you either do the thing you are thinking about
or
you think about the thing you want to be doing
these are the options
you either do it or you think about doing it
as simple as that
you either maintain a self-image in the now
living in reaction
doing jackshit
or compound your power for the future
taking action
getting shit done
it’s up to you
the half-hearted realm of wishy-washy deferral
is the limbo of a juiceless, lifeless existence
build clarity through experiential experimentation
never cease probing
let your actions determine your emotions
not the other way around
remember,
the stronger your resolve
the stronger your reason for it
where criticism, failure, resistance and your emotions (in response) become mere fodder for it
to paraphrase Nassim Taleb:
while wind puts out a candle, it fuels a fire
Bernard Shaw:
“The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation, because occupation means pre-occupation; and the
pre-occupied person is neither happy nor unhappy, but simply alive and active. That is why it is necessary to happiness that one should be tired.”
or in Dale Carnegie’s paraphrase:
“George Bernard Shaw was right. He summed it all up when he said: ‘The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.’ So don’t bother to think about it! Spit on your hands and get busy. Your blood will start circulating; your mind will start ticking—and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind. Get busy. Keep busy. It’s the cheapest kind of medicine there is on this earth—and one of the best.”
I am always conflicted on this, though..
I tend to rationalize my idleness as a way of mindfulness meditation
or alignment with my inner fluctuations
and mastering the art of letting go
I self-justify my passivity & tell myself that busyness and all the hustle & bustle is nothing but losing oneself in distraction and giving up, in effect, the beauty of stopping to smell the roses
but then I start wondering whether the anxiety rising up inside out of idleness is not a direct reflection of my resistance to the flow of life
a reflection of my laziness to being a productive force of nature
life is an invitation
to participate
and the more I seek the avoid it
to get above & outside its chaos
and the more I resist its flow:
the more dejected and dead I become
inside & out
it’s a loop
what (death) I seek to avoid
is what I end up attracting
the more that I resent the randomness and contingency and the flux and chaos of life
and therefore resist “just going with it”
the less I am alive:
as if stuck inside an asphyxiating container
that keeps shrinking
fear shrinkwraps and drains the juices of life out of me
there is a difference between ‘letting go’ and ‘letting go’
one of them is passive
one of them is proactively done
and both are essential
they key, as always, is to strike the right balance
life happens on the inside
where you are losing the self you have identified with
every time you relax further inside
I can seek to keep an image of myself outside, insulated, safe and sound
but where my essence is called forth is in the heart of the mesh
enriching my experience
is my offering to the collective experiential dimension of life
my truest contribution
another gem from David Deida:
“Hello, good to see you.”
This sentence can be said with the energy of anger, sweetness, sexiness, hatefulness, or coyness. You can speak with any energetic quality, pervading the concert hall of your experience. The bodies in this hall -yours and others- are resonated by the energy you offer. Be responsible for your breathing, your posture, your thoughts, and your speech, artfully opening those who float in this moment of appearance with you.
How responsible are you willing to be? The world awaits your answer, like an audience at your concert.
you am what your expression triggers
what a beautiful phrase:
no strings attached
no strings means
that you give
you don’t expect anything in return
it’s selfless
what arises through you
whatever pops up as an impulse
you just simply “express”
you are not seeking to make an “impression” that holds your self-image in place
you are not a puppet or a slave to (the micromanagement of) your self-image
no,
you entangle with others from a neutral position
in the moment
free of any judgment and stories filtering your flow
you know exactly what you want
and you go for it
regardless of the specter of rejection
you are ready to take rejection
ready to roll with the thrill of it
you don’t let your behaviour be dictated by scripts, idea(l)s, and, in general,
a narrative temporality that warps your engagement with yourself & others
there are no strings attached
yes
no strings means
that you don’t just passively slide into roles and social algorithms
living a life external to you
a placid life that’s expected of you
no strings means
you have no mercy
you align
you stand for and assert
clarity and directness
you admit & own
what you want
you are transparent about it
and take nothing personally
you don’t allow any strings shove you around like a puppet
you don’t anxiously speculate, you don’t project or calculate
instead you shove yourself
you push yourself over the edge
and have them chips fall where they shall
Emerson called it self-reliance
Cook calls it being in your prime
and we could simply call it being real
[now bracket all of this above
and divide it by the qualifier: as much as humanly possible]
don’t seek it, be it
turn people on
by getting turned on by them
I am what my ‘expression’ triggers in others
I am not what I think I am
and not what I think others think of what I am
I am not a thought outside myself
I am what I express (through my actions)
and I am what my expression triggers in others
I am the ripples that I generate
noone will do it for you
and you wouldn’t want that anyway
you only become good at the wrong thing
or the right(ish) thing in the wrong context that way
what a waste
no,
you want to do the right thing
that is calling rather than obliging you
you don’t want to act towards expectations
via ‘passive adaptation’
you want to act out of clarity & choice
FOCUS & commitment
in a mode of ‘proactive adaptation’
you want to be you, do you
give your gift and serve
on your own terms
you want to appoint yourself and
create your own brand
and -by the same token- verify what Buffett says:
“the ability to raise prices
– the ability to differentiate yourself in a real way, and a real way means you can charge a different price –
makes a great business”
learned helplessness does not help
as Stephen Covey said
you cannot talk yourself out of a situation
you have behaved yourself into
and conversely, we might add,
you cannot talk yourself into a situation
without behaving yourself into it
starve your shadow
deprive it of the oxygen of your ‘committed’ attention (i.e. attachment)
keep depleting it relentlessly
observe without attachment
react without attachment!
get to know its every quiver
own it
keep pushing it out by (the momentum of) movement
it’s so simple
diss the surface impulses as you tune into your deepest impulses
just listen to your body and trust your intuition
feel it, act on it
and smile at your resistance/shadow as you yield beyond it
that’s it
maintain the habits that work for you
d e c o n s t i p a t i o n 