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Awesome workout this am!
-15 min intervals on airbike
-Stevie Richards shoulder workout
-3 x 12 crunches
-3 x 12 Russian twists
-3 x 12 standing dumbbell knee raises
I’m not fool enough to think that my ideas are really MY ideas. Insofar as I’ve been influenced by all the thinkers that I’ve read over the years, especially those with whom I resonate, can I really be said to think my own thoughts? Can I lay claim to originality, authenticity?
Perhaps being authentic is less about being ‘original’ than it is about allowing ourselves to gravitate to those thoughts, beliefs, hobbies and ideas that truly resonate with us and not those that we are pressured by friends, family or other forces to accept in the face of fear. In other words, maybe being myself is about being free to be who I want to be.
“In most men, what is at peace is numbed and what is active is raging madly.”
~Epicurus, Vatican Sayings #11
I have a soft spot for Epicurus. Many reasons could be listed, but the most important one is his sense of reasonableness that is sorely lacking in many other philosophers of his era.
The Stoics talked about building a wall that hermetically sealed off the self from the outside world. The Buddha sketched out a system in which the self is negated and all desire is seen as the cause of suffering and hence in need of eradication. And the list goes on.
In essence, the answer to the age old question of ‘how to be happy’ that many philosophers give seems to be that we must eradicate all desire. Either you squash down inside you all of the things that make you unhappy or you lose yourself in them and end up going mad. This dichotomy convinces those of us who want to be happy that in order to do so we have to cut off all the things that have traditionally been identified with being human.
But are these the only two alternatives?
What Epicurus seemed to indicate, as did the Taoists before him, is that there’s a third way. This third way, at least for Epicurus, was one of learning to identify the truly important things, jettison the rest, and hence be happy. It’s great to have good food, drink and such, but what’s really necessary to be happy? For the Epicureans, no pleasure was off-limits and unhappiness wasn’t the result of having desires per se. Unhappiness was the result of not truly understanding what needs/desires were natural and essential, resulting in chasing after things that really had no true bearing on being content in this life.
There’s merit to this approach. At the end of the day, having the latest iPhone, iPad or other iThing has absolutely no real bearing on whether or not you’re happy. In fact, inecessantly chasing after these things can cause a whole lot of unhappiness, seeing as you have to part with a lot of money to obtain them, work to get that money in the first place, and so on. But, having a place to live, basic food to eat, and real, deep relationships with others are certainly things worth desiring. The problem isn’t desire, you see, but rather desiring the wrong things and then pinning our happiness to those wrong things.
So many of us have exactly what we need to be happy. We have a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs, transportation, clothes, and loved ones. We CHOOSE to be unhappy because we’re constantly striving for things outside our reach and irrelevant to being truly content. It’s always the next gadget or whatchamacallit that’s going to satisfy us. But when we get that next brass ring, we find it to tarnish all too quickly.
Are the only two options to either be numb or mad? I think not. Let’s consider the third path of living simply, enjoying what we have, embracing our friends and family, and resting in the beauty of our beautiful world.
I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘balance’. Tonight I was thinkng about what it would be like if I had no fear. What if someone walked up to me and threatned me and I had absolutely no fear?
That lead me to thinking about sociopaths. Isn’t a sociopath someone who doesn’t have the typical emotions, fears, etc of others? A sociopath doesn’t have fear, remorse, or other emotions that typically stop someone from doing something dumb.
Does Taoism really suggest havng no fear? I’m not so sure it does. The more I think about ‘balance’, ‘harmony’, the more I think that being in such a state isn’t about ridding ourselves of certain emotions so much as it’s about understanding where they come from and holding them together in creative tension.
For example, is it really a good idea not to have fear when faced with a situation that could result in one’s harm? Is it really preferable to not have positive, strong emotions for someone in your life that means a lot to you?
I think that being in ‘balance’ or ‘harmony’ is more about holding those emotions in a gentle way and understanding deeply that the very nature of life is change and that predicating those emotions, desires, and hopes on the notion of immutability is unwise. In fact, how we appreciate things, people and situations is best based upon the contradictory foundation: we enjoy those aspects of life because they are ephemeral. We love those in our lives because of the contingent joy they’ve brought us. We appreciate the time off on the weekend because of the fact that we’ll being going back to work on Monday. We value that favorite watch because of the memories we have of it and because of the signs of wear and change it exhibits.
If we can fully embrace change, mutability, contingency, we’ll learn that being human, fully human, is about being comfortably situated in a time and space that will never occur again, not only for us but for anyone, ever. Growing old gracefully means accepting and embracing the reality that we all grow old and that if we didn’t we’d have no basis to appreciate youth. Loving someone means holding dearly the reality of past experiences and the possibility that tomorrow that person could be gone. Living gently in the present means breaking away from the time we spend not in the present to remind ourselves of how good it feels to rest.
Short-lived though it is.
Few signs signal springtime like
When the red bud blooms.
~~BDWS
Sun, staying with us
New buds burst from ready soil.
Signs of spring have come.
~~BDWS
“Confucius said, “To be truly happy and contented, you must let go of the idea of what it means to be happy or content. When you understand there is really nothing to be happy or sad about, then you will be truly contented. When you have reached this state of mind, then you will realize it does not matter whether or not music, poetry, or the classics are useful in changing society. In fact, whether or not you have an impact on society is not important.” –(Lieh-Tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living, by Eva Wong.)
We Westerners are so used to the notion of ‘essence’ that considering the nature of reality as anything other is unfathomable. We think in terms of ‘things’ and ‘stuff’ and ‘self’. The ancient Taoist point of view is very different: rather than ‘stuff’ and ‘things’, Taoists think in terms of processes and interdependency. This notion of interdependency has some interesting side-effects that can be hard to swallow. Take ‘good’ and ‘evil’: for the Taoists, ‘evil’ can’t exist without ‘good’ and vice versa. Rather than seeing an instance, thing, or person as ‘evil’, ancient and modern Taoists see that the nature of these things is far more complicated than simple tags might otherwise indicate. There is a story of a man whose son loses his sight and this fact is seen as bad. The father then loses his sight and this is also seen as bad. War sweeps the land and when the soldiers come to conscript men to fight, the father and son aren’t drafted due to their loss of sight. Suddenly, the lose of sight isn’t seen as being necessarily so bad.
The above quote illustrates this fact and goes one step further: not only is the nature of things in flux, but we shouldn’t be so concerned even about important things like improving society. The story that comes before this penultimate paragraph tells of how a student of Confucius is concerned that the master seems to be down. After probing the master, the student is disappointed with Confucius’ response captured above. How could Confucius not be concerned about the improvement of society? How could practice not make one happy and contented?
‘Happy’ and ‘contented’ are terms that only make sense if ‘unhappy’ and ‘uncontended’ have meaning as separate realities, distinct from the former. The Taoist adept realizes that the two are not unconnected: to be ‘happy’ means knowing ‘unhappiness’. When Yin/Yang, Creativity/Receptivity, Hard/Soft are balanced, these concepts mean far less. The sage lives in accord with nature and experiences both happiness and unhappiness with the same equanimity.
True practice doesn’t make one ‘happy’: it makes one wise. Wisdom knows the truth about these concepts and in so knowing is able to find a deeper sense of balance and harmony that transcends any human contrived sense of happiness.
~~Brett
Wanderings on the Way 