It’s not about exercising the courage to smile at the pretty girl; it’s about smiling at everyone.
Letter to Me
There is so much potential in the world. If you constantly demonstrate this fact to yourself, you will be forever happy. By realizing that anything we can “know” is founded on belief, which is itself subjective — in the sense that it varies from person to person — then you realize that there is no monopoly on righteousness, ever. All you can ever hope to do is be as happy as possible in the moment. Combine this idea with the realization that everything is in motion, and you come to understand that any interpretation of righteousness has to be fluid or it won’t work, in the practical sense. So knowing you need to have some sense of whats right and wrong in order to be happy (e.g. killing a police officer will likely make you unhappy for many reasons), and also knowing that everything is in motion, it’s possible to understand that a lot of the corner cases for what we hold to be true, need to be constantly revaluated. That’s where boundaries come in. Your boundaries are no more defined than anyone else, so explore yours and respect others! That’s the key. Then you see that the cynic’s perspective is bogus. Everyone has the potential to be as “bad” or “good” as they choose. It’s not zero sum! With that information, life is fantastic, because in the long run, people are, inclined to pursue happiness. So smile at everyone and feel connected, because it’s freaking awesome.
I don’t even care that this is probably the most obscure thing I’ve written in a while, I need to get his off my chest. I’ve been incredibly happy, and it’s because of this. I feel connected and part of something, along with everyone else that wants to be happy. It’s like a super exclusive club that let’s everyone in. We’re pursuing the most valuable thing in the world, without any focus on money, and we’re making exponential progress.
I can’t stop beaming.
Is it egotistical to think that I could potentially break free from the ego? This idea has been on my mind since my mom — if any of you know her, you’ll understand why this bugs me so much — told me I had to “get over my ego”, as I calmly and quietly allowed her to berate me over some nonsense.
Personal vs. Impersonal Relationships
There seems to be this implicit direct relation of a relationship’s quality and the closeness of the people involved, where the latter is measured through properties like the total amount of one-to-one interaction between people, the degree to which people are genetically related, or the actual amount of physical closeness (i.e. proximity) the people involved share.
I’m starting to think this assumption isn’t as true as I once thought.
For example, one of my favorite sets of musicians is Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Besides the fact that I think their music is pure bottled joy, their live performances have never left me less than hypnotized. What’s so awesome about their shows is the genuineness they embody. There’s no scripted dialog, stupid routine, or cheesy “We love you, New York”; there’s just the moving image of happy people, doing their thing with a crowd you’d think they (Ed Sharpe, et al.) knew personally.
And that’s where I think the key concept lies; that’s where the idea of “the personal” breaks down completely. Because as a member of that crowd, I actually feel like I know these people personally, even if it is just for that night, and who is to say that’s not a legitimate connection.
Alex Ebert (the lead of Ed Sharpe) couldn’t remember my name if he wanted to, just due to the sheer massive number of people he meets at every show. In such situations I’ve discovered that you have to make a choice: either (1) know that the relationship between you and the band isn’t personal, and therefore can only mean so much; or (2) throw out the need for personal-ness as a required criteria, and allow yourself to feel the full force of the moment’s potential happiness.
Obviously this idea goes beyond Edward Sharpe or even music, but for me it’s so tightly couple to them, and especially Alex Ebert, because I’ve personally (in the traditional sense) met him twice, and although I know he couldn’t possibly remember those experiences with me specifically, the times I’ve spent with him and his band are some of the happiest memories I have.
Knowing someone’s name or spending a lot of time with a person are strict formalities that need not exist for an encounter to be emotionally fruitful.
I’ve spent more time singing and dancing with Ed Sharpe than I have with nearly 3/4 of people I’d consider to be in my personal circle! AND WHO CARES! I don’t need my personal relationships to be anything they’re not, nor do I need Ed Sharpe to act any differently. The paradigm should fit reality, not the other way around!
All of that being said, I think this also sheds some light onto the entire celebrity complex that people, including myself, seem to be so fascinated with. Taking the above concept as a given: I don’t think it’s really that much of a privilege to be on either side of the celebrity relationship. If you can get past the boundaries that “the personal” imposes, then either side can enjoy the moment at equal intensity.
Also, while it’s practical for me to talk about how I (as a member of the crowd) feel about the performers, the idea of how performers see the crowd can be equally as interesting. I imagine this concept of a high quality, impersonal relationship is old news to people like Alex Ebert, his band mates, or any other genuine performer. They experience strong, short lasting, bonds to people they’ve just met much more frequently than we do, and perhaps even more frequently than they experience personal relationships, quality or otherwise. However, given that, such a perspective might shed some light on why some other performs can be such douchebags on stage.
While the potential for quality relationship is there, a lot of the time the crowd abuses their partner, the performer, demanding played out music, throwing things on stage, and doing generally anything to feed the confused hedonistic urge for a good time in a situation they’ve already predefined as impersonal. In cases like these, the crowd becomes its own beast, acting as if the performer is like some sort of credited vending machine taking a little too long to dispense their made selection; shaking the thing is near instinctual.
I think its because of this that one of my other favorite performers acts like such a dick on stage, yet remains to be so awe inspiring. Neil Young once told a fellow performer who was nervous before a gig to, “Show them no respect.” After experiencing Neil’s own lack of respect for the 4th or 5th time in person, I began to loose faith in my idol. Could such a prolific song writer, who’s work always carried the themes of compassion and togetherness, really hate people that much? Was he just another phony? I don’t think so. I think Neil just plays it like he sees it, and in the moment, the crowd — which is usually much larger than those at Edward Sharpe shows, and thus innately more unruly — can be just as much a factory of disconnect as it can be pool of mutual happiness. In that case, Neil looks at it (the crowd), recognizes it as an individual in itself, flips it off when it shows him no respect, and does what he came to do — play music.
Regardless, recognizing the true nature of one’s involvement in “the whole” of things gives you a wholesome perspective on how to act. Allowing myself to let go of all the restrictions I’ve been indoctrinated with over the years has let me enjoy experiences with a new level of intensity; on the flip side, such a perspective has also let me forgive the mob-mentalitied crowd, as they know not what they do; and lastly, this outlook has given me an understanding of those who react to the mob rather than the individuals its comprised of; it’s only natural.
So, the obvious conclusion to this little rant? Ed Sharpe should cover a Neil Young song. I’d give a few suggestions, but I’d probably end up listing the discography, so surprise me.
Quick Note to Self
There are certain things you wish to do in life that are difficult, as they require persistent forfeit of short term pleasure in exchange for long term accomplishment. There are also other things you wish to avoid; things that (supposedly) yield short term pleasure, but at the expense of long term suffering.
In order to make progress in either of these endeavors, you need focus, and the only way to gain focus is by practice.
Anything can count as practice; as long as you stay focused on a specific goal and try — however painstakingly — to accomplish that goal, you will make progress in honing the skill of true focus.
By definition, the most low level form of this practice is meditation. To sit and attempt to stay focused on a single, simple, point of interest (e.g. the breath) you progressively learn to focus on a single idea of your own choosing, and at the same time, you learn how to effectively recognize and deal with distractions.
This is what you’ve forgotten. This is what you need to remember.
-Me
Thailand Notes (Part 4)
In hindsight, I still haven’t found the proper way for how to express this idea just yet, but you got to start somewhere…
Competition and Self Reflection
When you’re submersed in a population you’re familiar with, it’s easy to recognize so called “mistakes” other people make because it’s easy to see yourself in other people. What I’m learning is that when the opposite occurs — in other words, when you’re submersed in a population that completely clashes with your sense of normalcy — it’s really difficult to connect, and thus you’re alone with yourself.
In the former case (New York, for me) I can turn behaving righteously into sort of a game, and the competition of it makes it easier for me to feel content and good. Observing other people doing things with inevitable negative outcomes makes it easier for me to not repeat such behavior in my own life. Conversely, watching people I admire, pushes me to do more with my life.
But in the latter case, I’m left alone with myself (metaphorically speaking), and mistakes go unrecognized because of my ego and lack of setting. Aspirations are also harder to grasp for similar reasons.
Both cases leave me lost in my thoughts, and I end up getting caught up in these cycles of hate and angst due to my lack of regiment or comfort. Combine this with the lack of close relationships given the setting and you find yourself with no one to call you out of your own darkness.
The conclusion: when left alone with myself it’s easy to catch the self-conscious cabin fever; it’s something I’ve got to work on.
Thailand Notes (Part 3)
Slight backstory: since the music festival I went to in early June, I haven’t been drinking, making me sober for about a month and two weeks since the writing of this post. Since then, the decision has been both highly difficult to stick to and increasingly interesting to contemplate, especially as I make it further than I ever thought I would. By the time I got to Thailand, multiplied by all the other self-reflection I was doing, drinking became the topic of choice for a car ride brain-dump, which is what I’m posting here.
I should also note that I’ve added to this opinion since I wrote the following short essay, but in an effort to stay honest to the title of these posts, I’m only going to fix grammatical errors, and not change the content.
Drinking
The reason I’m not drinking is because most of the time it’s destrctive and only ever considered fun due to its (usually) being attached to situations that would be fun even without alcohol. In light of that realization, I think the cravings I’ve been having to drink are somewhat illusory, based on this false mental-image of past goodtimes being the result of drinking; in hindsight, such moments were probably fun because of their social/active setting.
As of late though, I’ve started to think that the so called “responsible” style of drinking could be potentially neutral, but even so, I still think my abstinence is a good chance to do some positive influence for the people that I hang out with, as well as a way to allow myself to focus on doing bigger and better things with my time and subsequently my life.
Perhaps if I gauge it honestly and frequently, I’ll discover that the opportune time to drink (for me) will never come.
Here are some of the situations I’ve thought about:
Concerts:
Fun either way. I’ve already trained myself to listen and love music using nothing more than my sober senses and rad dance moves.
Backyard Conversation:
More of a habit than an enhancement. If anything, I think that attaching drinking to those countless number of nights ended up justifying a very lazy and unstimulating activity. Should my friends, family, and I not have had drinking to make it acceptable, I’m pretty sure those opportunities would’ve been taken advantage of in much more interesting ways.
Parties:
Can be fun either way, but honestly they tend to be better when there’s no inhibition (i.e. when drinking). More often than not though, (certain) parties follow a pretty predictably path of drinking games and redundant conversation. Bars are even worse. In these cases drinking is not necessary, and is often just an excuse to keep the uninspired, cyclical wait-till-weekend-get-fucked-up lifestyle going. However, in fresh party scenarios (e.g. ones with new people and activities) I think it can be good to make yourself less reserved around strangers and turn what would otherwise be a cautious self-conscious night into a blast. However, like concerts, I think this skill could absolutely be developed to work without alcohol; perhaps, it could even be improved since the latter is an active pursuit, whereas drinking is sort of passive, and thus has a biological ceiling (i.e. tolerance). In the end I still think parties lack the justification necessary to make me think of my own alcohol use as reasonable.
Grief:
Prolongs acceptance.
Tradition:
Still bad, but the benefits of keeping the community together by following tradition may outweigh the negatives. For example, not taking a shot of Johnny Walker during hunting season might be disrespectful and thus ruin the cohesion of the club for a moment.
Taste Appreciation:
Not too bad in moderation, but a very slippery slope when your trying to NOT make excuses to drink in the former settings. I’ve also found it really hard to guage the difference between a craving and a passion, in this context.
Thailand Notes (Part 2)
Everything Is Linked To Everything. That’s karma and I believe in it, but that doesn’t mean that every action has a significant correlation to every other subsequent action. Wishing something might happen and actually having that something happen may in fact have some (whatever little) correlation, but that doesn’t mean - all other conditions the same - if you didn’t wish for it to happen, that result wouldn’t occur anyway. There could be a much more correlated action tied to that reaction, and the degree to which two things are related is the way we define practical cause and effect.
It’s by this magnitude of correlation between actions that we gauge the world. The definition doesn’t support the pseudo-scientific and often emotional misinterpreting of small correlation as significant reasoning behind an effect.
Believing in karma doesn’t absolve you from looking at reality as granularly and critically as possible. Further more, by the same logic, believing that good begets good and bad begets bad doesn’t mean you can help an old lady cross the road and expect to win the lottery. Good and bad are subjective and can only be applied to a cause-and-effect analysis after the metrics have been collected. In other words, if you measure all the correlations between a set of actions and then observe that two are related, it’s only then that you can deicde wether or not they’re good or bad, and at that point your arguing opinion. It’s irrelevant.
The concept of karma is a call for reason, and I’m seeing it being interpreted as exactly the opposite.
Thailand Notes (Intro & Part 1)
Intro
So while in Thailand, I did a lot of self-reflection; went through a lot of experiences that tested my endurance, both physically and mentally; and also spent a lot of time traveling in the car. Combined, these things lead to a lot of brain-dumps which — thanks to my Uncle Frank for his graduation-gifted iPad — I was able to write down. I think they might interest some people, plus I’d like to refine their grammar and structure, as well store the ideas somewhere more persistent than the iPad’s local hard drive. So, plan-to-be: I’m going to go through each of these notes one by one and post them on this blog.
Part 1 - Untitled
You begin to realize that it’s your mind which makes things persist. Bad feelings, urges, and cravings on the experiential level are more often than not momentary pangs of vibration. Our mind takes these pangs as signals to start thinking about something, which then usually leads to an obsessive cycle of want.
For example, I want to leave, I want a beer, I want a burger, I want this turbulence to stop. If you take the time to observe the mind this becomes more and more apparent, and it’s this realization that allows one’s self to be liberated from said cycles (and thus their painful side effects). Note, I’m talking from a practical perspective; in other words, you’re not going to be able to lift a 10 ton boulder by noting and not reacting to the persistent pain in your arms and body as you try, but you may be able to stop that wrenching fear of “x”, etc.
As you develop this skill to recognize true sensation without reacting to it, suffering dissipates. But, at some point you might think you’ve eradicated all of it and then happen to go through a rought day. This is NOT significant of a failure in you or the practice, but merely a sensation you have not yet come accross and therefore have not reconditioned yourself to. The same can happen in the opposite direction as well: an unexpected happiness is always going to be short lived and ultimately distracting if you don’t pay attention to the sensations that are supposedly generating (or more realistically, are associated with) that happiness.
Once it’s gone, unless you’re honest with yourself about what you were actually feeling, it’s very easy to become sad at the idea that you can’t get that feeling back or frustrated in an effort trying to.
Consistency in practice is also important because it ensures conditionings don’t reform to sensations that have already been noticed, redefined, or eradicated.
Another thing…
The brain tends to implement this predictive caching scheme, assuming if a sensation has been felt at one point in time, unless it is responded to, the sensation will probably still be there in the next moment, so it’s safe to assume you don’t have to observe for it again. This is what was once normal for me. However, if you make an effort to actively and continuously query for sensation, you get a more precise (and often more accurate) view of what’s actually going on — a finer self-resolution, if you will — which in the long run gives you a clearer view of truth and thus the way out of suffering via the above practice.
This has been especially practical for me when dealing with fear. Turbulence hits, my heart jumps, but I immediately reevaluate myself afterword, with an effort only to keep my mind still, and I go back to normal, neutral, receptive me. Before being observant I would’ve played through many different scenarios of how the plane would crash soon and I would die in a horrifying fall, in the end making myself extremely stressed and anxious for no reason. Now I circumvent that infinite (and pointless) escalation cycle and just continue on with my life. Or at least, I try to.
Perhaps the Poor Are Better Suited for Progressing Toward Enlightenment
Just a small braindump: I was just thinking that if the route out suffering is to become both objectively aware of sensation and simultaneously to eradicate conditioning, then the people who are less able to respond to the most primal conditioning (e.g. hunger, thirst, etc.) have a more natural inclination to not react to their cravings. Whereas in The States, our my cravings tend to be for more abstract things (e.g., ice cream, video games, kinky sex, etc.) most of which I can (and am often encouraged by my surroundings) to satisfy.
