For years...indeed, most of my conscious life... I have been bedeviled by a psychological malady which has either manifested because of, or caused TO manifest, a physical one.
To briefly define the two: psychologically, I have taken on some pretty rabid sorrow and self-doubt pertaining to my body weight. The medical term for my physical malady: morbidly obese. It has negatively altered 'me' in many ways, as far as I can tell.
My self-confidence is low, because I took seriously the gazes of strangers. Because I took personally the back-handed compliments of friends. Because of this low opinion of myself (founded in the idea that I could fix this... I know the routines... but did nothing serious to that end) I feel I have taken on no meaningful challenges and my material routine is floundering, keeping me from the resources that would allow me to do more for myself that I would like.
I know what it's like to be mocked so well, in fact, that I got into the habit of doing it myself before anyone else was able to. Beat them to the punch, so to speak... but I was punching myself.
The better part of me understands that the body is just a receptacle. The "soul" or whatever you want to call it... let's go with consciousness... is inherently valuable. This should be the point of this human experience. How many people "challenged" in any of a countless number of physical or mental ways is able to live with happiness, a grander sense of purpose, a dharma? How many people hundreds of pounds heavier have been taken hold of by inspiration, and brought their bodies back from the dead?
I suppose that inspiration hasn't quite taken over in me yet, or not in any form I recognize. While I have been overweight to varying degrees over the past 30 years, it has had little effect on my energy levels. I have had plenty of mental and physical stamina. I have had plenty of dexterity, being a little more light on my feet than most my size.
This has changed.
I am finally tired. I finally feel no good. Like my body is deteriorating.
And I am worn out, mentally... spiritually... physically...
The hardest thing right now is to muster up the energy to do the right thing. But life is not worth living in a state of decline. Although I know it is never too late to change, I realize that doing so - getting on the path back from whence I came - requires a change of identity. I can no longer be that passionless one who watches the erosion with indifference.
I'm sick.
Monday, October 10, 2016
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Loud silence
One thing I am not accustomed to - keeping my focus on the positive.
While we like to cling to the idea that the wake of the boat is driving us forward (that is, the evidence of our journey and not the motor propelling us forward) the plain fact is, once you recognize a pattern that is detrimental, you can act against it (or, better yet, just act some other way - get resistance out of your thoughts). In most cases, the average person will continue in the same self-defeating behavior because, gosh darnit, "the past" and what-not. I certainly have embodied this, and in many ways still do.
There is nothing keeping me from doing better, other than laziness/habit/being too deep in my head.
I do have one question, though.
How does one sow a joie de vivre?
It's an essential foundation to doing the right thing. I am, like that unfortunate Fisher King, 'sick with experience.' The joys in my life are brief and fleeting. I have my successes and failures like anyone. I certainly cannot complain that I have a roof over my head, am well-fed (far too well fed), have enough money to feed the kids, have a loving wife. I've had wonderful travel experiences, I have fairly good health (although I have certainly abused my body in recent years).
My friend count is low, as I have about a 10:1 loss to gain ratio there. I keep people away as I have taught myself to trust very few. This is a mistake of ego, of course. But it is what it is right now.
Very little excites me nowadays. The routine I am locked into (by my financial and familial obligations) holds no mystery for me. Nothing new is learned from it. Whenever I'm on my deathbed, I won't look back upon it because it is insignificant.
The routine needs to change, and not by focusing on the negatives. All energy needs to be directed toward the desired result. Negative begets negative. Being angry with the current conditions doesn't make them better, make them go away, or make your reality improve. Expressing constant anger, passive-aggressive distaste for those not holding you aloft, or even the "well I don't care" bullshit admissions that only vocalize because you DO care - all of these self-aggrandizing tactics just make people, who once cared, go away.
I write because I want people to like me, to validate me. Eventually to finance me. But one can't market to friends, who figure they've paid enough by giving you verbal support. They think buying from you is somehow just giving you money. The sales that matter are the strangers, those people with no obligation to you, who part with their money because they want a piece of your human contribution.
But that joie-de-vivre lack... or the stifling of it somewhere along the line... that's what seems to have a stranglehold on my creative voice.
I'm focusing on positives because that's where the voice must be. If you go looking for brown, you certainly can find it. I have enough rods-and-cones on my retina to see as many hues as I can imagine. Somewhere along the path, I hope a fundamental joy implants itself, because it's slow-going until then.
While we like to cling to the idea that the wake of the boat is driving us forward (that is, the evidence of our journey and not the motor propelling us forward) the plain fact is, once you recognize a pattern that is detrimental, you can act against it (or, better yet, just act some other way - get resistance out of your thoughts). In most cases, the average person will continue in the same self-defeating behavior because, gosh darnit, "the past" and what-not. I certainly have embodied this, and in many ways still do.
There is nothing keeping me from doing better, other than laziness/habit/being too deep in my head.
I do have one question, though.
How does one sow a joie de vivre?
It's an essential foundation to doing the right thing. I am, like that unfortunate Fisher King, 'sick with experience.' The joys in my life are brief and fleeting. I have my successes and failures like anyone. I certainly cannot complain that I have a roof over my head, am well-fed (far too well fed), have enough money to feed the kids, have a loving wife. I've had wonderful travel experiences, I have fairly good health (although I have certainly abused my body in recent years).
My friend count is low, as I have about a 10:1 loss to gain ratio there. I keep people away as I have taught myself to trust very few. This is a mistake of ego, of course. But it is what it is right now.
Very little excites me nowadays. The routine I am locked into (by my financial and familial obligations) holds no mystery for me. Nothing new is learned from it. Whenever I'm on my deathbed, I won't look back upon it because it is insignificant.
The routine needs to change, and not by focusing on the negatives. All energy needs to be directed toward the desired result. Negative begets negative. Being angry with the current conditions doesn't make them better, make them go away, or make your reality improve. Expressing constant anger, passive-aggressive distaste for those not holding you aloft, or even the "well I don't care" bullshit admissions that only vocalize because you DO care - all of these self-aggrandizing tactics just make people, who once cared, go away.
I write because I want people to like me, to validate me. Eventually to finance me. But one can't market to friends, who figure they've paid enough by giving you verbal support. They think buying from you is somehow just giving you money. The sales that matter are the strangers, those people with no obligation to you, who part with their money because they want a piece of your human contribution.
But that joie-de-vivre lack... or the stifling of it somewhere along the line... that's what seems to have a stranglehold on my creative voice.
I'm focusing on positives because that's where the voice must be. If you go looking for brown, you certainly can find it. I have enough rods-and-cones on my retina to see as many hues as I can imagine. Somewhere along the path, I hope a fundamental joy implants itself, because it's slow-going until then.
Monday, August 8, 2016
Inconsequential consequences
I, like most, have moments where I leap effortlessly between recognizing the one-song (uni-verse) as an unthinkably infinite thing, and imagining that my chosen microcosm is somehow the end-all. Whether I do the dishes or not ... whether I fold the towels or not... whether I let the weeds grow or not... whether I accept that the weeds are going to grow, quite independent of my opinion on the matter... all of these decisions I imagine myself in charge of, the universe continues on around me, so it is foolhardy to take oneself too seriously.
Yet why has my consciousness chosen this material form? Did 'I' - that is, the consciousness that has taken on this language and given itself the designation 'I' - choose this particular form for a reason? Was it granted to me by some other consciousness as a test?
Before I start chastising myself for the notion that, somehow, existence is a series of tests and contradictions and gainsays that serve some higher purpose, let me state for the record (and for the moment) that I don't yet understand what purpose is served by such a thing. I'm willing to accept, if it comes to it, that human consciousness isn't a mystical creation, but a by-product of a brain evolution gone awry.
That idea may change later on.
In the meantime, I'm pretending it all makes sense to me, and that I am simply strolling along the unending path of universal discovery for a purpose that evolves, fine-tunes, creates and diminishes itself. I am accepting, as well, that my continued use of "me" and "I" and "you" and "them" and so on are just relics of this ego-based paradigm humans have come to embrace. The notion that the elephant in the room - "ego" - is something that I am bound to fight off on the path to this mysterious state of being called "enlightenment".
I become aware, as I type these ideas out, that they all sound very strange and to a large degree, fabricated by a mind-run-amok. Am I separate from mind? Is the concept of heart something that balances the logical mind? Is the mind capable of objectively pondering itself or even other minds? ARE there other minds? Why am I typing this here - for my mind, for "me", for what I imagine are other minds, or some other purpose I cannot even fathom? Am I a conduit for a higher voice? Is that voice something greater than what I call "me" or "I"?
This line of unanswerable questions can go on ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I expect you wouldn't read that long, since I don't have any firm concepts upon which to answer even a single question. The universe is infinite expanse, and even good ol' Science can't say with certainty that all of the universe's tricks and trappings can be observed and tested and theorized from our single planet's offerings. And, in that vein, our concept of infinity (wrapped as it is in various cloaks called religions) is just as narrow. Can minds like ours even conceive true infinity? Timelessness - no beginnings or endings?
So what is there to talk about? Is experience only valid if put into words? I for one cannot adequately describe what it's like to watch a bee at its work, witness the slow process from seed to seedling to sprout to bud to flower to fruit, watch the dung beetle roll its fecal prize backwards across a long sidewalk, watch the waves consume a polynesian shore, describe the sensation of seeing a star's 435-year old twinkling having just arrived at my eyeball.
Human experience feels like a trap sometime. With such evidence of the infinite, why does the human brain repeat the same 60,000 thoughts every day? What is the case to be made for limitations? Is it really easier if everyone conforms? Human consciousness certainly seems in its earliest stages of infancy. Should be an interesting, "enlightening" journey. Regardless of how we feel about it or through which paradigm we choose to view it, it just flows as it will. As the Natives say, no tree has branches foolish enough to fight amongst themselves. So goes this universe as well.
Yet why has my consciousness chosen this material form? Did 'I' - that is, the consciousness that has taken on this language and given itself the designation 'I' - choose this particular form for a reason? Was it granted to me by some other consciousness as a test?
Before I start chastising myself for the notion that, somehow, existence is a series of tests and contradictions and gainsays that serve some higher purpose, let me state for the record (and for the moment) that I don't yet understand what purpose is served by such a thing. I'm willing to accept, if it comes to it, that human consciousness isn't a mystical creation, but a by-product of a brain evolution gone awry.
That idea may change later on.
In the meantime, I'm pretending it all makes sense to me, and that I am simply strolling along the unending path of universal discovery for a purpose that evolves, fine-tunes, creates and diminishes itself. I am accepting, as well, that my continued use of "me" and "I" and "you" and "them" and so on are just relics of this ego-based paradigm humans have come to embrace. The notion that the elephant in the room - "ego" - is something that I am bound to fight off on the path to this mysterious state of being called "enlightenment".
I become aware, as I type these ideas out, that they all sound very strange and to a large degree, fabricated by a mind-run-amok. Am I separate from mind? Is the concept of heart something that balances the logical mind? Is the mind capable of objectively pondering itself or even other minds? ARE there other minds? Why am I typing this here - for my mind, for "me", for what I imagine are other minds, or some other purpose I cannot even fathom? Am I a conduit for a higher voice? Is that voice something greater than what I call "me" or "I"?
This line of unanswerable questions can go on ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I expect you wouldn't read that long, since I don't have any firm concepts upon which to answer even a single question. The universe is infinite expanse, and even good ol' Science can't say with certainty that all of the universe's tricks and trappings can be observed and tested and theorized from our single planet's offerings. And, in that vein, our concept of infinity (wrapped as it is in various cloaks called religions) is just as narrow. Can minds like ours even conceive true infinity? Timelessness - no beginnings or endings?
So what is there to talk about? Is experience only valid if put into words? I for one cannot adequately describe what it's like to watch a bee at its work, witness the slow process from seed to seedling to sprout to bud to flower to fruit, watch the dung beetle roll its fecal prize backwards across a long sidewalk, watch the waves consume a polynesian shore, describe the sensation of seeing a star's 435-year old twinkling having just arrived at my eyeball.
Human experience feels like a trap sometime. With such evidence of the infinite, why does the human brain repeat the same 60,000 thoughts every day? What is the case to be made for limitations? Is it really easier if everyone conforms? Human consciousness certainly seems in its earliest stages of infancy. Should be an interesting, "enlightening" journey. Regardless of how we feel about it or through which paradigm we choose to view it, it just flows as it will. As the Natives say, no tree has branches foolish enough to fight amongst themselves. So goes this universe as well.
Monday, July 4, 2016
Good night, sweet prance
An addiction, recognized, is suddenly an elephant and not a cozy inner skin.
Once upon a time, I was a cigarette smoker, and then I wasn't. Because I recognized the timing of my tokes. I became present in those moments. I expected them, and I did something different. Lo and behold, 9.5 years since I transitioned.
Now another inner skin has outed itself as an elephant.
And it's the same damn method to release the burden. It's bigger, but no better.
Don't wish me luck, that has nothing to do with it. I just have to stay present, and that's not a question of hope... but do.
Once upon a time, I was a cigarette smoker, and then I wasn't. Because I recognized the timing of my tokes. I became present in those moments. I expected them, and I did something different. Lo and behold, 9.5 years since I transitioned.
Now another inner skin has outed itself as an elephant.
And it's the same damn method to release the burden. It's bigger, but no better.
Don't wish me luck, that has nothing to do with it. I just have to stay present, and that's not a question of hope... but do.
Monday, May 2, 2016
WHEN
Operating on the principle that life is either:
a) The product of a divine creator, for whatever the hell purpose such a creator would bother;
or
b) Just a big chemical stew that somehow created the human and its insufferably self-important brain
...one is bound to design some foundation for action. Motivation. Purpose. Call it what you will.
If the answer is a), then in fact the higher purpose doesn't belong to the human; it is our mission to be marionetted by the whims of the cosmos. People keep themselves busy by 1) writing a new paradigm and surrounding it in just enough mysticism to get others to follow along; 2) inheriting one of these belief systems and arguing with others about the semantics of the system, either disliking or outright hating the people who disagree; or 3) taking what they find to be personally meaningful from the greater philosophy, living their life, and not having to argue with anyone about it.
If the answer is b), then the higher purpose is just something to pass the time with, since life is a chemical and magnetic process with no great underlying intelligence. Meaning cannot be applied to it beyond that, otherwise it falls under a) all of the sudden. Joy is as meaningless a response as anger, indifference as noble as altruism. Entertainment, passion, love, or art are useless endeavors, since they serve no purpose to the survival of the organism. They produce a chemical response, but only if they are seen to be above the basic experience of simple organic survival - and if they are above it, then again, we go back to category a).
I have never felt comfortable (or taken seriously) the idea of the Great Big Cosmic Vending Machine in the Sky, nor do I believe (entirely) that this is all a great big accident of science, bitch. I suppose I am category a.5) There is an organizing intelligence that underlies the whole show, but it is certainly not the ones the masses abide by; there is something to the chaos theory as well. Intelligent foundation, free will to act, divine response, free response. The notion of me as a separate creature to the intelligent foundation is untenable - it supposes I somehow emerge from a divine source, am disconnected by the process and have to reconnect for some purpose that no one agrees on, but is just too gosh-darn amazing to dismiss. Codswallop, I say.
The beauty is, it doesn't matter if anyone agrees or disagrees. That silly-nilly we call 'ego' (something we envision as an imp of the mind, when it is, in fact, nothing more than a set of responses to others' demands) needs you to agree. And your silly ego needs me to approve of you. What if we were just thought processes - bodies didn't exist?
We wouldn't have to work for a living, since there would be no resources to produce or protect. Money would serve no purpose. Sex would be unnecessary. We wouldn't be able to compare possessions. We would no longer need to fear one another's egalitarian illusions.
Our relationships to others are just pure thought. How easily we can go from love to hate with nothing having actually taken place besides a thought - even if a mistaken one. Just as easily, we can go from friendship to "greater" love through a simple turn of a thought.
We go from addict to sober with a single thought. Sure, a lot of preparation leads up to that quantum moment - but it takes just a simple "I'm done" to end a bad habit.
Thoughts, whether "out of the blue" or trained responses, are the marrow of this thing we call life. Our bodies and our physical possessions and our borders and our paychecks and so on are just extraneous things that happen because we're somehow trapped in bodies. Our experience of life is expressed through the limitations of our language boxes. Can you describe the taste of a pineapple to me, accurately, if I've never tasted one? You might give me an idea, but it's only experience that gives me the real answer. No matter what words you use, my thoughts are better informed by personal experience. My notions of the Big Creative Force (and the fact that I am an extension of it, not a separate unholy thing that was cast here into this life and forced to answer for it) make sense to me, and in a way that transcends language. Words are insufficient, as this journal entry aptly demonstrates.
This, and any entry by anyone ever, is just the result of some wisp of source energy dismantling its higher message through the great limitations of language. It plasters itself on the screen, waiting for some other extension of source energy to witness it, respond through the limitations of its own language. Why we do it, I may never understand. Or maybe I will. Whatever the case, this human experience seems designed to dumb down the spiritual one. (Unless, of course, it's all just a chemical/magnetic accident to you - and having read this, you have outed yourself as a category a).)
a) The product of a divine creator, for whatever the hell purpose such a creator would bother;
or
b) Just a big chemical stew that somehow created the human and its insufferably self-important brain
...one is bound to design some foundation for action. Motivation. Purpose. Call it what you will.
If the answer is a), then in fact the higher purpose doesn't belong to the human; it is our mission to be marionetted by the whims of the cosmos. People keep themselves busy by 1) writing a new paradigm and surrounding it in just enough mysticism to get others to follow along; 2) inheriting one of these belief systems and arguing with others about the semantics of the system, either disliking or outright hating the people who disagree; or 3) taking what they find to be personally meaningful from the greater philosophy, living their life, and not having to argue with anyone about it.
If the answer is b), then the higher purpose is just something to pass the time with, since life is a chemical and magnetic process with no great underlying intelligence. Meaning cannot be applied to it beyond that, otherwise it falls under a) all of the sudden. Joy is as meaningless a response as anger, indifference as noble as altruism. Entertainment, passion, love, or art are useless endeavors, since they serve no purpose to the survival of the organism. They produce a chemical response, but only if they are seen to be above the basic experience of simple organic survival - and if they are above it, then again, we go back to category a).
I have never felt comfortable (or taken seriously) the idea of the Great Big Cosmic Vending Machine in the Sky, nor do I believe (entirely) that this is all a great big accident of science, bitch. I suppose I am category a.5) There is an organizing intelligence that underlies the whole show, but it is certainly not the ones the masses abide by; there is something to the chaos theory as well. Intelligent foundation, free will to act, divine response, free response. The notion of me as a separate creature to the intelligent foundation is untenable - it supposes I somehow emerge from a divine source, am disconnected by the process and have to reconnect for some purpose that no one agrees on, but is just too gosh-darn amazing to dismiss. Codswallop, I say.
The beauty is, it doesn't matter if anyone agrees or disagrees. That silly-nilly we call 'ego' (something we envision as an imp of the mind, when it is, in fact, nothing more than a set of responses to others' demands) needs you to agree. And your silly ego needs me to approve of you. What if we were just thought processes - bodies didn't exist?
We wouldn't have to work for a living, since there would be no resources to produce or protect. Money would serve no purpose. Sex would be unnecessary. We wouldn't be able to compare possessions. We would no longer need to fear one another's egalitarian illusions.
Our relationships to others are just pure thought. How easily we can go from love to hate with nothing having actually taken place besides a thought - even if a mistaken one. Just as easily, we can go from friendship to "greater" love through a simple turn of a thought.
We go from addict to sober with a single thought. Sure, a lot of preparation leads up to that quantum moment - but it takes just a simple "I'm done" to end a bad habit.
Thoughts, whether "out of the blue" or trained responses, are the marrow of this thing we call life. Our bodies and our physical possessions and our borders and our paychecks and so on are just extraneous things that happen because we're somehow trapped in bodies. Our experience of life is expressed through the limitations of our language boxes. Can you describe the taste of a pineapple to me, accurately, if I've never tasted one? You might give me an idea, but it's only experience that gives me the real answer. No matter what words you use, my thoughts are better informed by personal experience. My notions of the Big Creative Force (and the fact that I am an extension of it, not a separate unholy thing that was cast here into this life and forced to answer for it) make sense to me, and in a way that transcends language. Words are insufficient, as this journal entry aptly demonstrates.
This, and any entry by anyone ever, is just the result of some wisp of source energy dismantling its higher message through the great limitations of language. It plasters itself on the screen, waiting for some other extension of source energy to witness it, respond through the limitations of its own language. Why we do it, I may never understand. Or maybe I will. Whatever the case, this human experience seems designed to dumb down the spiritual one. (Unless, of course, it's all just a chemical/magnetic accident to you - and having read this, you have outed yourself as a category a).)
Monday, February 15, 2016
On a Higher Scale
I think it's fair to say at this point that I am in need of some higher sense of contribution. Presuming that the human experience really does have a grander purpose (as any notion otherwise demotes it to mere happenstance of evolution) then certainly I must narrow my focus to doing more than just blundering through my routine everyday.
So much of my focus has been on body issues, though the body itself is little more than a container that expresses itself visually. There was a good question raised long ago - what conflicts would we have if we had no bodies? We would no longer need to collect possessions, pay bills, be jealous or appalled at who-sexed-who, fear our mortality, compete with one another... etc. Rhetorical question, maybe. But the point is, this container my "self" marionettes around in is not "me". It just becomes a tool for interaction.
Religion wants to create a set of guidelines for how we are to interact with one another, who is in charge of who, and where our genitals and hearts are allowed to go. While many of the religious ideologies claim to have only our "higher self's" interests in mind, they still deign to arbitrary rules such as which days of the year you can't eat meat, or who can love who, and whether or not our freedom to think is a test of our higher self or just a flaw in design that accepting the Great Big Cosmic Vending Machine in the Sky will compensate for.
With all of this said, I still have focused far too much attention on the "imperfections" of the body that carries me around, as if the way it is has fallen out of favor with the grand scheme of it all (if there is one). It is exactly how conditions allowed it to be. When I sit here embarrassed of the rounded lump of fatty tissue pouring over my belt, the universe moves on, ignoring me while I judge it. I'm full of silly ideas like that, and yet see them as silly... here we really have two people now: Me, and the one being judged (lower-case me). No wonder we get confused.
Once I can see this inherent silliness, surely there is no issue in putting it to rest. Step one: stop dividing Me into two. Who is this silly person that allowed the body to become diseased? The higher self (Me) finds no advantage to the disease process, as clearly the focus on body issues diverts attention from the "higher" questions of existence. So why not listen to Me rather than me? Why would I let me continue to take the wheel when that's who got lost? The one that knows how to get home, without judgment, is Me. The only challenge is to get me to give up the keys, and that doesn't have to be a challenge unless I/Me/me decide it is.
In simpler terms, it's worth remembering what Einstein suggested - that the mind that got you here is not the mind that will get you where you want to be. I have been giving me attention when it's really Me that has the answer. So I respect and thank me, and let me go. Now it's up to Me.
It's no surprise that my greatest gains in weight (and the accompanying disease processes) coincide with personal losses and traumas. This is not to suggest that I have endured anything more troubling than anyone else. But my response to these difficulties was too often a body-damaging one. Rather than take positive response to disappointment, I crushed them down with food or cigarettes or substances. For the past decade, my crutch has been food, and not quality food - dopamine-tripping foods that the body cannot effectively process. The rush of a dopamine surge was no different than any other chemical high except that it was justified (weakly) by the argument that the human body MUST be given food, or it will die. (Of course, this argument fails since the body needs QUALITY food to survive, and any other type will achieve the opposite effect, in quicker time). The body gives up eventually, no matter how healthy the diet, but the effect on the spirit that dwells within can be damaged by that constant need for a dopamine surge. Eat one cookie, feel good for a few seconds, then eat another for another rush. Calories pile up in the flesh - useless ones - fat and disease increase, spirit dampens, purpose is crushed under the weight of disappointing the self... what cure is there to be had? A quick dopamine surge.... and the cycle continues.
There's no proof that change needs to be difficult, but we often decide it must be so - because if it turned out easy, we'd beat ourselves up over not having done it before! Or, we can stop listening to 'me'. That's the person that brought you to Jackass Acres. Thank him/her for the ride, then get on a better bus. And take note of the 'No Complaining" sign - it's there to remind you there's no good or bad life; there's just life, and you get to decide how to live it.
Looking back on the past with distaste is NOT a viable reason to make no changes. All there is for you is THIS MOMENT, and nothing in the past can take the wheel from you unless you let it.
So much of my focus has been on body issues, though the body itself is little more than a container that expresses itself visually. There was a good question raised long ago - what conflicts would we have if we had no bodies? We would no longer need to collect possessions, pay bills, be jealous or appalled at who-sexed-who, fear our mortality, compete with one another... etc. Rhetorical question, maybe. But the point is, this container my "self" marionettes around in is not "me". It just becomes a tool for interaction.
Religion wants to create a set of guidelines for how we are to interact with one another, who is in charge of who, and where our genitals and hearts are allowed to go. While many of the religious ideologies claim to have only our "higher self's" interests in mind, they still deign to arbitrary rules such as which days of the year you can't eat meat, or who can love who, and whether or not our freedom to think is a test of our higher self or just a flaw in design that accepting the Great Big Cosmic Vending Machine in the Sky will compensate for.
With all of this said, I still have focused far too much attention on the "imperfections" of the body that carries me around, as if the way it is has fallen out of favor with the grand scheme of it all (if there is one). It is exactly how conditions allowed it to be. When I sit here embarrassed of the rounded lump of fatty tissue pouring over my belt, the universe moves on, ignoring me while I judge it. I'm full of silly ideas like that, and yet see them as silly... here we really have two people now: Me, and the one being judged (lower-case me). No wonder we get confused.
Once I can see this inherent silliness, surely there is no issue in putting it to rest. Step one: stop dividing Me into two. Who is this silly person that allowed the body to become diseased? The higher self (Me) finds no advantage to the disease process, as clearly the focus on body issues diverts attention from the "higher" questions of existence. So why not listen to Me rather than me? Why would I let me continue to take the wheel when that's who got lost? The one that knows how to get home, without judgment, is Me. The only challenge is to get me to give up the keys, and that doesn't have to be a challenge unless I/Me/me decide it is.
In simpler terms, it's worth remembering what Einstein suggested - that the mind that got you here is not the mind that will get you where you want to be. I have been giving me attention when it's really Me that has the answer. So I respect and thank me, and let me go. Now it's up to Me.
It's no surprise that my greatest gains in weight (and the accompanying disease processes) coincide with personal losses and traumas. This is not to suggest that I have endured anything more troubling than anyone else. But my response to these difficulties was too often a body-damaging one. Rather than take positive response to disappointment, I crushed them down with food or cigarettes or substances. For the past decade, my crutch has been food, and not quality food - dopamine-tripping foods that the body cannot effectively process. The rush of a dopamine surge was no different than any other chemical high except that it was justified (weakly) by the argument that the human body MUST be given food, or it will die. (Of course, this argument fails since the body needs QUALITY food to survive, and any other type will achieve the opposite effect, in quicker time). The body gives up eventually, no matter how healthy the diet, but the effect on the spirit that dwells within can be damaged by that constant need for a dopamine surge. Eat one cookie, feel good for a few seconds, then eat another for another rush. Calories pile up in the flesh - useless ones - fat and disease increase, spirit dampens, purpose is crushed under the weight of disappointing the self... what cure is there to be had? A quick dopamine surge.... and the cycle continues.
There's no proof that change needs to be difficult, but we often decide it must be so - because if it turned out easy, we'd beat ourselves up over not having done it before! Or, we can stop listening to 'me'. That's the person that brought you to Jackass Acres. Thank him/her for the ride, then get on a better bus. And take note of the 'No Complaining" sign - it's there to remind you there's no good or bad life; there's just life, and you get to decide how to live it.
Looking back on the past with distaste is NOT a viable reason to make no changes. All there is for you is THIS MOMENT, and nothing in the past can take the wheel from you unless you let it.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Somatico
It's easy enough to see the connection between mood and body. For example, in witnessing the clock face and calculating that I had plenty of time to attend to some bodily requirements (specifically, a round of calisthenics at the local fitness center) I discovered my mood open to the notion (though somewhat indifferent as opposed to inspired). As I prepped myself for the trip, my desire to accomplish this needed trip began to wane, to the point where, just a quarter mile from home, I had quite made up my immediate mind that there was little point in doing so. My energy level then mirrored this newfound mood.
Of course, if I were sensible in the least, I would have risen above this sensation and done the exercise nonetheless. Instead, here I sit in the coffeehouse with my stomach scrunched against the table edge while I nurse my iced coffee and try to find some semblance of wisdom in my own typed words.
The fact that I can be derailed so easily by a momentary lapse of energy is telling. It's perhaps the greatest argument for actually doing the work. After all, the exercise is not difficult. I tend to feel somewhat refreshed at the end of it. There is only the defeated feeling I have manifested over time that, following the work, I am even more inspired to consume things that negate my progress. Over time this realization has evolved into the thought that, unless I am both an exercise junky and a wise diner, the effort is wasted.
Obviously, this is a correct mindset if my intention is to tone this body. Is that my motivation though? Should I approach it with vanity? My heart says no, which therefore adds more fuel to the demotivation fire. I should certainly be focused on health, particularly with advancing age and infirmity. And yet, there is little excitement for me in this. It makes it feel like work. No less so than going to my tedious current job, which gets just slightly more difficult to do every night I go.
Typing this all out, of course, makes it all seem very silly. I'm too old for this childish whining. Do the right thing because there's a bigger picture.
So what misguided thinking has allowed me to turn this into a problem? And how does one disconnect the default physiological response and just do the right thing? The world is replete with stories of people who have overcome a lifetime of excuses. Is my difficulty in the very nature of the "web generation" - whereby we are able to witness entire stories of success in quick anecdotes, without a real sense of the long road involved? I believe this is the case, as the youth of today want "their share" without any understanding of the time involved in the process. They've lost perspective. I think I may be infected by this ideology.
So, insufferable as it feels, the change I want to make is a single-day-at-a-time one. That must be the overlying maxim. At the same time, it's necessary to not believe that there is a future time when success is suddenly validated: success is every little decision in the right direction. One is entitled to live as if they're already where they want, while remembering the path there is a step at a time. If you're fat and want to be healthy, then live with a healthy mindset and the decision-making process ~can~ comply. Then there is the daily effort to rise above the conditioned responses that keep you in an uninspired mindset.
See, I know all this stuff. What's bottlenecking my success? Not being present. Being in the moment is the only way to be able to take charge of ~every~ moment.
Of course, if I were sensible in the least, I would have risen above this sensation and done the exercise nonetheless. Instead, here I sit in the coffeehouse with my stomach scrunched against the table edge while I nurse my iced coffee and try to find some semblance of wisdom in my own typed words.
The fact that I can be derailed so easily by a momentary lapse of energy is telling. It's perhaps the greatest argument for actually doing the work. After all, the exercise is not difficult. I tend to feel somewhat refreshed at the end of it. There is only the defeated feeling I have manifested over time that, following the work, I am even more inspired to consume things that negate my progress. Over time this realization has evolved into the thought that, unless I am both an exercise junky and a wise diner, the effort is wasted.
Obviously, this is a correct mindset if my intention is to tone this body. Is that my motivation though? Should I approach it with vanity? My heart says no, which therefore adds more fuel to the demotivation fire. I should certainly be focused on health, particularly with advancing age and infirmity. And yet, there is little excitement for me in this. It makes it feel like work. No less so than going to my tedious current job, which gets just slightly more difficult to do every night I go.
Typing this all out, of course, makes it all seem very silly. I'm too old for this childish whining. Do the right thing because there's a bigger picture.
So what misguided thinking has allowed me to turn this into a problem? And how does one disconnect the default physiological response and just do the right thing? The world is replete with stories of people who have overcome a lifetime of excuses. Is my difficulty in the very nature of the "web generation" - whereby we are able to witness entire stories of success in quick anecdotes, without a real sense of the long road involved? I believe this is the case, as the youth of today want "their share" without any understanding of the time involved in the process. They've lost perspective. I think I may be infected by this ideology.
So, insufferable as it feels, the change I want to make is a single-day-at-a-time one. That must be the overlying maxim. At the same time, it's necessary to not believe that there is a future time when success is suddenly validated: success is every little decision in the right direction. One is entitled to live as if they're already where they want, while remembering the path there is a step at a time. If you're fat and want to be healthy, then live with a healthy mindset and the decision-making process ~can~ comply. Then there is the daily effort to rise above the conditioned responses that keep you in an uninspired mindset.
See, I know all this stuff. What's bottlenecking my success? Not being present. Being in the moment is the only way to be able to take charge of ~every~ moment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)