devved by Jess Cummins
NoLiesPlease.com
(uuid_4c85e209-3ede-47f5-a7f2-2ccdcffc34f5)
(ty11.9.2d5s)
I am fortunate.
To be a human, but also during this time and place in the history of creation: when the great societies are shifting toward a freer peace, away from brutal simplicities.
I don’t know what Humanity will do with its remaining time in the universe, whether it will be spent softly and eagerly or if perchance the light will burst like a firecracker and not spread.
It’s not up to me to know such distant facts, ones on which we all now living play a part to change.
On the near I shift more, it’s a hazier game but at least somewhat fruitful.
While the long-term trajectory of humanity is at the two ends, either brutal and short or long and majestic, the short-term situation we craft now is almost silly in comparison.
Who are we to decide our fate?
We can’t—the Mystery of the universe does that, and the illusion we give ourselves of the short-time here is absurd.
The concern we have for today, tomorrow, the next week and probably even the next year will pale in comparison to Humanity’s Total Achievements, or even more starkly, the Universe’s Total Achievements.
We have no trouble getting locked into the short-term future, or at least, dear perceiver, I have no trouble.
When the obnoxious pressures of life build, we should channel ourselves into the growth of the soul, the mind.
It is there that refuge exists, not in the external world.
If a thug threatens your life, you cannot defeat him by playing his game.
You must play a higher level game, a better, purer game.
The hardest fact I have to keep in mind is that there is no master level game.
With every level you add, more nuances and strategies can be played, to whatever end in life you want to play them.
It’s like the vibrant ecosystem of a rainforest.
While the nonexistence of a perfect strategy is disorienting, there is no better cure than actual play.
It happens that knowing that can give the hope to continue to beat your own strategy.
Whatever you think is wrong is right and vice versa.
There is insight into existence here.
You can always find a better way, so stop trying to find the best.
When you have settled, you need to shift.
You can’t build a castle out of a house: you need more elementary bricks.
I get locked into a mode of thinking, trapped in a timeframe that holds no reasonable meaning.
Just stop and listen to the sounds of existence for a moment, would you, and tell me, what you are glad for.
I’m glad for light.
I struggle with the question of action, yet action does not give meaning, thought doesn’t give meaning.
What’s true is not necessarily so.
Maybe it’s the rebelling against authority, the vain struggle of the ones who give up power to the ones who snatch it.
You aren’t free when there is an enemy within you.
Of course this is true; of course the divided mind cannot stand.
It takes not only hard work but also time, the most precious resource, to break apart the chains within you and realize the absurd cosmic joke of it all.
That won’t set you free either, because the mind alone soon withers.
No, friend, you need to feel the universe, the Mystery of reality, agree with your newfound chainless being.
That doesn’t come easy.
You can never reach perfection, but you can reach toward it.
Do you want to do the work?
I don’t know how able you are.
You can’t either—the Mystery must decide.
That’s quite a long ways from now, anyhow.
Give it a try though.
There is no right way; there is no fast way. There is no easy way.
There is only one way, but it’s different for each of us.
We never travel down the same path twice, not physically, temporally, emotionally, or mentally.
It’s hard for me to grasp, but no one has lived my experiences before, at least no one I could communicate with. That means that no matter how bad you think you screwed up, it’s not half as bad as last time.
Stop.
What do you think the reason for your life is? No, it’s probably not that, no matter how sure you feel.
No one can tell you, doubtfully even you can tell yourself.
It’s probably not for love, or beauty, or goodness, or honesty.
Those things are nice and all, but they swiftly lose their interest, on a certain high-level. I’m not saying ignore them, because of course your mind is for your body, but your body is sometimes easily distracted. It has deeper wants, too.
Let me show you something.
Imagine a clear blue sky.
Did you see only that, or did you quickly fantasize and imagine new trails?
I get lost in some of mine, and the body becomes frustrated at the mind’s inability to create with continued precision. That’s just me, though.
You have to change your physical remembering, if you want to progress.
What is in your line-of-sight you will remember, so you must shift your location to suit a free being. Not doing so is the most costly mistake of your existence.
I warn and know it’s not easy, at least for me.
Why not do it?
Anything you have now could be taken away later, and it’s better to use it while you can.
The greater joys must be imaginary, they won’t come to a person seeking them.
They come to the person who seeks themself.
What do you hope to find? You will find something worthwhile, I have no doubt.
What could it be? It’s likely not to be what you think, else you would already have thought it.
Is it peace, hope, passion?
No, these are likely byproducts of the quest, but you can probably not tear them from the tree without first growing it.
Think of the first introspective ape, and think of Mystery peering down on you.
What are you looking for?
I’m looking for the solution to my animal, the union of mind and body, spirit and soul.
It’s that awful connection that gives you pain, that gives you suffering.
When your mind wants, but the body does not, how distraught you and I become.
I am looking for how to please my body and my intellect, my morals and my interests.
Given the first precept—it can always be played on a higher game—I’m both sure there is a solution and that it is not the final one.
I don’t care where the difficulty lies, I want to explore.
It’s this conscious/unconscious divide, the Human/animal dilemma that bugs me.
It’s not that I place the human on a pedestal, higher than its creator, but because I intend to place them on equal ground that the differences become disconcerting.
If neither the emotion nor the intellect is in charge, who makes the rules?
Not that rules are necessary, but neither is design by committee.
I have a gut feeling in the Higher-Level-Game proposal, so what is the higher level to this mind/body duality?
Of course it can’t be answered simply, I know.
Given time and work, enough inroads will emerge. That’s how it has always been.
See, Plan, Do, Check—the good ol’ Polya formula.
Well, what am I trying to do?
What is the goal, what is the problem?
Merging mind and body, hold neither above the other, but find the viewpoint where they are on equal footing.
When they are equally important, one’s life—your life—can be more balanced and the existential angst of the mind will be satisfied by the body.
Or something?
(uuid_4e4b027e-296c-42d3-8f18-69a1fc764f9e)
(ty11.9.3d6s)
Who knows?
The practice of the fool is scarcely effective, but it takes the wise among wise to know how to teach them.
If the Mystery of reality wants to change them, only then will it occur.
Consider the benefits; hold them in your mind.
I can’t announce for you a particular problem; all things run together synergistically.
Oh, but wonderful luck to have such suffering, even with the good, no less.
How can we be on better terms, except by complimenting each other’s thoughtfulness?
The tiniest prick of hurt erases your concerns of the long-term, scaring away the nebulous demons, like a cross to their unholy being.
Oh, how quickly that pain erases the concerns by adding more immediate ones, while the long-term strategy of contemplation yields a less concrete result.
Contemplation, reflection, shows a higher truth instead of the lower one. It removes obstacles instead of immediately tripping you.
Yet this uncertainty created by freedom can never leave wholly.
It’s crazy though to be so concerned with the fruits of action.
Give your senses and hopes to the Mystery as an offering of joy through service to a higher cause.
(uuid_420fd812-51ec-43b6-aa8f-92592a39789b)
(ty11.10.12d3s)
How is it we let things into our daily schedules and they gradually take over our minds? Do we love too much?
We must remove what is definitely less important, over and over until only the truly human and important is left.
It can be hard to focus on the moment. It can be hard to take notice of the breathing, the sensations. Is it because it doesn’t provide a direct benefit, the action isn’t rewarded with fruit, with the closing of the feedback cycle?
Like the monk mountain climbers, if you are enjoying the journey it will never be too hard—you will not give up.
It’s a big world we live in. There is much to see and do and learn.
Where do you go, when you think no path holds the cure, only treatments?
The general issues of life may need to be resolved by adherence to Mystery, but your life can be studied nonpersonally to understand yourself better. Is it pointless to undertake this task? No, you must live within yourself for the foreseeable future, so do not shy away from the experiment.
It’s so funny the lanes we go down, the things we believe are crucial.
Enjoy the time while you’re fascinated. It’s always a fun time to have your imagination captured.
Make your search not only for what is intriguing, but for what is profitable, what puts food in your belly. It’s hard to think while hungry. It’s hard to be happy while hungry. Not just in the sense of physically, but also spiritually, and in the sense of relationships and interesting work.
Rich Hickey (of clojure.org) reminds that we need to be working on hard problems. Why? So life gets more interesting.
We ease from food to factories, progressing into harder and harder territory, while also having all the advice of ancestors and explorers before us. We don’t know what to do now, and they didn’t then. With luck, Mystery guides us.
The simulation we are in shows all doubt for naught, and regardless of the movie, regardless of the game, it is fun to live.
Nothing makes sense without context. The context is a story you repeat to yourself about what is important.
What is important, friend? Whatever you want.
I choose to believe because it’s fun. Fun is what’s important. Peace is also enjoyable.
The light of the renunciation of the fruit of action is always present, if you consider it.
(uuid_d82f12b1-0db5-45f3-b17c-196eea6a94c4)
(ty11.10.30d7s)
Why do happiness cycles sometimes seem so short-lived?
I ponder my situation, how I feel trapped by my own greed, comfort, laziness. That upsets me even more, as if I don’t have control over even the basic things. I know I do; I’m just afraid, afraid of success, of getting tied down and trapped more.
This seems such a silly conundrum, such a first-world problem.
How can you have more humility and perspective?
How can you do something about the situation?
Anything you learn and experience will be worth more in the long run than money.
What is important to you? Do you just want to be happy, do you want inner peace, do you want to be rich, to make a difference in the world? How can you develop simple tastes?
My concern is making a positive difference in the world. When I think I might fail to aid the world to the best of my abilities, I’m saddened, deeply. It ruins the day. I don’t think it’s something I can get over. I suppose if it’s not meant to be, it won’t.
The problem it seems to me is losing a passion. Passion, regardless of the Gita, is much more fun than serenity. I’ve been crazy, and I’ve been serene. Craziness is more fun.
The argument could be that passion is of the animal and not the human. If Mystery leads to the conclusion that passion is necessary for happiness, it seems a path that is prechosen.
Stoicism may have some good points, but overall I am not convinced it leads to the most fun life.
Passionate love seems to be a key element of a most-fun life.
I don’t know what I am. I don’t know what I love, or what is important to me, or what invokes my passion. I just know what doesn’t. A life where I don’t try my hardest and make this the best world it can be, seems not a life worth living.
The mind is so full of nuance that if you bow to it, it will find the proper course of action. The intuition somehow already knows what you need to do. Your task is to break free and follow it.
I’ve never had my intuition lead down a path that was not the best in the long run.
What is my end in life? To make the world a more fun place.
How do you go about doing it? By always being genuine with yourself and others. Any problem you face should be put in this context.
Are you making life more fun while being genuine?
(uuid_f2728794-3555-4daf-8e46-5c59d4b56988)
(ty11.11.7d1s)
It’s interesting the chapters in life we play, how they flow one to another, how so many things come together in order to make any one particular moment.
The question is, is there a way to live a more creative life, without succumbing to the harsh realities of the current world?
I’m not sure that there needs to be some special purpose more than what you choose to give it.
Really, it is hard, very hard, to sustain a thought in the face of so many other shiny things in life.
Why do this, why do that, the world is full of things that take effort and things that draw away because they’re simpler.
And like I realized earlier yesterday, there doesn’t have to be any one thing that fulfills all of your desires in life.
Obviously such a thing would have to be amazingly complex to satisfy all the diverse desires, and the only thing that sophisticated seems to be life itself!
There’s no shortcut, there’s no magic bullet.
It’s interesting to think that intelligence and confidence are not equivalent.
People don’t look at them the same way.
But if the question is impact, one must consider what precisely needs impacting.
If it’s general life evolution, human evolution, personal fulfillment and peace, these are all different.
Of course, it may not even be impact that matters most, it may be just internal awareness.
I question any posit, any giving of purpose to another without their consent, even yourself.
It’s internal detection, not invention.
You don’t tell yourself what you like, you do what you like and become more nuanced.
Most of life seems this way, a subtle refining of what works and what doesn’t.
Yet sometimes one has a deep sense of confusion about something, ie not wanting to do it, work on it, or even think about it.
Could this be somewhat embarrassment?
My question is, why does one get stuck at a point in a project?
Ah, how life works out.
It’s all in your head, friend, don’t forget that.
Things matter because you make them matter, you believe they matter.
It’s true what they say, home is where the heart is, and all you need is a little food and a place to lay your head.
When things aren’t going your way, get up and change them, that is what video games and life teach us.
And while some things may be out of your control, other things are not.
Focus on the circle of influence, as Stephen Covey says.
I do believe we all have thoughts and abilities the world needs and would be better with, and I think I am capable.
The hard question, the question I really don’t have an answer to, yet, is what I should be doing with my skills, my knowledge, my abilities.
It’s hard to say to do this or do that when I can’t even figure out what I want, when I can’t follow even my advice from my autobiography.
It’s that disconnect, maybe, between the familiar and unfamiliar.
Even if you know what to do, it’s still hard to do it, to pull through and do the work.
Yet I do think as we push we get stronger.
It’s interesting to realize the sadness, the grief, is really the last stage of concern.
After it passes there is a new hope, one based less on making the past better but on opening the doors for the future.
I definitely think that one will push and push while they have something to live for, be it Steve Jobs, Thomas Jefferson, etc.
It makes sense, that it hurts to die, hurts to give up, but it tends to be hopeless anyway, however when you can do a final act of good for the world, that is when you push and don’t give up.
On a certain level, now we must give up, give up the pretenses of life and society that sadden our deepest core.
For example, Up really made me weep, seeing the boy and girl live out a life, a good life, but nonetheless different from their childhood dreams of exploration, made me sob deeply.
Am I a failure in that same regard?
Have I made promises that I have not kept?
One insight from the movie was that after he accomplished his dream, finally, he could move on to a more timely one.
He fulfilled his obligation to his wife, then to the boy he was with.
He made peace with the past, he considered it resolved, and let it float away.
That’s the point of all this thinking, this confusion, this haze that torments my being and happiness.
It’s no easy thing to move forward, to untether with the past, to believe the future can be even more magnificent than you could even truly imagine.
It’s hard, and it’s undoubtedly the way forward.
All of my recent experimentation with untethering from my past has lent me that insight.
And in that regard, though I still undoubtedly feel tied down, I have had my burdens lifted.
It’s not simply by canceling the want that it goes away, because it really doesn’t if that’s all you do.
It takes deep soul searching and slow processing to cut through the cruft and let the beautiful core shine out.
Believe me, you can’t really cut out something that will help you.
It will always resurface if it’s a good idea, and if it’s not then you wouldn’t use it even when you go back and look through the past.
What does it add to you, now, to look back and see how you have changed, where you have come from?
What do you actually need, do you need any creation of yours?
What of it actually increases your utility now or in the foreseeable future?
When it comes down to it, I realize I can renounce my past, the things I used to care about but no longer do.
This isn’t a prison, this is whatever you want.
I don’t have to keep doing something just because I’ve done it a long time, or care about something just because it’s an old joy.
I am young, but honestly I expect to always be so.
Young doesn’t mean less wise, smart, knowledgeable.
Perhaps it means less experienced, but young can also mean more able to adapt.
Honestly, I do love my life, what I’ve experienced, who I am.
I can’t think of someone I’d more rather be.
I’m confident in myself, I’m not as worried about what others think as some, I’m iconoclast and revolutionary and insightful.
That’s how I feel least.
I like being me.
Even when I think about the rich and famous, I can’t think of any one of them I’d rather switch places with.
Huh.
That certainly puts things in perspective, when I like myself better than I like them.
Would I like parts of them, like the intelligence of one, wisdom of another, nonchalance of the third, friendliness of the fourth?
Sure, but I don’t see how that’s an option.
I like being me, I like the overall package.
Overall I’d rather have the higher level of human fun than that animal level of fun, though it is enticing.
It’s enticing because it’s easier, but it doesn’t take you as high, in the long-run.
And the long-run is where we all end up.
It’s a balance.
You are still a human animal, you do still have emotions and they do, believe it or not, serve a purpose.
There are few who I have read and felt like I could experience consistent gains from their thoughts, Emerson is one.
Yet, I suppose there are more, if I widen the search to be implications of their thoughts, so I could recognize and understand the tropeyness of their being.
But I too am a trope, and I wish I knew what it was so I could follow it faster.
Perhaps that’s the trope, a man, promising, but who constantly questions where he is going.
I can’t bring to mind a story with him, but it feels somehow familiar, like from an Indian tale.
Yeah, it bothers me that someone would suggest meaning of life questing to be fruitless or irrelevant.
That seems like it sets you up for failure later in life.
However there is a point that can be gleaned from it, that young man has suppositions about life that often fail to turn out accurately.
Yet I have known many young and old people, all through the years, and I must admit I look at all people through that filter of the brevity and confinedness of life.
Just because you’re older than me doesn’t make you right.
There are older people than you, dead men’s writings even, and they aren’t all right.
And no matter what you’ve experienced, there is always more to experience.
I think the Dalai Lama was right in suggesting that the country places too much value on intelligence and not enough on heart.
It seems an important facet of human life, existence, and happiness.
For no matter your intelligence you can’t invent yourself happiness unless you grow and deepen your heart.
And how is that done, how does one care more deeply, while also untethering from the things one no longer cares for?
Perhaps it must be stepping back from the process that brought you to need to untether in the first place.
That constant need, really a want, to get more things to show that love.
Everything seems so simple in retrospect, doesn’t it?
It’s hard to vividly feel the confusion when looking back, even though in real time it’s quite difficult, and many other things are pressing on your attention at the same time.
I know, like I tell my kids, I can’t answer the questions for you or you won’t learn.
It’s really that simple.
If you want to be better, you have to build new connections, and that’s never really easy.
Even doing mental pushups with Mathematics only lightens the load when solving more relevant problems, you can never eliminate it.
To eliminate struggle is to make life meaningless.
It’s the problems we have, the dangers we overcome, that make life more fun and meaningful.
It’s hard going through it, yes.
No, really, it’s a bitch.
I don’t think there is any way to get around that without also diminishing the good times.
Honestly, I’ve tried it.
Sure, it sucks right now, but you’ve seen how good it can be.
I remember how it was.
It wasn’t bad, but the highs were octaves lower.
There was perhaps a one octave difference between total high and low, whereas now it is more like five octaves, and overall, honestly, I think it’s higher now.
Sure, I’m more sensitive to my feelings, so it feels like wild swings, but overall I think it’s higher.
And no one is going to argue that you should say what you said before, because you were wrong, and it was a long time ago.
Honestly I haven’t thought much about how I got on that track, but I’m glad that I’m off it.
It really is a balance thing, you can’t go too far on any one track if the other trains aren’t with you or you go off the deep end.
I think I know, now, but I’ll keep my eyes and ears and tongue and fingers open.
Also my nostrils. Haha.
Don’t forget about me, bro. I really do like you the best of all.
(uuid_7c293a4f-ed7b-478d-b7fe-d3b714bacb89)
(ty11.11.9d3s)
I don’t know where I’m going.
I don’t know where life is taking me. I don’t know if I’m meant to be a programmer, a writer, an inventor, a scientist, or maybe a tutor.
If even major life trauma, after three months, is back to normal, then I could change, over and over, never fearing that I can land on my feet, or at least get back up again. That’s really an enheartening idea, if you catch my meaning.
We aren’t rocks that fall this way and that, but mammals that pull ourselves up by whatever means possible.
We’re like great machines that repair, and defend, and conquer, and advance into the world and spaces around us.
What am I afraid of? Being afraid? That seems so circular, so self-contradictory. The truth is I’m afraid of more than that.
I’m afraid of poverty, death, pain.
I’m afraid of success, of change, even for the positive.
I am in love with the future, perhaps to the detriment of the present.
I don’t know how others live. I only know my inner thoughts, and I try to see the deeper and deeper.
It is in those mundane, private thoughts that truth is revealed, set bare against the sky and sand.
It’s not in hiding that we find ourselves. I pity the one who has not realized that, for they are truly lost.
I don’t know my dreams; I just watch them as they pass by in my mind. Yet here I am, pondering the mysteries, and deepening my love and awareness.
Fundamentally I don’t care what others think; I care about my own thoughts, and how deep they are, and how deep I can make them.
I realize that complex things can be built from the vastly simple, that mind, life, and universe need not be unexplainable to still house mysteries for a simple consciousness.
That is what I want to do—I want to become more: more conscious, more learnéd, more powerful. I don’t care how much; I don’t care how little.
My concern is on the process itself; the end-goal is out of my hands; there are too many variables.
I can always take the Zen approach, focusing only on the one task in front of me, not worrying about the rest. That’s how you get things done while having an interesting time doing it. It’s not about speed, efficiency, or even effectiveness.
There is always more work that can be done. That is a state of life. There can always be more food, more children.
If it doesn’t add value to your life, to your existence, it’s meaningless to pursue, pointless to do.
Why do what you don’t want, if it adds no value to your life?
It’s a good question.
(uuid_6bcc3458-9b48-4e7b-8bae-efec59003eb2)
(ty11.11.13d7s)
O grand and beautiful mind above matter, help me now as I contemplate my small segment of your majestic existence.
Now I contemplate a question of deep importance: even with all your flaws, who do you like more?
I like my humor, I like my skills and knowledge, I like my tastes, my body, my memories. I like my preferences.
Who is another to say to me they are better than me? It may be so for them, but only in certain regards is it so for me.
I may like a particular aspect of them—perhaps their outgoing nature, or cheerfulness, or peace, or intellect, or skill—but I would rather have my combination of attributes, if push came to shove.
While they are beautiful, deep creatures, I prefer my own style of deepness.
I am fortunate to realize this, for it is a pity to not love yourself. And honestly, I do love myself. I love myself most of all, more than any other creature, at least any particular one.
Even my delusions give me hope; they show me my own frailty and so emphasize my own beauty and strength and wealth within me.
Is not wealth the output of your personal creativity? Are you not rich when you can imagine new realities? That seems far preferable to the richness of only physical things.
In developing your imagination, are you not made richer? Is not the beauty always inside you, therefore? It’s not dependent on a physical entity except your own brain and the love that you can produce with it by using your imagination.
This doesn’t seem to be an issue of disagreement; there isn’t much emotion on this question, this topic.
So instead let me rephrase the question: what are your flaws, why do you have them?
One flaw is being afraid to sell, being afraid to go out there and feel confident.
I think it comes from an aversion to rejection, but I know I can choose not to experience that. For example, during a speech for Toastmasters where I hadn’t reviewed my notes nor slept well, I realized while standing up there and fumbling pretty hard that I had nothing to worry about even if I totally bombed. That’s refreshing to know, because it keeps you from taking yourself so seriously that you freeze up and can’t flow at all.
I flowed to the best of my ability, however much that was under the circumstances.
Another flaw is not being able to put in the hard work, of acting and acting and building and building and then becoming overwhelmed. Then the feeling of too much prevents you from doing the important and instead you change focus to the urgent.
Well, let me ask this.
If you stopped totally when you became overwhelmed, put aside all chores besides eating and sleeping, and instead did one task, what would it be?
I think the best might be to practice metacognition, considering what you really want and need.
Thinking about everything at once is a recipe for inaction.
To get things done you have to simplify your mind, break out of the hold of daily living.
As in Siddhartha, you can practice thinking, waiting, and fasting.
It is true that very few things are necessary for your joy and happiness.
You could read all the old masterpieces of the world and you would never run out of wondrous ideas.
But it’s not solely an input process: it is also equally an output.
You cannot just read—you must write. And you cannot just write—you must create.
It’s by taking the process seriously that you make progress.
It’s by seeking to know thyself that one can hone in on the profitable ideas.
So when you become overwhelmed, first breathe.
Then take a step or two back and ask what you really want and why.
Know thyself, sweet one.
Love, Jesse
(uuid_42ef9ad8-564d-456f-8691-2c56ff26f68e)
(ty11.11.14d1s)
O great and wise controller of the simulation, please see fit to grant my tongue and mind fluidity of thought as I break apart the issues I face into their subcomponents.
For here I am today, laying in a swinging hammock, looking up at the trees and sky, watching the leaves tumble through the air.
And my question for today is, what do you consider freedom?
And as I watch the bug fly through the air and the bird in the tree, I think of my humble ape self, concerned about such a topic.
And I realize as I see a bird flit from tree to tree that humans really have the most freedom.
For while I am fundamentally an ape I can also aspire to be greater than other animals, greater than any animal, man or beast, and live a more fun and free existence.
Freedom is the ability to choose.
The bird cannot choose to not work.
The wolf must hunt to eat.
Not only that, but the way they hunt and live is almost entirely under the control of their genes, they seldom devise and spread new ideas.
So if freedom is about choice, what would you choose with your freedom?
That seems a relevant question, one often brought to my attention but not fully explored.
My typical response would be that is not just personal choice I want but the fruit of other people’s choice as well.
And in some regards that’s valid, but you can’t solve the world’s problems without first solving your own.
Personal freedom for me would be pushing myself into an environment where the beauty is overwhelming, my needs are satisfied by myself and I am producing excellent work and finding a meaning in life.
And indeed, slowly slowly, I feel I am making progress on this dense and nebulous task.
For only just recently did I truly grok that all I really need is a little food to eat and a place to lay my head and sleep.
For it seems that when you really let yourself be, free from worry and concern, free from longings and wants and desires, that is when you can truly rest easy.
That is when you truly become satisfied.
It’s not when you have wants fulfilled that you become satisfied, but when you let go of your concern and desires in the first place, that’s when your body begins to heal itself from the inside-out.
For it’s about making your mind still and letting the urgent but unimportant flow away, drift off into irrelevance.
Like all things, it’s by giving up the dream of what you think you want that you discover what you really want.
Are you fine with having no creative output?
Yes, because you know you enjoy the creative input just as much, albeit in a different way.
You have to analyze how you feel, but when you are doing so you must use your intuition and heart to tell you what to analyze.
You have to put yourself in the position where you go with the flow.
Otherwise, being still an ape and animal, you will succumb and be distracted by the immediately gratifying things, even though they don’t help you sleep easy at night.
So what is freedom to you?
It’s to use my human to put my animal in fun life.
It’s to realize that I need very little.
It’s to acknowledge I am naked at birth and in moments of creation.
Freedom is choice.
My choice is to be satisfied.
My choice is to be at peace.
Sincerely, Jesse
(uuid_8991f39f-7216-4912-865e-e0a930c86fd5)
(ty11.11.15d2s)
O wise and glorious leader of actions, muse that turns the metaphysical cogs in my mind, help me, please, as I inquire as to your voice.
For today in this hour I have a question.
Being that I have elucidated what freedoms means to me, i.e. using my human to realize I need very little and putting my animal in fun life, help me now to realize what’s stopping me from attaining it.
One issue is that I don’t know what I consider fun, another is the unprocessed emotions that tell me I need more things to be satisfied, another is that I feel like it’s all up to me, instead of understanding faith and the role the environment plays in the peace I feel.
For when I consider the things pressing on me, I become sad, yet when I consider how I have, do, and can press on the world around me, I become hopeful, joyous, encouraged.
For it is when I bind my desires, my beliefs about what I need, that they each become less daunting, more real through virtue of ability to be attained.
When I bind the ambition, then it serves its purpose and moves me to act.
Too much ambition, too much concern about which of all the various interesting choices to make, and I become paralyzed and unhappy.
Yes, these emotions of what is most interesting need to be processed, yet remember that there is so much good out there, so many good books to read and people to understand.
No one says that you have to do anything worthwhile, become some superinfluential world changer.
All that really matters is your perception of yourself.
Are you doing what you have a passion for?
Remember, nothing stops your will but your own acceptance of failure.
And what is most important is that failure is defined by your definition of success, and that need not be at all relevant to anyone besides yourself.
And think of this, there are more opportunities for growth where there are more people.
You can do more, have more intimate connections, where there are more niches.
Another aspect that is preventing me from having fun is my own confusion about what fun is for me.
Fun is surely not feeling dependent on another, but it seems to be related to the immediate and delayed gratification issue.
The delayed gratification is ultimately more satisfying, but you aren’t sure when it is coming, so you feel more uneasy during it.
Fun therefore can have various, and essentially incompatible, scales of desire.
From the instant fun of cake to the long-term fun of having built a grand house with your own hands.
And perhaps it is this second, delayed fun, that actually convinces you to keep going in the face of overwhelming coincidences threatening you with failure.
Perhaps this is the point of a personal mission statement, a master plan.
For it is by knowing your own long-term desires, your long-term considerations of what’s important, and why they are important, and how you have progressed over time, that ultimately gives you the willingness to continue, the fortitude of endurance.
And all good things take time, it’s true.
The deeper you go into life, the more you experience and the more fears you remember having conquered, the more associations you can draw from that tell you that you shouldn’t give up, that you can still change and accomplish peace.
The deeper you go the more you realize you actually can reach for the stars, you actually can grasp them.
But you also have a tendency to become so focused, so laden in one dream, that if it shimmers or shatters you become sad and lose hope.
But honestly it’s not about any one dream, the more I think the more I realize it’s about balancing all the myriad of different but equally loved dreams, that each come together to give more beauty to the world.
Hakuna matata, and the more I think the more I feel there’s no one right answer, no perfect thing that you must do to be happy, successful.
It is always and forever an unimaginable multitude of causes, each equally valid and powerful.
Break anything down into its components and you will see that it is just chance.
Freedom comes to you as your desire for worldly success lessens.
Freedom to be at peace comes from the point by point breakdown of your true desires.
I believe Mystery is a valuable concept, because sometimes, for no reason, life throws a brick in your face, and you still need to have faith.
Sincerely, Jesse
(uuid_98fbf23b-5fa6-4a08-ba89-7ad13b9046b0)
(ty11.11.16d3s)
O greatest wizard of time, space, mind, and matter, please guide my thoughts, guide my pen, help me sustain. I face a question, and I ask of you, dear muse, to help me continue.
Where can you be mindful most often of the beauty?
It seems to be easy to grow accustomed to the beauty that surrounds us. It seems to be easy to take it for granted. Perhaps the cure is meditation, mindfulness as the skill and practice.
You can feel the beauty all around, if you desire.
You, until you’ve adopted your super-human technologies, are an animal living a strange life in an environment that evolution did not prepare you for.
What I can offer is what works for me. In the past others have shared what works for them. There is much to glean from time-tested wisdom.
How do you stay mindful in whatever space you find yourself in?
Imagine closing your eyes. Are you still mindful of the good? Do you still vow to follow your heart and let the cards fall where they may?
My animal says: “I guess. It seems kind of silly.”
Who are you, dear animal, and how can I help you? For we truly are one, inseparable, and if I must choose between ‘human’ or animal, I choose what gives birth to the other. I know our human-nature is fantasy, and I know the animal is the true joy inducer.
My question, dear animal, coming from the human, is how may I help? How can I satisfy your dreams, wishes, desires for existence?
I ask, “What is the point of all this?” and you answer with firm resolve all the benefits of nature, all the glories of existence.
You are mindful most often of the beauty when your animal is grasping for a pleasure, a fun, a love, that your human has created, fashioned from material of both worlds.
Where you do go? That is the wrong question.
How do you create mindful beauty? That is the question to ask.
The animal is old, and what always worked for it was many small steps with feedback. You can amplify that feedback if you use your powerful, ingenious creative human mind.
Sincerely,
Jesse