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How to Live

Often folks will differentiate between existing and living, where the former essentially completes what’s in your calendar, and the latter follows something more meaningful. To able to pursue a meaningful life, I’ve created the image you see – here’s the lowdown.

The ancient Greeks instructed us to “know thyself.” Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet instructed “to thine own self be true.” Does this mean that we know we like to be comfy and thus ought to head to Lululemon to buy some sweats? Not quite. We are born untainted and untaught, and without the norms and values we acquire or the adaptations we make to pain and hurt. I have argued that our soul speaks to us as one of the many voices in our consciousness, and it attempts to steer us to the actions that are authentic to our being. We ignore it because we are taught to listen more seriously to what our peers expect from us and our parents impose on us, to name a couple. After all, we’ve got to pay the bills and save money to retire.

I have also argued that like every other thing in the multiverse we are subject to forces. Like magnetism, we are naturally drawn to and repulsed by things in ways that are beyond our control. I am drawn to pickles, mustard, and other vinegary things. I am repulsed by people dressing up animals. I didn’t learn these things, they’ve always been a part of me. Yes it is very likely that my vinegar attraction is related to my form and it’s needed to thin my blood, but either way , it’s not learned. It’s not based on fear or greed, which is what compels a great deal of human action today. Knowing thyself comes from separating what is natural to us as ourselves, versus what is learned or adapted. Doing this exercise requires brutal honesty because it’ll jettison most belief systems in a finger snap and create massive cognitive dissonance as a result.

Once you know who you are, and are a being of your forces and the universe’s will, your job is to be that. In fact your job or purpose is to be that as best you can be. If you’re a miserable crank because you were born that way, be that. Don’t try to be kind and upbeat because you are denying your being its role in the universal plan, and that will feel awful and phony. The ‘thinking-doing gap’ describes the gap between what people think and what they do. Like if they want to lose weight yet eat chocolate cake, that’s the gap. Being true to thine self means having the courage to be who you are despite the predictable reaction you’ll receive from your peers, parents, or society. Cyndi Lauper wants to see your true colours and you should too.

2. The next step in living is to decide how to act. Inside of you are many voices, often contradictory, to assist you to be seen in the best light while getting the best outcome. Colloquially you’ve got your heart, head, ego, soul, little devil (id), peer norms, societal norms, community norms, etc., all blabbing at you at various volumes, many of which are very convincing. You are the captain of your ship, able to hear all these voices and determine how you’re going to run your ship. You are able to set sail on a certain course and intention an outcome that takes everything into account and plots a course. Sometimes this destination is illogical, and that’s quite okay, as long as it’s…..true to you. As long as you’re representing yourself. Your job is to be you without fail, this step is about picking the way that’s most you, and let’s face it, you’re ridiculous.

3. Step 3 is taking action. I have many times stressed the importance of exercising your will in action, and how too much of life exists only in our heads. I have spoken about the couch of comfort, and that it takes decisive energetic mobilization to get off that couch. Action demonstrates your intentions in the strongest possible way by being unambiguous and in conflict with other wills.

I have also mentioned that regarding action, production continues to be a far more satisfying action than consumption. It is often a flow activity, and where we find the greatest bliss. Consumption is like eating. It feels good at the time but the experience and its consequent emotions are fleeting. Production (and flow) remove the barrier between us and our environment, and remove the notions of time and self, to provide an experience immersive and harmonious.

4. The final step is experience, which is both real-time and retrospective. This provides you with the feedback of what it’s like to be you in your environment, triangulated by whatever bystanders and judges wish to share as feedback. This is where you get to truly understand what it’s like to be you. That’s not to say that a bunch egotistical judges are a great experience, but you’re here on earth and this is what you’re in store for.

Experiences that don’t jive with our desires tend to motivate change. Don’t change. You can tweak the next time you think about your actions, but only to be more authentically who you are. The universe imbued you with your soul, and your soul is formed from the same matter that forms stars and planets. They’re all doing their job in fulfilling the will of the universe; do you think you’re better than a star? Perhaps you are because unlike a star, you can actually decide to be something different. Don’t.

What is Love Anyways?

Howard Jones musically asked, “What is love anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?” Well Howard, I think I’ve got the answer for you.

Love is a very ambiguous term. I love pickles and I love my cat. I love my brother and flowers. I love to travel and I love rich Excel spreadsheets. I love oceans and I love refreshing naps. Clearly these are not all the same things.

One way we can sort out some of this ambiguity is to first understand that love is a noun, verb and adjective.

All of those things above refer to the noun. When I say I love pickles, I am saying that this is a characteristic of me that spans the indefinite and definite. The indefinite means I’m saying I do and will love all pickles, (which isn’t entirely true since I dislike bread & butter pickles, but this doesn’t matter right now), and the definite says that if you place a pickle in front of me, I will love it. Irrespective whether the many or the one, I am referring to a love that exists in my head and hence forms part of my being. So it can safely be said that I love pickles, because I do.

This gives rise to the adjective. Because I love pickles, I am a….pickle lover. Is it a descriptive way to understand my being. I didn’t pick and choose whether I should love pickles, I just do. So if you want to better understand something, think of those things it loves and you can safely use those things as factual descriptors to better understand something without judgment or undue labelling.

The most interesting understanding of love is the verb, because we are what we do (and intentionally don’t do). If somebody loves something you would expect them to act in ways to be loving. Assumedly, love compels us to do things we otherwise would not do. A father crosses a crowded room to kiss his son. An uncle sits in awful traffic to pick up a niece from the airport. A partner overcomes their psychological issues to have a successful relationship in the present. An individual moves to Africa to rescue elephants. A person stops eating animal products to prevent the suffering of animals. An individual goes to undergraduate studies to later pursue medicine. These may all demonstrate the verb version of love, and as is evident, these are the version of love that matters.

I’ve previously written that our souls create both attractive and repulsive internal forces that compel us to action (and our egos try to hijack and sabotage these). These forces may all originate from love, I don’t know. What I do know is that unless we demonstrate love in action, it is of no value to the universe. The noun and the adjective merely fill our minds with labels and states, but only the verb can carry out the will of love, and this is why we have arms, legs, voices, literacy, and all the other tools of love. Love has compelled songs, self improvement, monuments, relocation, and vast accommodation. Love in action has been confused and conflated with symbology and proxies, which is a peril to be avoided.

Quite practically, if you love someone and your baggage prevents you from having a healthy relationship with them, you will put everything you’ve got into overcoming your baggage (and not make up excuses). If you love the environment, you will put everything you’ve got to sustaining its integrity and continuity (and not find exceptions). If you love yourself and find yourself imbalanced in life, you will show love in correcting this (and not tolerate alternatives).

Haddaway shied away from love that “hurt me”, and well, that ain’t love. Love takes bravery and tenaciousness, and an utter intolerance for that love not to be expressed, despite how much it costs. Love is unilateral and has no opposition but the ego, so it should flow as love is intended.

This is not to suggest that love is expressed stupidly. If you love something that refuses your love, (or any love) the only thing that changes is the expression of your love. Parents love their young children and heap upon them versions of affection that change as the child grows and accepts love from others. Love is not inflexible; love adapts to give love in the ways that are achievable unidirectionally. The child goes into the world and receives more of a loving check-in, loving safety net, and loving distance versus the abundant physical affection and loving proximity.

So as we contemplate ‘what is love’, there are many answers however only one matters. Love is what we do to express love in a nonsymbolic way that is tailored to the recipient.

Fear

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Winston Churchill uttered this famous quote as the Prime Minister of the UK during World War II, where the Germans would bomb London nightly to foment fear and break the spirit of the people. He feared not death, nor terror, nor loss of institutions or heirlooms or comfort, he feared fear. Why?

Fear is not what anyone or anything can do to us, it is what we create as we interpret external risks and threats. So fear is how we cripple ourselves and create a present that causes us to be edgy, erratic, and irrational.

Should we not be fearful of disease, crime, or meteor strikes? No. We should be aware and appropriately cautious, and once those measures have been prudently adopted, our present moments must be free of the fear that the ego wants to inject until those threats actually become realized, at which time fear is still not the appropriate response. In horror movies, what happens to the screaming fleeing person? They usually fall, alert the killer, or otherwise do things that create actual peril where there is little. The killer just walks calmly toward the flailing spaz and gets the job done. It is the fear that amplifies the danger, and the fear that prevents more productive responses to avoid harm.

Our fears are not just the big pronounced ones, like being a victim of a heinous crime, but they are small and insidious too. We fear being loved less, becoming less attractive, looking foolish, not fitting in, having our social media post ridiculed. We feel fear almost constantly and it causes us to act in outrageous and harmful ways. We buy things we cannot afford, say things that aren’t true, act in ways that certainly are not who we are, trash talk people, discriminate, hide from the world, turn a blind eye to injustice, or pretend to care about something because it’s a popular thing to do. And ironic part? Acting to avoid fears makes our fears come to fruition. It makes us lose friends, alienate family, go broke, waste time, get fired, become anxious, develop addictions, and so on. Fear is our greatest enemy, and we think it is our best friend and saviour.

Personally I’d rather live for one day absent of fear than for 10 lifetimes with fear. Fear makes us someone else. Fear makes us act detestably and sabotage our most cherished things. Fear dominates our present with future horrors, which we end up bringing on ourselves. If we spend our living years being fearful of death, we are already dead because we have killed our present. If we spend our hike fearful of a bear attack, we have already been attacked because our entire present was fixated on the emergence of the bear. So what do we have to fear? Fear itself.

When fear creeps in, you’ll likely know its presence. When you’re ready to stop living in fear, whatever it tells you to do, do the exact opposite. Literally the exact opposite. You don’t want to confront your mom because you fear it’ll break the relationship with your kids? If that relationship is so tenuous that it’ll end because of healthy conflict, it should end – so it can be built in a healthier manner. You are holding yourself hostage to a fear that is very likely unreal, and the gun to your head exists only in your mind. No matter what the fear, no matter what you believe the consequence, do the exact opposite. No matter the outcome, you will be living life authentically, presently, and no longer as a hostage or victim to what you believe is waiting to befoul you.

If Churchill recognized the paramountcy of the threat of fearful living while having bombs dropped on his countrypeople nightly, while the Nazis advanced and killed millions in awful ways and seemed poised to take over the world to impose eugenics, while the economies of the world were in shambles, while Italy and Japan were committing atrocities around the world, even after 7 years of brutal war merely 20 years after the last world war, he must have profoundly understood how fear is the most harmful force on the planet. He knew that fear is what underlies all evil, all intentional harm, all man-made suffering. And he knew that it’s what we do to ourselves.

Self Fulfilling Prophecies

Henry Ford famously wrote, “whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” And he was only just scratching the surface. The more apt sentiment is “perception is reality”, however it’s not limited to what one sees, it’s what one expects to see.

The notion of the self fulfilling prophecy (SFP) is analogized nicely in the ‘wood eye’ story. Our prophecies are not limited to our areas of high sensitivity, but span areas of vulnerability, hurt, fear, uncertainty, and anywhere else the ego seeks predictive assurance to lessen exposure to potential pain.

The SFP is a very sophisticated trick. The ego, always protective of our fragility and desire to avoid pain, attempts to figure out a cause for every painful effect we experience. I got cut off by an Asian driver, so Asian drivers are dangerous and avoiding them provides me greater safety. I got my heart broken by a blonde, so blondes are dangerous and avoiding them provides me greater safety. This impoverished form of thinking is obviously illogical, but we all create these stereotypes and hold on to them dearly. Why? Because humans are born fearful. Nobel winners Kahneman and Tversky proved that humans favour fearful thinking over productive thinking, so we’re just wired this way. But that doesn’t mean we need to listen to that silly logic.

The SFP is our prediction of what will happen based on our past experiences and the unconscious bias we have formed. Countless people carry these SFPs into new relationships, as past relationships are sources of hurt and future relationships are sources of vulnerability. So we enter into relationships with that hidden SFP that takes the form of reservation, caution, holding back, or snippy responses to things that didn’t actually happen. It looks at clues and forms of evidence to confirm what we suspected all along – this new person is evil, crazy, probably has a secret life that is intolerable. Okay that’s perhaps a little extreme, but the SFP takes the same approach. You are simply trying to falsify the positive attributes so that you can uncover the truth. Your truth. And then you have once again proven yourself a predictive genius and Sherlock Holmes contemporary.

What’s really happening is that you are not truly interacting with this person. You are interacting with a mental concoction of who this person is, and irrespective of what this person does in real life, your mental interactions, and your detached and suspicious behaviour, will craft the prophecy that you knew all along. And this is why people can give up. Not all _________ (insert group here) are bad. You make them bad by experiencing these things only in your mind, and sabotaging them in real life, and you create the circumstances that lead you to exactly what you predicted. And when seen from the outside, it’s pretty darn foolish to watch.

In another blog I spoke about our need to unadapt, which is to dismantle the psychological negotiations we have brought into existence to avoid pain and achieve more predictably enjoyable outcomes. Here I am saying we need to do the same for our faulty thinking. We need to dismantle all our stereotypes and beliefs so that whatever we encounter in life can be experienced in life and not just in our heads. Doing this exposes us to potential hurt, and our egos flex to avoid this, but the prize is too great to succumb to this fate. The gift of life is to enjoy all that is life; it is not a gift to hide from life and live in our heads.

What do I Want in a Partner?

Well…I like my partner to be tall, and have nice teeth, be well travelled….oh, and like dogs and brunch.

Partners are not chosen from catalogs or compared to lists, and if they are, they are being slotted in to your life. and/or fantasies. This means you have architected a whole fanciful existence of stuff for you, and you are trying to shoehorn some poor bugger in there. Odds of success are moderate, but the end result will be entirely dissatisfying because this is seeking a life addition and not a relationship.

Before I go on, I should mention that even more determinative than hopes and fantasies are pre-existing marriages. If someone is married when you meet them, you probably won’t hook up. However we overlook the other forms of ‘marriage’ that people have such as marriage to a city, their pet, religion, ego, neighbourhood, profession, people, self-identity, fears, etc., and are unwilling to be flexible about those things so they will certainly occupy some portion of any future relationship. If someone would not move cities when you must, or not spend a weekend in a way that doesn’t include their family, they are married and are looking for a threesome to join in that marriage.

The most important and determinative form of marriage is marriage to dysfunction. Dysfunction develops as an adaptation to circumstances. It attempts to improve a situation by building an understanding and controlling the self and environment to minimize pain and suffering. It is most often (mostly) wrong and causes far more issues outside that circumstance, but that’s another blog post. For now, know that marriage to dysfunction is like getting married in Vegas when you were blitzed. You don’t even know you are married. Well, most people in informal ‘marriages’ don’t know they are wed. But from the outset of a new relationship you negotiate in the presence of that dysfunction so it can form a polygamist trio. And often the poor sap on the other end doesn’t even know it’s happening, they just accept it as “who I am”, and fall back on blanket notions that acceptance equates to love. That isn’t true. Fighting against and divorcing dysfunction is the hallmark of a truly progressive and powerful dynamic. If your partner isn’t the person who helps you identify and extinct your adaptations, why are they called “partner”?

The most successful relationships are where two people show up exactly as who they are and act authentically to co-create a new beast called a relationship. Think 2 dots that are forming a line between them. If a line is already made and one dot is walking around wielding this big line, that poke ain’t gonna be pleasant. It’ll be more like beating that other dot with the stick until she/he relents and accepts what the relationship is without helping to shape it.

Show up as you. Be authentic and silence your ego. Give the other person space to express their free will without your demands or coercion. If you’ve shown up authentically and built something great, you have got yourself a high quality relationship whose probability of gratification is exceptional, because you both made it together as yourselves.

Relationships are most gratifying when they bring out the version of us that we enjoy most. This can only happen when both people are authentically present in the formation of the relationship, self representing, and able to be themselves without unhelpful lists and fantasies. So show up with your full life, but be open to any and all changes that feel right, including those that upend the marriages that only serve your fears and inertia.

Illuminating the Ego Shadow

Our ego is our best friend and constant companion, providing supportive and protective guidance at all times. The problem is, the ego is a life-limiting, bigoted bozo who wants to keep you from living life, being present, and fulfilling your life’s purpose.

When we start to awaken and become cognizant of the ego’s meddling, the ego becomes smarter and disguises itself in more insidious ways to ensure it wins your internal game of thrones. The following is a flowchart guide that tests whether a thought comes from the ego. Don’t let your ego do the test! If you find ego presence, kick that thought to the curb.

Emotional Regulation

When we allow our emotions to be in charge some pretty gnarly things can happen, especially if we’re prone to emotional dysregulation. Emotionality by itself is quite useful but ‘dirty feelings’ lead to ‘dirty thinking’ and subsequently faulty conclusions and harmful actions. The following is a flowchart to follow when you feel triggered or activated and don’t want to turn your life into a trainwreck.

Where is Reality?

Ummm, isn’t the question “what is reality”? No, not in this post. This post is a guide to seeing things as they are, because for some reason, reality tends to elude us when it hides in plain sight.

Things are defined by what they do and what they do not do.

Fire is hot (because it burns) and will not buy you groceries (because this is something it doesn’t d0). We comprehend this fairly easily because we haven’t attached to it any symbolism or context that would make us question these facts. However, this is not the case in human dynamics, where we pile on as much symbolism and proxies as we can.

Your boss loves you and tells you all the time how valuable you are (what they do). That makes you feel good, and motivates you to do more work after-hours and sacrifice your personal time. However, when it comes time to give bonuses and promotions, you get shafted. Your boss didn’t go to bat for you (what they didn’t do). So while your boss’ words attempt to shape your reality, reality can actually be found in the outcome of that annual review. The most likely reality is that you do great things for your boss but these things are not being recognized by the company as outstanding or to your credit. Hence reality is present, as it always is, and it’s incumbent on you to accept the one that reflects your outcomes rather than the one that stokes your ego or manipulates you into a false reality that you want to be true.

In a personal relationship, your partner loves garlic-flavoured coffee (feel free to substitute anything in here, like watching football, gambling, flirting with others) and their breath is nauseating. You have spoken and they’ve assured you that they would kick this habit because you’ve been so clear about how profoundly disturbing this is to you and your relationship. Yet they don’t (what they do). Maybe they cut back a bit, maybe they drink it more discreetly or try to brush their mouths a lot afterwards. But the outcome is still occurring and it’s repulsing you all the same (what they don’t do). So where is reality to be found? It is found in the fact that your partner knows they are repulsive to you in a fixable way and are choosing not to remedy that. Once again, reality is hidden in plain sight. You would probably rather not acknowledge that your partner is prioritizing this habit over you and your relationship, but this is reality irrespective of any half-assed attempts or words to the contrary, especially if you’ve given them time and warnings over a while.

The next question I often get it, “how to I face a reality that is painful?” The answer is ‘authentically and with all your sensibility’. Accept that person’s choice and react or respond as is appropriate given reality. If you’re playing second fiddle to a habit or indulgence, and your partner refuses to address it, accept it and do what makes most sense.

Representation in Relationships (again)

I previously wrote about the importance of self representation in relationships, but the messaging isn’t quite sticking. Here’s another example of how great intentions (that represent someone else) fail in relationships:

You know somebody is doing something important from 3-4PM this afternoon. What do you do? Most would say, “leave them alone, like don’t call or text”. Who are you representing when you do that?

The person doing the important thing will obviously shut off their ringer, so you can text and call all you want. And in fact you should. Why? Because when that important thing is done, they’ll want to see whatever was natural in their dynamics sitting there in their inbox.

Doing this honours the sender and the receiver, with each party representing themselves. And once again, the outcome is the optimal. So don’t represent other people!

The Virtue of Gratitude

We are told that gratitude is an important virtue for us to appreciate the things we receive and experience. I don’t think so. Let’s explore.

Gratitude is about being thankful. You are supposed to have gratitude for your blessings, like health and family. The Bible often speaks about gratitude and reverence to the things that made and govern you, like god and your parents. So why shouldn’t we be thankful for having these things? What kind of person would question gratitude? There are three reasons why gratitude is not a useful thing:

Gratitude invents a thing or being to which you are grateful. Thankfulness is directed toward the thing that bestowed you with the blessing. Who exactly are you thanking for health? It also presumes that the giver of blessings exists, cares, and is listening.
Gratitude is an excellent way to lose presence. If you are savouring a moment and for whatever reason decide it is so enjoyable that you must end your experience to be thankful for it, you have ceased being present and rather succumbed to the forces that try to stop you from being in your life.
Gratitude misdirects responsibility. By being thankful to something else, you fail to acknowledge your role in your blessings. Your heart is still beating because you skipped some fried foods. Your world is beautiful because you didn’t pour acid in your garden, or better still, nurtured some pretty things. Celebrate your good decision making rather than misattribute your circumstances to something that ain’t listening

What do we do rather than give thanks? Enjoy it.