ENERGY LEVELS

November 29th, 2018

Who are you when you are tired?

Who are you when you are exhausted?

Who are you when you’ve finished hiking for 12 hours?

Who are you after a cup of coffee?

Who are you in the morning after a heavy night of drinking?

Who are you after 5 successive days of abundant sleep, consistent exercise, and healthy food?

All these situations evoke different personalities from us.  Though we seem to be the same person - the same body walking around and being subjected to these things, the state of consciousness and the probability that we will treat others well varies drastically depending on the situation.

That last one sounds great.  5 successive days of abundant sleep, exercise and healthy food.  But what percentage of people that we encounter during the day even come close to this kind of regiment?  It’s quite possible the answer is none.

Most of us have fallen victim to habits formed from trying to patch up these losses in energy.  We drink loads of caffeine in the morning and then throughout the day, being totally oblivious to the fact that caffeine has a 12 hour half life.  Meaning if you have a cup of coffee at 3pm, then half of the caffeine in that cup will still be working it’s magic at 3am.  No wonder sleep wasn’t all that restful and when the next morning comes, more coffee seems to be the answer, when in reality it added to the problem.

These simple mistakes that snowball into habitual behaviors have a strong influence on who we are.  Regardless of the debate surrounding free will, few people would argue that it’s simply easier to be a nicer version of ourselves when we’re well rested, and that the probability of saying something regretful when exhausted is quite a bit higher in comparison.  While it is possible to make a better mindful choice when our past self has conspired to make things difficult for us by being stingy with all the things that give us energy, it’s silly not to try and make the better choice a bit easier.

Strangely, the path to reversing such bad habitual behaviors is not easy.  It’s a paradox that getting to a better energy level where things feel easier begins with decisions and behavior that is so difficult.

But this paradox presents a kind of compass.  Whatever we are afraid to give up, whatever we are too lazy to do, whatever we crave…  All of these things point us in certain directions and the paradox is realizing that we should march in the opposite direction to many of these urges. 

RACING, SCULPTING

November 28th, 2018

The lens through which we view things can drastically impede our abilities.  For example, a project that we might undertake, such as starting a business, can be forever postponed if we look at it as a sort of race that requires a perfect start.  The outcomes of races generally have a high correlation with how they begin, and so we might hesitate forever with our first step regarding a project because we are trying to imagine the perfect step.

Such projects, however, are more like sculptures.  There is no time limit, though limiting time is often very good for progress and productivity.  More importantly, making a sculpture is not a race.  Pieces can be torn off of a sculpture and refashioned in a way that we cannot go back to a certain part of a race and rerace it. 

This second part about doing one part of a race over is innate to the perspective of perceiving a potential project like a race.  The fear of making that mistake before even starting is not properly picked apart.  Whereas, the sculptor looking at a mound of clay naturally has an inverse perspective:  Whatever progress or mistake is made doesn’t matter, it’s all clay anyway and it can be infinitely molded, until it’s just right.

Lack of motivation is almost always the absence of a good question.

Questions are catalysts that can radically alter the lens through which we look at the world.  Something as simple as: am I looking at this potential project like a race or like a sculpture has the potential to instantly ease the mind of fears that stagnate progress or initiation. 

We’re often compelled to collect quotes and jokes, but we may be better served to collect questions and form a kind of filter with that collection so that when we find ourselves stagnating, hesitating or fearful, we can run the situation through this filter of questions to jostle our perspective of the situation and see if something new reveals itself.

We’re best off to simply start:  what questions are you asking yourself these days?

SECOND SHOT

November 27th, 2018

“Sorry, couldn’t hear you.  What did you say?”

Upon hearing this, how many times do we say something different than what came out the first time?

The chance occurrence of our sound vibrations failing to zip across space and light up another person’s brain in just the right way offers a common and unusually ripe situation which elicits a rare case when we are impelled to pause and think for just a moment longer about how we want to impact our surroundings and the people we wish to connect with.

Normally we don’t feel the urge to slow down and think carefully before saying something.  We just say it.  But just like the phenomenon of walking away from some discussion or altercation and only later thinking of the brilliant thing that we could have said, this circumstance gives us a similar perspective.  Our lack of impulse to pause before speaking, and our obsession with rethinking what we’ve said after the fact clearly indicates that we usually only have an opinion about what we say after it’s been said.  It’s almost as though what we hear ourselves say is a bit of a surprise.  A surprise that is often underwhelming and seems somewhat disconnected from what we originally felt we were thinking.

What can we infer from this about all future things we will say?  Chances are good we’ll wish we’d considered our words just a little bit longer before speaking (or tweeting).

It may seem ridiculous to screen every word before utterance, but this would not be the remedy.  A brain practiced in mindfulness develops an ability to notice thoughts as they happen.  It’s almost as though there is a second mind, or second sight on what happens in real time.  With steady practice, this makes our words feel like a second shot instead of the trigger-happy first.

Mindfulness is merely a different relationship to thoughts and anything that arises in consciousness.

To put this into perspective, we can couch the matter in a more approachable question:

Would you like it if all of your relationships with family, friends and strangers were better than they currently are?

Only the deluded narcissist would say ‘no’.

Can you imagine any benefit to having a better relationship with your own thoughts and feelings?

Like most anything, how can we expect progress without a dedicated, consistent focus towards that end? 

Just as consistent discussions around the dinner table improve our family relationships, and bonfire talks strengthen friendships, meditation is an example of that time needed to improve our relationship to our own thoughts and feelings.

Time spent with a loved one helps our ability to notice their hopes, their needs, and the ways which we might add to their life.  Time spent in concentrated effort with our thoughts and feelings, likewise helps us notice their flow, course and aim.  Developing this ability to consistently and potentially constantly notice such internal workings enables us to guide them, change them, or downright leave them be.  Such mindfulness does not erase the ability to feel anger, but it does give one the ability to watch the anger happen without acting on it.

How often do we look back and wish we hadn’t said something?  Wouldn’t it be better to look back and think “I’m glad I didn’t act on that anger.”

Those second shots we get when someone fails to hear what we say, may be one of the best ways for someone to glimpse of what life is like with a meditation practice.

THE MISTAKE OF NO REGRETS

November 26th, 2018

It’s on bumper stickers, it’s tattooed on bodies, it’s hashtagged and shouted to the heavens, adorning t-shirts and digital profiles. 

No Regrets.

Such a declaration is worn with a self-righteous pride so strong that it harks of a kind of desperation, for a certain identity - for certainty, plain and simple. 

There is an insidious thread of poison that runs through such a belief.

In order to untwist the concept and take a look at it flattened and spread against the firing wall of our mind, we’d do well to start by properly defining the main word, regret.

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines regret as “feeling sad, repentant, or disappointed over (something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity).

To truly live without regrets would be to live without the ability to feel sad, repentant or disappointed.  This is frankly ridiculous, and somewhat psychopathic.

Another way of phrasing this is to evince the connection between the meaning of regret and the word mistake.

To live without regrets also translates to living without ever having made a mistake, which is either impossible or the result of deluding one’s self to a truly magnificent level.

For example we can look back on a mistake that was a fairly benign missed opportunity, like selling a stock instead of holding on to it.  If the stock rises, we can view the chance to hold on to our stake in the company as a missed opportunity.  All forking paths that pinpoint the instances in life where we make and act upon a decision could ultimately be seen through the lens of this framework. 

Often this sort of logic is combated with quaint phrases such as “it all worked out anyway.”  So there’s nothing to regret.

But this is a haphazard attempt at logic.  The problem is with the initial condition of desiring the state of no regrets.  Everything else gets rationalized in some way to fit a false original condition in this kind of belief system.

Rectification requires loosening up with this concept of regret.  This may in turn require examining ideas and feeling of shame which might accompany such an admission.  But such a difficult exercise may ultimately be tempered by tying the notion of regret a little closer to the idea of a mistake.

We all make mistakes.  This statement is paradoxically and laughably stated just as often as the ‘no regrets’ slogan, and yet their coexistence in someone’s belief system does seem to smack of a contradiction.  We all make mistakes, in the cultural milieu appears to come from a somewhat vulnerable and defeated space.  It may not have the darkly lit pall of dwelling on the past that the word regret seems to carry as evidenced by the concept’s flat out denial in psychological life (or at least the vocal and loudly pronounced part of that psychological life), but the statement we all make mistakes, does not seem to carry anything more than limp sympathy, unfortunately.

Those feelings of sadness, disappointment, and repentance, while uncomfortable, are very useful, so long as they don’t become a habitual mainstay of a dwelling mindset.  Those uncomfortable negative feelings arise to tell us something about our choice in the past.  The feeling is indicating that it probably would have been better to do something other than what we choose.  And that’s a very good mechanism.  It helps prep us for future situations that might seem eerily similar.  When reality starts shaping up into a form that we’ve already experienced, those feelings of sadness and disappointment, or happiness and verve help us navigate a like situation in a wiser way.

How much would this framework suffer if we were to deny ourselves the experience of regret?  And yet this framework is exactly how our intuition is compiled.  Intuition is in essence a sort of truth-telling mood ring, that only pings us with emotions to give us hints about what might be the better decision.  We can imagine this instrument being poorly calibrated or really fine-tuned to reality.  How would having no regrets effect this decision-making apparatus?  Trying to accomplish this is akin to leaving out half the ingredients while trying some new recipe – it’s incomplete, which appropriately enough makes us more likely to make another bad call because we denied our intuition the chance to grow from a regret.

The precious concept of identity in general seems to be constructing an evermore-rickety tower on which to flee all sorts of dangers that might challenge it.  The hope that an identity might somehow make itself invincible by eradicating or neutering all potential dangers and challenges seems to be at the heart of the symptomatic declaration of having ‘no regrets’.

Simply put, the slogan ‘No Regrets’ is the pinnacle of narcissism.  Implying that such a person has nothing to learn, feels no sadness, no repentance, no disappointment, nor the ability to interpret any part of their past as a missed opportunity.  Could any sort of identity predicated by this notion be anything but self-absorbed and fragile?

What such a flimsy goal fails to take into consideration is the huge benefit that comes from damage and mistakes.  Just as a muscle that has been challenged with a difficult workout actually overreacts to the stress and rebuilds itself so that it can withstand more stress than what it actually encountered, so too would our sense of being benefit by opening up our concepts of identity and who we like to think we are to worthy challenges and potential damage.

It could be a mistake, one that we could even learn from.

But, if we’re already living with no regrets, where’s the harm in trying if we’re just going to ignore the outcome anyway?

This episode references Episode 17: The Identity Danger and Episode 213: Relay Racing and the Thumbtack.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: REITERATION SIMULATION

November 25th, 2018

After a long and interesting life, Lucilius went to bed, and in sweet slumber, he passed away.  Unexpectedly, he awoke and before him was a small square glass window.  He realized he could not move nor feel his limbs, but he could still hear.  The small glass window was incased in a metal door that appeared to be incasing Lucilius in a chamber.

Lucilius could not turn his head, nor even speak, but there seemed to be commotion outside of his chamber.  Something moved passed the window, and then came back.  A man’s head bobbed in the lit square, peering in at Lucilius.

Then the door opened.  As light poured into the small chamber, Lucilius’ eyes adjusted and the silhouetted man came into focus.  He was holding a glass panel with all sorts of stats and levels and measurements lighting up the screen.

“Ok,” said the man, “83 Years at level 41, scheduled upgrade to level 42 with lifespan in 21^st century.”

The man hummed a little tune while he clicked through different screens, and since it was a simple pane of glass, Lucilius could see a reverse of the man’s screen.  At the top Lucilius could make out the heading “Lifetime Score” and below was a list of metrics for 41 iterations and at the end of each line was a small video montage where Lucilius could just barely make out a vision of himself in each one doing different things.  In one he was pulling a line on a ship, in another he was on his knees crying, watching a huge building burn, in another yet, he was dressed in primitive furs walking through a thick forest staring intently at the ground, and in another he simply sat cross-legged with his eyes closed.  Each one was scored with different percentages for aspects of performance and development and at the bottom of the screen was a combined tracked score labelled “Soul Development Progress”.

“Ok,” said the man, flipping to another screen that was filled with alerts and instructions.  “Gonna have to transfer you to a different life pod.  This one is scheduled for hardware upgrading.”  He tapped a few buttons on the screen and suddenly Lucilius jolted from the chamber cradled by a mechanical upright bed that Lucilius could partially see reflected in the glass screen.  He could see his feet and legs with some sort of support restraint holding them and different wires and tubes that fed into the restraints and presumably from there into his body.

“It’s just over here,” the man mumbled to himself as the mechanical bed turned on a track and began to zip along with him down a long corridor packed with identical chambers.

A chamber door opened and Lucilius was swiveled again and the bed began to back into the chamber.  Just before the man blocked the view, Lucilius could make out a face behind one of the small windows on the other side of the corridor.  The man was tapping away, selecting settings.

“Scheduled birth will be 2018, you originally asked for the 3^rd astrological sign, but according to the data accumulated from your last iteration, you’ve now decided on a December birthday.”   The man chuckled a little. “Oy, you really set yourself up for a challenge on this one.  Which is strange, you’ve been scoring so well.”  He looked up at Lucilius and studied his face for a moment. “Your score credits could easily get you starting in a better situation.”  Then a sly smile crept across the man’s face. “Aw, you’ve had a lot of this figured out for a while, you’re one of those soul monkeys.  Well that’s what we’ve started calling them lately.  People who’ve intuitively figured out the soul-building algorithm.  Yea, yea, I get it, shit’ll be way harder but if you can score even remotely well, your soul branching will totally level-up.  There’s a bunch already who’ve already unlocked 4^th dimensional organisms and stuff.  Pretty neat how all of it is coming together.  Anyway, you’ve really got your cake cut for you, some tough decades you signed up for on this one.”  The man laughed. “Damn those are some doozies and with your lack of resources, well, good luck.  Have a mince pie for me why don’t ya.”  He smiled and swung the door shut.  In the small window, the man winked, and just before Lucilius’ consciousness went dark, he saw the image of the man in the small window flicker purple, the man’s movements stuttering, the whole of him disappearing for the tiniest slice of a second.