphor than change?

Perhaps only life and death.

Change is hard. You know this. I know this. Podcasters and self help gurus who try to convince us otherwise know this.

You know how we know change is hard? Because if it was easy, then we would all change for the better, for individual then mutual benefit, and we would be living in a literal utopia.

Change is hard, that is why it lends itself so well to metaphor.

Change involves metaphor as much as the literal.

We have to change in immaterial ways before we can change in material ways. We have to change our minds before we can change anything. Is changing our mind a literal thing or a metaphorical thing?

What is our mind? Where do our thoughts come from and where do they go?

Changing our mind means expanding our horizon(s). To push up against the limit of our perception and to then go far enough to reach the unknown and to become familiar with it.

When we reach the new horizon, what next? What’s left? What to do?

If change were easy we would know what to do, how to do it, how to habitualize it, and take inspired action by default. But change is not easy. Change may not be complex, but simple and easy are not same just as there is difference between what is difficult and what is complicated.

Does one have to go all in on change? Is incremental change a thing? Do we dip our toes in the water first or do we cannonball in and submerge ourselves in the cold plunge of the new and unknown?

Habits of thought, perception, emotion, and action would indicate that we have to change incrementally. In the never ending story of trying to replace detrimental habits with beneficial ones, we can reach a point of whatever it takes and whatever works.

Change is hard. Knowing what to do and doing it. Being socially conditioned into thinking that doing something once equates to permanent success and happiness certainly doesn’t help for those of us raised by movies and television.

Is taking a break the same as giving up? Are rest days necessary or are they for the weak? What does alpha even mean anyway?

I remember when finding information required effort. Then the information was easily accessible. Now it’s hard to find again because we have to sift through the misinformation, native ads, digital clutter, and distractions. That’s if we decide to try and change and seek out knowledge to help us.

Meditation and philosophy help me declutter my mind and emotions. They help me to focus my actions in at least a generally beneficial direction. They provide a spring board and rest stop for me when I decide to try.

Aging has taught me that time keeps going and the world keeps moving. That combination has given me some awareness and equanimity, two concepts that at least create a solid foundation for change.

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