This is inspired by all the people I know that are "in the middle" they do anything to avoid conflict and always try to make everyone to like them, this is not about the reason they do behave that way, but about the consequence of that behavior.
Assuming that there is no thing without its opposite, as described in previous post, no cold without hot, no wet without dry e.t.c. then there is no love without hate, and that is what this is about.
Consider food for example, there is food you love and you eat it on special occasions when you want something special and tasty, and there is food you hate, that you will never eat, and there is food in between that you neither love nor hate but like in various degree and it is useful when you are hungry.
As food in the middle is useful when hungry, so are people that are in the middle useful to others when they are hungry emotionally. One can talk to a person that places him or her self in the middle when one is sad, because one knows that that person will never contradict or get into a serious argument with you, person in the middle want to stay there and don't want you to like him or her less, more likely that person will agree with you and do things for you in order to get you to like him or her more, making you feel better.
Hence people that are in the middle are neither loved nor hated by anyone, they are liked in various degrees, they are proud that no one hates them, and they say that they are loved by X if some X likes them more then Y.
People in the middle usually have many friends, friends that come to talk when they are lonely, play when they are bored, cry when they are sad, but those friends don't love, because there is nothing to hate.
To make another example, I have a friend that loves winter, the snow, the cold, and more snow and colder temperature it is the better, while another friend loves summer, and wishes to live somewhere where there is always summer. Hence the person that loves winter hates summer, because the summer has nothing of what he loves, only the heat that he can't stand. While the other friend of course hates winter because winter has nothing he loves and it is way too cold. Hence to make it clear, summer doesn't have those properties that winter lovers love about winter, and winter doesn't have the properties that summer lovers desire.
Lets say you love summer, then a person that is in the middle and tries to be liked by everyone is like spring(if you like that person) or like autumn(if you dislike that person) but that person will never be summer, because that person necessary must be to some degree also winter to be liked by other people that love winter, hence will never be loved by either.
Hence there is a choice when no choice is given.
Since we were children we learned what to do in order for other people to like us, and when we got older we learned what to do in order to attract opposite sex, there is an understanding that one has to do something to get love, but can one really do anything to get loved? Can you make someone to love you? As far as I know there is no way to make someone love you, one can increase the chances by being nice, dress nice, give presents, be good talker, but love has to happen of it self, and if it doesn't it doesn't matter what you do. Yet this is the only thing we learned since we were children, try to make people love you, even though it is impossible.
I am sure there are better explanations of why you can't make another person to love you, but one simple argument is that no matter how hard you try to acquire all those properties that another person loves there is always one property you can't acquire, and that is that you are that person, instead you try to become someone else in order for that person to love you, hence the best thing one can hope for is that the other person will love those properties you acquired, but those properties are not you, hence that person don't really love you but what you pretend to be for that person, and as long as you can keep it up it might work, and that is what many do. But when the relationship get more serious and one start to think that one can be more relaxed with each other and don't need to act all the time as it is the first date then people realize that who you have one year later is not the same person that you fell in love with, and it never was that person, it was all fake.
The alternative is of course much simpler, to get people to hate you!
First one has to be fully aware of who one is, for example many people do and believe certain things not because they feel conformable doing that or because they are that way, but because they want to fit in, they try to be "middle people" so that they are liked by others. So one should start by being fully aware of why one does and believes as one does, and work on the character until one can proudly state this is me and I do and believe this because of ...
And when that is done, you are proud of who you are and feel that you are comfortable with it and can argue for your ways, you can then just be your self, and never give up without a fight. And if some people hate you for that, other will love you for exactly that, and when that love comes, it will not matter if one, two or twenty years pas, because there is no act that will stop, you will always be you hence the person that fell in love with you will still love you, because it is still you.
This of course this doesn't mean that you should be stubborn and refuse to accept facts when you are proven wrong, you might, and hope that you will meet a person that loves unreasonably stubborn people, and perhaps you will, but it is just not healthy.
But if you can argue for your behavior and believes and no one can prove you wrong or give a good argument for you not to do so then that is the way to go. And there will be people that disagrees, and some people will disagree strongly, and some people will even hate you, and they should hate you, it only means that people that are opposite to them will love you.
The benefit is of course that your will not need to try and make people to love you, its like fishing, you just put out a net and some people will automatically love you while other swim by.
The risk is of course if you have many friends and hope to preserve relationship with everyone but some of which will start to dislike you, because you switched from very fine net that catches everything no matter if it taste good or bad to a net that only catches tasty fish.
I love spring.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The unity of opposites
This is about a view which is important for the next thought, but is not intuitive to understand, and I have yet not thought of any way to explain it, but I hope to create some intuitive understanding and hopefully agreement that it is so. In other words it is about yin and yang.
As the title suggests this is about how there must be an opposite of something in order for us to know the thing. For example to have white there must be black, to have smart there must be dumb, to have something there must be nothing. This is of course not a new idea, and certainly not my idea, but it is a very important idea that people usually don't consider.
If you already know or feel that it is so, there is no need for you to read further, but for everyone else I will try to convince you.
Lets start with this example, you are reading this on a computer, which you probably own, let say it is rather new computer you bought. Hence if you are happy about owning your rather new computer, that happiness comes from the memory and feeling of not having this computer, that is this happiness of having necessary comes from a not so happy feeling of wanting but not having, and without feeling of not having, there would be no happiness of having, and therefor those two things go together, you can not remove one without also loosing the other, because if you never wanted a computer, never needed it, then you will not get happy when you get it.
Lets take another example, a sharp knife, what is that? Well one answer is a sharp knife is a knife that is not dull, and we see that there must exist dull in order for us to have sharp, if there were no dull knifes we would not have sharp knifes, we would only have knifes, and there would be no concept of sharp or dull.
Hot and cold, dark and light, smart and dumb, green grass, small shoes, strong rope and so on and so on...
Examples are endless since for everything there is an opposite of that, otherwise we would not be able to think about it.
For example consider everyone are drinking water, and if we did nothing else with water we would just call it drink, we would say "I want to drink" without the need to specify water, because there is nothing else, we have to specify drink because there is a state where we are not drinking, hence reason for existence of the concept drinking is the opposite state of non-drinking.
Then let say someone found a second source to drink from, first one was a regular well and the new one is somewhere close to volcanic activity hence is heated. Then there would be a need to distinguish between two sources for drinking, one would say give me a hot drink or give me a cold drink. Before discovery of hot drink, the cold drink did not exist, even thou the drink was cold there was no cold drink because the drink was always same temperature and there was nothing else to drink.
Well then let say someone finds some leaves he or she dries and pour hot drink on them, and then it taste totally different from the original drink, and they might call it tea, but to have tea there must be something which is non-tea, just that what we did drink originally, and lets call it water, hence two drinks started to exist, hot and cold water, and tea. But then someone didn't drink the tea right away and it got cold hence there is now hot and cold tea.
And so on, I feel it is easier to understand the concept when constructing as above, instead of just saying that there is no green tea without black tea, it would just be tea, and there is no tea without non-tea and so on.
One should now understand how it is necessary that opposite or negation of something exists in order for that something to exist.
For something to exist without negation or opposite of itself it must then both exist and not exist at the same time, because basic negation of any thing is non-thing. And if there is such thing that does exist and don't exist on the same time, then everything else must be IT, because if something is not IT then that is a negation of IT.
Hence one thing is the unity of two opposites.
As the title suggests this is about how there must be an opposite of something in order for us to know the thing. For example to have white there must be black, to have smart there must be dumb, to have something there must be nothing. This is of course not a new idea, and certainly not my idea, but it is a very important idea that people usually don't consider.
If you already know or feel that it is so, there is no need for you to read further, but for everyone else I will try to convince you.
Lets start with this example, you are reading this on a computer, which you probably own, let say it is rather new computer you bought. Hence if you are happy about owning your rather new computer, that happiness comes from the memory and feeling of not having this computer, that is this happiness of having necessary comes from a not so happy feeling of wanting but not having, and without feeling of not having, there would be no happiness of having, and therefor those two things go together, you can not remove one without also loosing the other, because if you never wanted a computer, never needed it, then you will not get happy when you get it.
Lets take another example, a sharp knife, what is that? Well one answer is a sharp knife is a knife that is not dull, and we see that there must exist dull in order for us to have sharp, if there were no dull knifes we would not have sharp knifes, we would only have knifes, and there would be no concept of sharp or dull.
Hot and cold, dark and light, smart and dumb, green grass, small shoes, strong rope and so on and so on...
Examples are endless since for everything there is an opposite of that, otherwise we would not be able to think about it.
For example consider everyone are drinking water, and if we did nothing else with water we would just call it drink, we would say "I want to drink" without the need to specify water, because there is nothing else, we have to specify drink because there is a state where we are not drinking, hence reason for existence of the concept drinking is the opposite state of non-drinking.
Then let say someone found a second source to drink from, first one was a regular well and the new one is somewhere close to volcanic activity hence is heated. Then there would be a need to distinguish between two sources for drinking, one would say give me a hot drink or give me a cold drink. Before discovery of hot drink, the cold drink did not exist, even thou the drink was cold there was no cold drink because the drink was always same temperature and there was nothing else to drink.
Well then let say someone finds some leaves he or she dries and pour hot drink on them, and then it taste totally different from the original drink, and they might call it tea, but to have tea there must be something which is non-tea, just that what we did drink originally, and lets call it water, hence two drinks started to exist, hot and cold water, and tea. But then someone didn't drink the tea right away and it got cold hence there is now hot and cold tea.
And so on, I feel it is easier to understand the concept when constructing as above, instead of just saying that there is no green tea without black tea, it would just be tea, and there is no tea without non-tea and so on.
One should now understand how it is necessary that opposite or negation of something exists in order for that something to exist.
For something to exist without negation or opposite of itself it must then both exist and not exist at the same time, because basic negation of any thing is non-thing. And if there is such thing that does exist and don't exist on the same time, then everything else must be IT, because if something is not IT then that is a negation of IT.
Hence one thing is the unity of two opposites.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Meditation
There are many instruction videos on the internet about meditation, how to meditate, why meditate, and so on. This is not about some new technique or some new purpose of meditation, there is too much of that online already, instead this is about the basics.
There is one thing that everyone will agree separating meditation from sitting with closed eyes or sitting and stirring at something, and that is no thinking during meditation. To achieve that there is techniques like chanting, mantras, bells, drums, breathing and so on. Also there is also one thing that is usually described as the goal of meditation, and that is to be here and now, in the moment, which is harder to understand, and people spend endless hours meditating to achieve that without success.
As you might have guessed already, both above are closely related. If you never tried meditation, try to sit for 10 to 40 minutes, in such way that you can not fall asleep, and you will notice that the mind is never in the present time, it is in the future, planning, guessing outcomes, or it is in the past doing things differently, imagining what could happen if you did something differently, or it is solving problems, or it is somewhere else doing something else. Hence your mind is never here and now.
Why can't you be here and now and still be thinking? Well what do you have to think about when you are sitting and doing nothing? That's right there is nothing to think about if you are doing nothing, if you are thinking then you are not here and now where you do nothing but somewhere else in some different situation where thinking is required, which is often the future, what will I do when I am done meditating, well I must eat, for that I need to go and buy bread, and then I must, and so on.
Hence being here and now which is often described as being the goal of meditation, to feel that moment, necessarily implies not thinking about anything, since there is nothing to think about.
And as we know majority of the techniques of meditations (except some crazy ones), ultimately try to teach you to stop couscous thought.
And now it is obvious what meditation is, it is circular reasoning,
1. being in the moment --> no thinking,
hence
2. no thinking --> being in the moment.
What is unsaid but understood is this: no thinking <--> being in the moment, but for it to be true, both of the above must be true.
While first is quite easy to motivate why it is so, the second is not so obvious. It is also probably the reason for why people keep chasing this moment with endless hours of meditations and never seem to get there. But there are only two options from here, either:
no thinking --> being in the moment, then people are there in the moment all the time (assuming they mastered the no thinking part) without realizing it (perhaps because there is no conscious thought to think about it), and keep chasing it.
or
no thinking -|-> being in the moment, but there are still some people claiming to have experienced something special while meditating, feeling here and now, in the moment. Then being in the moment is something different and not connected to no thinking. This has two consequences first, there is no need to meditate to feel that feeling of being in the moment, it will just happen of it self if you are lucky, and second is what is then the point of sitting and not thinking about anything?
Hence:
No thinking <--> being in the moment, and everyone who is able not to think for a period of time has experienced that "moment of zen" but do not realize it.
or
?? --> Being in the moment
Being in the moment --> no thinking
no thinking --> ??
which simply is:
?? --> being in the moment --> no thinking --> ??
By looking at different kinds of instruction movies for meditation on the internet one can see which views on meditation they have, some believe in <--> relation claiming that by clearing you mind and keep practicing you will experience that moment of zen sooner or later, while others use second one and fill those ?? with love, cosmic energy, chakras, karma e.t.c.
Which one it true? I don't know.
There is one thing that everyone will agree separating meditation from sitting with closed eyes or sitting and stirring at something, and that is no thinking during meditation. To achieve that there is techniques like chanting, mantras, bells, drums, breathing and so on. Also there is also one thing that is usually described as the goal of meditation, and that is to be here and now, in the moment, which is harder to understand, and people spend endless hours meditating to achieve that without success.
As you might have guessed already, both above are closely related. If you never tried meditation, try to sit for 10 to 40 minutes, in such way that you can not fall asleep, and you will notice that the mind is never in the present time, it is in the future, planning, guessing outcomes, or it is in the past doing things differently, imagining what could happen if you did something differently, or it is solving problems, or it is somewhere else doing something else. Hence your mind is never here and now.
Why can't you be here and now and still be thinking? Well what do you have to think about when you are sitting and doing nothing? That's right there is nothing to think about if you are doing nothing, if you are thinking then you are not here and now where you do nothing but somewhere else in some different situation where thinking is required, which is often the future, what will I do when I am done meditating, well I must eat, for that I need to go and buy bread, and then I must, and so on.
Hence being here and now which is often described as being the goal of meditation, to feel that moment, necessarily implies not thinking about anything, since there is nothing to think about.
And as we know majority of the techniques of meditations (except some crazy ones), ultimately try to teach you to stop couscous thought.
And now it is obvious what meditation is, it is circular reasoning,
1. being in the moment --> no thinking,
hence
2. no thinking --> being in the moment.
What is unsaid but understood is this: no thinking <--> being in the moment, but for it to be true, both of the above must be true.
While first is quite easy to motivate why it is so, the second is not so obvious. It is also probably the reason for why people keep chasing this moment with endless hours of meditations and never seem to get there. But there are only two options from here, either:
no thinking --> being in the moment, then people are there in the moment all the time (assuming they mastered the no thinking part) without realizing it (perhaps because there is no conscious thought to think about it), and keep chasing it.
or
no thinking -|-> being in the moment, but there are still some people claiming to have experienced something special while meditating, feeling here and now, in the moment. Then being in the moment is something different and not connected to no thinking. This has two consequences first, there is no need to meditate to feel that feeling of being in the moment, it will just happen of it self if you are lucky, and second is what is then the point of sitting and not thinking about anything?
Hence:
No thinking <--> being in the moment, and everyone who is able not to think for a period of time has experienced that "moment of zen" but do not realize it.
or
?? --> Being in the moment
Being in the moment --> no thinking
no thinking --> ??
which simply is:
?? --> being in the moment --> no thinking --> ??
By looking at different kinds of instruction movies for meditation on the internet one can see which views on meditation they have, some believe in <--> relation claiming that by clearing you mind and keep practicing you will experience that moment of zen sooner or later, while others use second one and fill those ?? with love, cosmic energy, chakras, karma e.t.c.
Which one it true? I don't know.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
ReCan
This is a bit different view, some might say opposite view to what I wrote earlier about cannabis. This thought differs from previous basically in one way, why people get slow, in the previous post I wrote that it might be due to the alternative ways of thinking, and there is simply too many connection, but I think this is a better one:
We already established in previous discussions that a person, after smoking cannabis gets his/hers views expanded, I will not go through it again, but I really didn't give any explanation to why It was so, instead I focused on consequences of that, here comes a thought about why:
This is based on a documentary i watched where it is said that smoking cannabis affect the brain in such a way that a certain chemical is released. This chemical is always present in our brains and is released in smaller amounts to counteract another chemical that is released in our brains that does create connection between neurons. Because if too much of chemical that connect neurons is released it will spill over and short circuit several neurons, that is what we call for epilepsy, hence that other chemical counteract that, and when smoking cannabis more of that counteracting chemical is released.
How come then that people are able to think of things when they are high that they would never have thought of otherwise, why do artists and writers smoke cannabis to get inspiration, should it not have the opposite effect, people just getting slow not able to think of anything? Well there is two possibilities, research mentioned above is wrong or perhaps following:
As mentioned in previous post, brain is like a network, a graph where connections are reinforced if they are used a lot, for example if you try to remember something it helps to repeat it over and over again until those connections in your brain are strong enough, hence your remember. Therefor when you think, hear, say , smell, see something those strongest reinforced connections for that particular situation will fire and you will do, say, hear, see, remember as you have always done thus far, since your brain is trained that way.
Therefore by smoking cannabis and releasing more of the chemical that counteracts those strong connections, your memory gets worse and your thinking slower, while at the same time the strength of all connections get more even. Hence seeing, hearing, thinking something while being high will results in other neurons being fired instead of the usual ones that are always fired, resulting in new thoughts and experiences that would never have been possible otherwise, allowing writers to write what no one else thought about, artists to paint what no one else could imagine.
Everything above can be easily illustrated with following example, imagine making deep paths in the ground with a stick, and when you pour water in one end you will be certain that most of it will follow the paths and end up on the other side, that is you memory, every time you se water in one end you know where it ends up. Water that spills over and end up somewhere else is the creative process, it can spill over anywhere creating new wet spot, like new idea, but they will still be close to the path. Now imagine you erase, flatten out, those paths so they get really shallow temporarily, pouring water in one end will just end up in one big wet spot, with very little ending up on the other side.
We already established in previous discussions that a person, after smoking cannabis gets his/hers views expanded, I will not go through it again, but I really didn't give any explanation to why It was so, instead I focused on consequences of that, here comes a thought about why:
This is based on a documentary i watched where it is said that smoking cannabis affect the brain in such a way that a certain chemical is released. This chemical is always present in our brains and is released in smaller amounts to counteract another chemical that is released in our brains that does create connection between neurons. Because if too much of chemical that connect neurons is released it will spill over and short circuit several neurons, that is what we call for epilepsy, hence that other chemical counteract that, and when smoking cannabis more of that counteracting chemical is released.
How come then that people are able to think of things when they are high that they would never have thought of otherwise, why do artists and writers smoke cannabis to get inspiration, should it not have the opposite effect, people just getting slow not able to think of anything? Well there is two possibilities, research mentioned above is wrong or perhaps following:
As mentioned in previous post, brain is like a network, a graph where connections are reinforced if they are used a lot, for example if you try to remember something it helps to repeat it over and over again until those connections in your brain are strong enough, hence your remember. Therefor when you think, hear, say , smell, see something those strongest reinforced connections for that particular situation will fire and you will do, say, hear, see, remember as you have always done thus far, since your brain is trained that way.
Therefore by smoking cannabis and releasing more of the chemical that counteracts those strong connections, your memory gets worse and your thinking slower, while at the same time the strength of all connections get more even. Hence seeing, hearing, thinking something while being high will results in other neurons being fired instead of the usual ones that are always fired, resulting in new thoughts and experiences that would never have been possible otherwise, allowing writers to write what no one else thought about, artists to paint what no one else could imagine.
Everything above can be easily illustrated with following example, imagine making deep paths in the ground with a stick, and when you pour water in one end you will be certain that most of it will follow the paths and end up on the other side, that is you memory, every time you se water in one end you know where it ends up. Water that spills over and end up somewhere else is the creative process, it can spill over anywhere creating new wet spot, like new idea, but they will still be close to the path. Now imagine you erase, flatten out, those paths so they get really shallow temporarily, pouring water in one end will just end up in one big wet spot, with very little ending up on the other side.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Creationism
Consider how todays technology would appear like magic to people hundred of years ago, and now imagine following:
Future technology appearing like magic to us.
Since humanity is so fascinated by origin of life and creation of the universe it is reasonable to assume that this kind of research will continue.
Big part of science is experiment and observation, and there is no better way to know what really happened then by recreating same conditions or events.
That is there is no better way to examine dinosaurs but to clone them and put into controlled environment for observation.
Hence it is possible that in the future science will advance so far that humans will be able to recreate big bang on a small scale in a controlled environment.
But in order not to contaminate the experiment they adopt a policy of non interfering.
Hence if intelligent life arise in that controlled universe on some planet, that life will have seemingly all powerful and all knowing god which knows what is good and what is bad while still doing nothing about it.
The question then arises if we are not inside such an environment, then there is no contradiction that all knowing and all powerful god that loves his creation don't interfere, he don't in scientific purpose to learn more about his own origin, and hence we have the potential to be gods is the future over our own controlled universe.
One can take this one step further and consider computers that were very large, expensive, slow, used only for scientific and military use in just a few countries. While over time they got smaller and cheaper, owned by regular people in millions.
In the future technology to create universes might evolve in the same way, and as people have maps on the wall today, people in the future might have their own universe standing on the table.
Future technology appearing like magic to us.
Since humanity is so fascinated by origin of life and creation of the universe it is reasonable to assume that this kind of research will continue.
Big part of science is experiment and observation, and there is no better way to know what really happened then by recreating same conditions or events.
That is there is no better way to examine dinosaurs but to clone them and put into controlled environment for observation.
Hence it is possible that in the future science will advance so far that humans will be able to recreate big bang on a small scale in a controlled environment.
But in order not to contaminate the experiment they adopt a policy of non interfering.
Hence if intelligent life arise in that controlled universe on some planet, that life will have seemingly all powerful and all knowing god which knows what is good and what is bad while still doing nothing about it.
The question then arises if we are not inside such an environment, then there is no contradiction that all knowing and all powerful god that loves his creation don't interfere, he don't in scientific purpose to learn more about his own origin, and hence we have the potential to be gods is the future over our own controlled universe.
One can take this one step further and consider computers that were very large, expensive, slow, used only for scientific and military use in just a few countries. While over time they got smaller and cheaper, owned by regular people in millions.
In the future technology to create universes might evolve in the same way, and as people have maps on the wall today, people in the future might have their own universe standing on the table.
Monday, March 9, 2009
You can be wise, but why?
There are people saying that increasing wisdom is the goal of life. Wether it is so or not seem for me impossible to know, yet I believe wisdom to be quite important in life, if for nothing else then simply for making good decisions that you don't have to regret, or at least know why you do.
To be able to apply wisdom in a reasonable way one needs also knowledge to apply it on. Majority of people separate knowledge/intelligence and wisdom, and from real life examples I agree that those are two different things.
Then those who pursue enlightenment must acquire both, in order to have any success. Obvious question arise then, how? Gathering of knowledge is well established practice in the developed world, one goes to school and universities to learn the facts revealed thus far in a certain field. Hence ones higher education, where one has more freedom to choose, should agree with the personal interests so that knowledge gathered during that time does not only help you to find work and do it properly but also to help you with your personal enlightenment.
Enlightenment is loosely used to describe highest level of whatever one is determined to acquire.
So we know how to get knowledge, but how about wisdom?
It is understood that wisdom comes with experience, and can not be learned, but must be practiced.
Thinking is a way to practice wisdom, thinking alone or with a group of people, if you are lucky enough to have people around you that are interested in the same thing. Also to think before doing everyday things that we usually do automatically. Meditation focuses the mind, making it easier.
The reason I am writing this is about how to acquire experience. Well you might think now, everyone knows how to get experience, but problem is I don't have the skills / money / courage / time / freedom / something or other, to get that experience.
Let me then ask you this, aren't majority of people older then you also wiser then you? And did they all had what you “need” to get their wisdom? The trick is in the amount of different experiences over time, not in specifics. Then it seems that wisdom will come to you when you are old and experienced enough, and it will, but there is a simple way to speed up the process, the answer is: Live faster.
The idea of living faster did came to me about half a year ago, but until recently I didn't know how to make cense of it, what does it mean to live faster, what should I do?
For couple of weeks ago I did start a project that I have been going around and thinking about. It was nothing complicated, nothing hard to test, but yet I spend endless hours thinking about it imagining different outcomes for two years. It was then I realized how little I experienced, how slow I was living, I spend two years thinking about something that took me one day of work to test. I thought I didn't had the time and energy to really do it, while in reality I was wasting enormous amounts of time and energy thinking about it and getting frustrated.
Don't misunderstand me now, thinking things through is good, but there is a limit, there are things that need to be thought about, and things that need to be done. Only thinking about things that can easily be done is equally bad as doing things without thinking, but I know that majority only thinks without doing because it is safer that way. But being safe, only thinking/imagining, brings no experience, hence the life is standing still, and wisdom increases very slowly, if at all. Some people all so far gone into being safe that they don't do simple things even though they know that nothing will happen.
Here are some examples to make the point clear.
You like a girl/boy but doing nothing about it, hoping she/he will notice you one day.
Chances are slim, but fantasies in your head are many, how to approach, what to say, what it will be like and so on. My experience tells me, it will never happen, but will continue as it is until you two eventually separate, by changing work, school, cities and so on. And you can spend years thinking about it, and years after you two no longer see each other, when it only takes couple of words to find out.
You have something on your mid you want to say to somebody, and it is keeping you awake at nights, don't be “safe”, find the right moment and say it.
You are thinking about doing something, but you want to think about it first, good, do think, sit down and do nothing else, just think about that, and if you thought it through and decided not to act on it, then let go of it, if you can't let go, then do it, there is no point of thinking any longer.
I think therefore I am! [René Descartes]
I do therefore I live! [Me?]
This is the difference between existing and living, and without life comes no experience.
To live fast is to cut those endless years of pointless thinking and do in order to experience. We do make mistakes in life, and it is safer only to imagine what doing would be like. In order not to make any mistakes there is no other chose but not to live.
To do or not to do?
Pick one and do it!
Wisdom comes with experience, and more experience you have the wiser your are, but people we consider wise are the ones that can help us when we have a problem or hard decisions to make. Hence to be considered wise one must experience many things.
The question is then, why would anybody want to be wise? It sounds painful.
To be able to apply wisdom in a reasonable way one needs also knowledge to apply it on. Majority of people separate knowledge/intelligence and wisdom, and from real life examples I agree that those are two different things.
Then those who pursue enlightenment must acquire both, in order to have any success. Obvious question arise then, how? Gathering of knowledge is well established practice in the developed world, one goes to school and universities to learn the facts revealed thus far in a certain field. Hence ones higher education, where one has more freedom to choose, should agree with the personal interests so that knowledge gathered during that time does not only help you to find work and do it properly but also to help you with your personal enlightenment.
Enlightenment is loosely used to describe highest level of whatever one is determined to acquire.
So we know how to get knowledge, but how about wisdom?
It is understood that wisdom comes with experience, and can not be learned, but must be practiced.
Thinking is a way to practice wisdom, thinking alone or with a group of people, if you are lucky enough to have people around you that are interested in the same thing. Also to think before doing everyday things that we usually do automatically. Meditation focuses the mind, making it easier.
The reason I am writing this is about how to acquire experience. Well you might think now, everyone knows how to get experience, but problem is I don't have the skills / money / courage / time / freedom / something or other, to get that experience.
Let me then ask you this, aren't majority of people older then you also wiser then you? And did they all had what you “need” to get their wisdom? The trick is in the amount of different experiences over time, not in specifics. Then it seems that wisdom will come to you when you are old and experienced enough, and it will, but there is a simple way to speed up the process, the answer is: Live faster.
The idea of living faster did came to me about half a year ago, but until recently I didn't know how to make cense of it, what does it mean to live faster, what should I do?
For couple of weeks ago I did start a project that I have been going around and thinking about. It was nothing complicated, nothing hard to test, but yet I spend endless hours thinking about it imagining different outcomes for two years. It was then I realized how little I experienced, how slow I was living, I spend two years thinking about something that took me one day of work to test. I thought I didn't had the time and energy to really do it, while in reality I was wasting enormous amounts of time and energy thinking about it and getting frustrated.
Don't misunderstand me now, thinking things through is good, but there is a limit, there are things that need to be thought about, and things that need to be done. Only thinking about things that can easily be done is equally bad as doing things without thinking, but I know that majority only thinks without doing because it is safer that way. But being safe, only thinking/imagining, brings no experience, hence the life is standing still, and wisdom increases very slowly, if at all. Some people all so far gone into being safe that they don't do simple things even though they know that nothing will happen.
Here are some examples to make the point clear.
You like a girl/boy but doing nothing about it, hoping she/he will notice you one day.
Chances are slim, but fantasies in your head are many, how to approach, what to say, what it will be like and so on. My experience tells me, it will never happen, but will continue as it is until you two eventually separate, by changing work, school, cities and so on. And you can spend years thinking about it, and years after you two no longer see each other, when it only takes couple of words to find out.
You have something on your mid you want to say to somebody, and it is keeping you awake at nights, don't be “safe”, find the right moment and say it.
You are thinking about doing something, but you want to think about it first, good, do think, sit down and do nothing else, just think about that, and if you thought it through and decided not to act on it, then let go of it, if you can't let go, then do it, there is no point of thinking any longer.
I think therefore I am! [René Descartes]
I do therefore I live! [Me?]
This is the difference between existing and living, and without life comes no experience.
To live fast is to cut those endless years of pointless thinking and do in order to experience. We do make mistakes in life, and it is safer only to imagine what doing would be like. In order not to make any mistakes there is no other chose but not to live.
To do or not to do?
Pick one and do it!
Wisdom comes with experience, and more experience you have the wiser your are, but people we consider wise are the ones that can help us when we have a problem or hard decisions to make. Hence to be considered wise one must experience many things.
The question is then, why would anybody want to be wise? It sounds painful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)