Looking at trees

Most people don’t spend much time looking at trees. It’s not exactly an exciting activity. Computer screens are more entertaining. Trees don’t normally go anywhere or do anything. They sway sometimes. Depending on the wind.

“The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.” – Treebeard (Tolkien).

Most people don’t put looking at trees on their bucket list. Then again, maybe they should.

In the film “Being 97” (2020), Herbert Finagrette (1921-2018), philosopher and writer of Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease (1988), described looking at trees as a, “transcendent experience.”

At 97 years of age Herbert found himself looking around at the world as if he’s been asleep and saying, “Death is a frightening thought.”

No doubt others would share this sentiment, but coming from Dr. Herbert Finagrette it is somewhat ironic given that in the book Death: Philosophical Sounding (1996) Herbert argued that “there is no reason to fear death.”

“What does it mean that I’m going to leave?”

Obviously, as he neared his life expectancy, things started to get real. Herbert changed his mind. “It (death) is something I don’t want to happen,” says Herbert. “Much as I think our life in this world is often a pretty messy affair, I still would like to hang around. I don’t know the basic reason why I should want to or the basic reason why I should be afraid of it.”

But then, ultimately, at 97 years of age, Herbert relaxed and found solace in trees.

“As I sit out now on my deck of the house, I look at the trees blowing in a little breeze and I’ve seen them innumerable times, but somehow, seeing the trees this time is a transcendent experience. I see how marvelous it is and I think to myself, ‘I’ve had these here all along. But have I really appreciated them‘?”

Probably not. But then, that’s probably true for most people who see trees without noticing them.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Herbert’s experience with the trees puts one in mind of that song, “What a Wonderful World“, but if someone is uninspired by this wonderful world and afraid of death, aside from looking at trees, can philosophy help?

Of course it can. Let’s begin by stepping away from lugubrious talk. Let’s walk and run with Buster while avoiding boulders and, like a philosopher, let us sing, “Ooh La La” together.

Maybe we could be more Stoic about it? The stoicism of Marcus Aurelius is popular, even today (see: The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius). According to Stoic philosophy the path to happiness is found by accepting the moment as it is and by not allowing yourself to be controlled by desire or fear.

And, as we all know, pretty much everything we do relates to a desire to feel good, comfortable and pain-free, but like our philosophical friend under tree-shade said, long, long ago, “Life is Dukkha.” And what is Dukkha? Dukkha is a Pali word normally translated as meaning suffering, stress or unsatisfactoriness.

Sounds about right, don’t you think? “That’s life!” as they say. You can fulfil a desire but only temporarily because in this life suffering, whether physical, emotional or mental is pretty much unavoidable.

Source

As William de Witt Hyde (1858-1917) observed in The Five Great Philosophies of Life (1924), “gratifications are short; while appetites are long…. When a desire burns unsatisfied, the balance of our time is not pleasurable” (p. 52).

Perhaps, if thinking and acting Stoic isn’t your cup of tea (Stoics are sooo pessimistic, they always prepare for the worst!), what about Absurdism?

Sisyphus rocking it.

Absurdism is “the belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe” (dictionary). Nobel prize winning Absurdist philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) said (or wrote), “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life!”

No doubt if Albert Camus were alive—he died at age 44 in a tragic car accident that may have been the handywork of Soviet spies, so the conspiracy goes (Britannica)—he would direct us to the myth of Sisyphus and the joy of struggle.

“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” wrote Albert Camus who also said, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion!”

Source: “Philosophy in Free Fall” Existential Comics

If Absurdism isn’t your thing, because it is, after all, absurd. Maybe you could be more Epicurean about it? Whereas Stoicism focuses on how to bear pain, Epicureanism focuses on how to gain pleasure, but it isn’t just about getting all the pleasure you can or of making pain not hurt, as De Witt Hyde said, “It is a question of the worth of the things in which we find our pleasure, and the relative values of the things we suffer for” (The Five Great Philosophies of Life, p. 111).

Let’s put it together one after another with succinct advice and a graphic to illustrate:

Stoic advice: As Epictetus said in Discourses, “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” Message: Keep an open mind and heart. (There’s always more to it.)

Source: GoComics

Absurdist advice: Embrace the absurdity of life (e.g., don’t take it so serious) and find ways to navigate the world (e.g., humour) without succumbing to despair or nihilism.

Source: Savage Chickens by Doug Savage

Epicurean advice: “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist” (Epicurus).

Source: Reality Check by Dave Whamond (2009)

So, dear philosopher, with thinking, coping and practice, we can be wise.

We can save the world, our own, by being rational.

We can make the most of life by always working to make it better.

We can enjoy a chaotic and yet, beautiful ride with all those ups and downs, if we always remember and follow this simple advice, namely:

Enjoy wisely.

It’s been a while: Time to enjoy

“A mixture of trees purifies urban air best” (source).

Let’s get right to it.

Cue music (something gentle): Still Corners “The Trip“.

In this blog, a mixture of philosophies has been presented. Rather than one way of thinking, an eclectic approach has been taken. A philosophy of enjoyment mixes philosophies and accepts wise insights from anywhere and everywhere, including:

1) Epicureanism: avoid pain and seek natural and necessary pleasures like food, friends, and shelter,

2) Stoicism: seek virtue, use endurance, self-restraint and willpower to withstand problems, and balance animal nature with human reason,

3) Existentialism: as a free and responsible agent, you develop yourself through willpower,

4) Romanticism: subjectivity, beauty, imagination and emotion are important,

5) Empiricism: what we know comes from sense experience,

6) Rationalism: what we know comes from reason,

7) Religion: peaceful happiness comes through love, egolessness and the golden rule,

8) Science: ideas can be tested,

9) Movies, music, books… all forms of beauty making: “Only connect,” E.M. Forster,

10) Nature: “Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher,” W. Wordsworth.

Like a pie made better with a mixture of select ingredients, so is your philosophy of enjoyment.

An example of a delicious pie made with a mixture of select ingredients (see: A Brief History of the Great British Pie).

And in this pie of philosophies, there are two ways of looking at the world. We can look a the world: 1) The Thinking Way, or, 2) The Not-thinking Way.

Please note: We can pivot between looking at the world the thinking way and the not-thinking way.

1) The Thinking Way: The first way of looking at the world is the ordinary way. It’s how we get things done. It is what most people are used to and why most people look distracted. This is the practical, utilitarian way. It is to see things filtered through yourself. It is to look at the world as it affects you and as you think about it. It is to see the world through the filter of your personality. Your mood, your preferences and your conditioned opinions colour everything.

The danger in the Thinking Way of looking at the world is that you can be so inside your head that you don’t see what’s going on and when you’re in your head like that, you can talk yourself into, or out of, almost anything. You can see, but you don’t. It’s like when you park a car and don’t remember driving. You get home and don’t remember the trip. Why is that? It’s because you were absorbed in thinking and you didn’t see the world. You negotiated down roads, around trees and buildings, but you were a million miles away.

2. The Not-thinking Way: The second way of looking is the opposite of the thinking way. It’s not that your brain isn’t working—it is—it’s just that it is not self-directed and busy. The Not-thinking Way is a stilling of one’s mental chatter to the point of experiencing the world directly, unfiltered by thoughts, fears, memories or desires.

And when you look directly at the world with all of your senses, there is no one narrating. There are no mental movies playing. There is simply: here.

You, and, here: One and the same. Aware.

Just awareness.

The odd thing about looking at the world the not-thinking way is that, when thoughts go quiet, for however brief a time, one starts to feel a happy feeling that must be experienced. To try to describe it is as ineffectual as to describe the colour red to someone who can’t see red.

Suffice it to say that you feel a peaceful easy feeling. When mental chatter fades and you feel yourself in a peaceful, lazy, stillness, and that subtle feeling of happiness bubbles-up, keep in mind that this “bubbly feeling of happiness” will last up until you realize you’re feeling it. When you realize you‘re feeling it, awareness of yourself puts you in the Thinking Way again and then it’s like when Wile E. Coyote realizes he’s defying gravity and with this realization, suddenly plummets.

An example of what happens when you realize that you’re having an inexplicably beautiful feeling because you’ve stopped thinking.

Along with this mixing of philosophies and this pivoting between two ways of looking—the thinking way and the not-thinking way—another thing to remember is that, in life, there are two ways of finding meaning. There is finding: 1) Meaning in Being, and, 2) Meaning in Doing.

1) Meaning in Being: One way of finding meaning is to find meaning in being itself. One finds meaning and living to be the same thing! The meaning of life is to live. Living is the meaning and meaning is found in living. It’s like, if you asked what is the meaning of a flower? Does a flower have a meaning? What’s it mean? What’s its purpose? Is it just biology? It could be said that the meaning or purpose of a flower is to flower. Similarly, it could be said that the meaning or purpose of you is to “you.”

This way of finding meaning in being relates to the not-thinking way of looking and we are advised to live everyday and enjoy it. The counter to this is to find no meaning in life which leads many people to escapism and mind-altering drugs.

Finding Meaning in Being is like going into the field as shown in the golf movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000):

2) Meaning in Doing: The second way of finding meaning is to find meaning in doing, and, if possible, to make a difference in the world before you die. This latter way of finding meaning is illustrated in many movies.

In Fight Club (1999), for example, there’s a scene where a guy (Brad Pitt) puts a gun to another guy’s head and tells this poor guy to follow his dream and become a veterinarian, or else. In this way, a gun is used as a motivation device.

Another example is in the movie Ikiru, or, “To Live” (1952) in which the main character doesn’t realize he hasn’t been living until he gets diagnosed with cancer and then that realization causes his transformation.

Ikiru (1952) Original Trailer

In all of this, in what you pay attention to and in the way you look at the world and find meaning in being or doing or not doing, it is a choice. You choose to be who and what you are.

In the novel, In the Days of the Comet (1906) by H. G. Wells, a comet hits Earth causing “nitrogen of the air,” to “change out of itself” which results in: “The great Change has come for evermore, happiness and beauty are our atmosphere, there is peace on earth and good will to all men.”

People instantly become good, rational and wise because of a change in the air, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to be hit by a comet to change. A person can be enlightened simply by deciding to be wise and loving like Mr. Williams did in the movie Living (2022).

In Ethics (1677) the philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) said that you can experience a personal transformation without a comet simply by becoming more rational. The more you are rational—as in, reasonable, logical, intelligent, wise, judicious, clear-eyed and enlightened—the more your mind coincides with the minds of others who are rational and when our minds coincide, we are united; conversely, the more irrational and unwise you are (think Trump and Putin), the more our minds are divided.

To Spinoza, if you can look upon the natural world as a whole with an attitude of love and reverence, you are freed from your particular identity as a historical person with a particular body and you are not just united with your community, you are united with the whole universe.

Now, enjoy yourself being rational because you never know. C’est la vie!

Enjoy Being Awesome

“Who can say where the road goes? where the day flows? only time” (Enya).

Today we ask ourselves, “Who am I?” It’s a straight forward question with obvious answers: I am a human, I have a name, a family history, I think and do such-and-such and want this-and-that.

With further examination, however, from a scientific, psychological and philosophical perspective, you might arrive at something unexpected. It could be that who you think you are is distorted by your way of thinking. You might be more than you think, and less than you know.

If you press the question beyond superficial, you might feel a light-hearted feeling. This is natural. When you experience the switch from thinking in terms of “little old me and what I want” to the feeling of being one with all things, you remain calm in any situation. You are free of mass confusion when you understand cause and effect and the big picture.

According to science, as a human being, you are a Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens is Latin for “wise man” or “wise creature.” It comes from homo, meaning, “creature, man, human,” from humus, “earth, ground, soil”—literally, “earthly one”—and sapiens, meaning, “one who knows” (source).

A Homo sapiens is described as a bipedal primate with large brain, vertical forehead and dependence on language and tools.

Homo sapiens call themselves the “wise creature” despite historical evidence and current affairs. No doubt other animals would argue that Homo sapiens are pretty stupid. According to experts “animals can have cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings” (see: Humans not smarter than animals, just different).

The Far Side by Gary Larson.

Despite intelligence, and to their own detriment, Homo sapiens are the most destructive Earth creature.

With their comparatively weak bodies and inferior senses, Homo sapiens would not have been able to dominate the planet if it wasn’t for their ability to cooperate, make tools and pass knowledge from generation to generation (source).

As In a Nutshell put it, “to survive, all living things seek to secure resources and multiply. Competition between species favours those with advantageous traits” and because humans are inventive, cooperative and expansionist, they’re able to put all other species at their mercy (see: Why We Should NOT Look for Aliens).

According to science, humans are complex machines composed of about 99% six elements and about 0.85% five other elements (source). All eleven are essential elements, meaning, they come from the air, water and soil (the Earth) and are “required by living organisms for growth, metabolism and development” (source).

This is you:

See: What Are the Elements In the Human Body.

As a subjective experience, however, you probably don’t feel like eleven essential elements. You probably feel like a single thing—like a walking, talking, hot-water balloon with interior armature—but your body isn’t one thing.

Source

Your body is composed of around 30 trillion human cells of about 200 different types and around 38 trillion non-human cells, which are smaller, each with its own structure and lifespan and all working together “in harmony to carry out all the basic functions necessary for humans to survive” (source).

Your body has more non-human cells than human and if you go even smaller, “the average cell contains 100 trillion atoms” (source).

Source: ABC Science “The big and the small“

Humans are, for the most part, except on occasion, oblivious to the highly complex operation performed by nature on its own without intervention.

Every human is a world unto itself. Each one is having private thoughts about economics, politics, pleasure, etc.. Each one is localized in a single point of awareness. Each one is living in a waking dream whereby reality is perceived by sensory inputs that are interpreted by the brain’s imagination.

Some of the smartest humans spend their time inside virtual reality or working on things like artificial intelligence, high-tech weapons and robots to replace human beings.

Psychologists are divided as to how to define the human species. Evolutionary psychologists say humans do what they do⁠—including invade countries, murder and rape⁠—because of genes and more than two million years of natural selection as hunter-gatherers; whereas, cultural determinists say humans are not defined by their genes but by what is learned as members of a community (source).

According to cultural evolutionary theory, however, it isn’t one or the other, as in, “nature vs nurture,” it’s both together.

source

If you ask yourself “Who am I?” and in answer make a list of achievements, failures, likes, dislikes and life events from birth until present, that is an excellent exercise for understanding yourself so as to make rational decisions and live a happy life based on reason, but that isn’t quite what we’re after.

The philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) said that we can acquire important knowledge of reality simply by thinking (source). As Bryan Magee observed, “Spinoza saw total reality as being one thing or substance of which all apparently different objects and indeed people like ourselves are merely facets, merely modes, merely aspects” (source). This matches with the phenomenon of entanglement (source) and with the First Nations, Inuit and Metis perspective of seeing everything in the universe as interconnected (source).

So far so good. Now it’s time to take off your thinking cap and glasses. As Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani observed, “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are” (source).

Go outside. Take a break. Enjoy the peace of looking at the world as yourself. Stop seeing things through your desires and your sense of self locally defined and separate from nature.

As Michael James writing of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) advised, “we do not need literally to ‘seek’ ourself but just to be ourself… Self-attention is thus a state of just being, and not doing anything… a state of perfect repose, serenity, stillness, calm and peace, and as such one of supreme and unqualified happiness” (Happiness and the Art of Being, p. 347-48).

The stand-up comedian Bill Hicks (1961-1994) joked about seeing a positive drug story on the news:

It’s Just a Ride

“Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we’re the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather” (source).

What Bill didn’t realize, however, is that drugs aren’t necessary. By investigating your own consciousness beyond self-driven thinking, you can be enlightened. We’re all part of something bigger, something infinite, awe-inspiring and connected.

The trick to real enjoyment is to stop thinking from a self-deceptive perspective. Be one with all things. Be happy. Be wise. And most of all, enjoy the ride!

Breathe in the air (and enjoy)

“Long you live and high you fly
Smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be” (Pink Floyd, “Breathe”, 1973)

Contrary to popular belief (and advertisers everywhere), people don’t need a product, service or lifestyle to enjoy life.

A moment of peace in a park or beside a drainage ditch with a Great Blue Heron can stop a busy brain from blocking beauty.

Without the blinders of identity and self-interest, a person can go from listening to an interior monologue capable of souring any perspective (and ruin your life), to enjoying the smallest things—a ladybug on a leaf, ducks quacking and water vapour (for no reason).

Breathing can be enjoyable. In the midst of a problem, you can enjoy breathing (assuming that it is safe to do so).

If you hold your breath long enough, your body breathes for you. Combine this breathed sensation with a heart beating autonomously and you can appreciate self-driving organic automation. 

But breathing and heart-beating (consciously or not) gets boring. After breathing (even if it is enjoyable), people get distracted and ask like Peggy Lee did, “Is that all there is?”

What’s easily enjoyed is easily ignored. We might want to enjoy more, but therein is our problem: What we enjoy triggers our brain’s “reward” centers and makes pleasure habit-forming (see also: “Hedonism, Selfishness and a Womb with a View”).

A pleasure repeated can “set up potentially harmful routines, such as overeating, smoking, drug or alcohol abuse, gambling and even compulsive use of computers and social media” (Breaking Bad Habits).

Enjoyment (and addictive drugs) prompts the brain to release dopamine—a chemical responsible for transmitting signals between nerve cells.

Dr. Russell Poldrack, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas comments, “If you do something over and over, and dopamine is there when you’re doing it, that strengthens the habit even more. When you’re not doing those things, dopamine creates the craving to do it again” (source). 

(Saturday Cartoons)

Therefore, it isn’t prudent to do whatever thou wilt. One will soon find one’s self on auto-pilot, following a predetermined sequence of operations conditioned by habit prompted by pleasure.

One may soon find one’s self on a Hedonic Treadmill chasing a craving for happiness that becomes evermore unattainable.

source

“The hedonic treadmill, which is also referred to as hedonic adaptation, is a metaphor for your set point of happiness. The idea here is that no matter how good or bad something makes you feel, you will eventually return to your original emotional state” (developgoodhabits).

Cue music: “The Windmills of Your Mind“:

“Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon…

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream…”

“

Aristippus (435-356 BC) the philosopher saw danger in pleasure and advised, “It is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without being worsted” (source).

“The vice lies not in entering the bordello but in not coming out” (Aristippus)

The philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC) agreed, but his idea of pleasure was ataraxy, “a state of serene calmness.”

Epicurus advised us not to be ambitious but to live in harmony with nature and strive for tranquility brought by contentment with simple things and the absence of pain.

Existential Comics: Was Epicurus Really a Hedonist?

Our happiness formula is backwards. We think, “If I do something great, work overtime, get straight A’s, achieve some goal, then I’ll become more successful, and then I’ll be happier.”

But a few weeks after a goal is achieved, the trip over, the new treasure made familiar, happiness levels return to normal and a new goal is needed to achieve happiness later.

The trick to evading the trap of cravings and treadmills is to not wait until later to be happy. Save time and be happy first! To do that, it’s quite simple: Go without expectations, forget who you are and shift from thinking, “I must do something,” to, “I must do nothing.” The real trick is to enjoy reality as it is, because it is.

You are free to enjoy, but enjoying the world as it is, as you are, is difficult for people who are weighed down by time and things to be done.

Accepting reality without need, fear, or demand, with a sigh, without resistance, “this is what it is,” you suddenly find yourself relaxing into what there is (see also: “This too shall pass“).

Facing A Pine-scented Breeze

“Stop every now and then. Just stop and enjoy. Take a deep breath. Relax…” (source).

And if you asked, “In two words or less, what is a philosophy of enjoyment?”

Answer: ‘Live well,’ ‘enjoy life,’ or simply, ‘enjoy.’ 

Enjoy (v.):

1. “If you enjoy something, you find pleasure and satisfaction in doing it or experiencing it (see also: And the Waiter said, “Enjoy”).
2. If you enjoy yourself, you do something that you like doing or you take pleasure in the situation that you are in.
3. If you enjoy something such as a right, benefit, or privilege, you have it.”

This might sound simplistic and possibly dangerous, so you ask,

“If I or anyone else named I adopted this “Enjoy life” philosophy, wouldn’t that mean living in the “pursuit of happiness” like it says in the United States Declaration of Independence?

The answer is, ‘Yes, but it doesn’t take much to enjoy life’ (see also: happy animals running, jumping and playing).

To which you say,

“In the phrase “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” doesn’t “pursuit” mean “chasing” happiness and isn’t that just hedonism? (as in, a bad thing).” 

hedonism (n.)

1844 as “self-indulgence,” from Greek hēdone “pleasure” (see hedonist) + -ism.

“… that the pleasure of the moment is the only possible end, that one kind of pleasure is not to be preferred to another, and that a man should in the interest of pleasure govern his pleasures and not be governed by them; hence, that ethical doctrine which regards pleasure or happiness as the highest good. … Egoistic hedonism considers only the pleasure of the individual; altruistic hedonism takes into account that of others. [Century Dictionary]

Hedonism says that pleasure is what motivates us. Only pleasure, our own or another’s, has worth and only displeasure⁠ has the opposite of worth (source).

Pursuing happiness might be encouraged, but to most people, the pleasures pursued by hedonists are indecent, indulgent and possibly sinful (at least, to the religious).

The common myth is that happiness is about having more good times than bad. The more good times, the more happy overall, but it isn’t about the quantity of ups over downs, but how smoothly we ride them.

Everything is changing all the time. From one moment to the next, good things and bad things happen to everyone. Those who are the happiest don’t have more good times than bad, they just don’t cling to the “good” or run from the “bad” like most people.

They appreciate every minute for what it is knowing it’s not going to last forever (see also: “This Too Shall Pass“).

Surveys show happiness is the number one thing people say they want (money is number two) but the biggest challenge is: “Not knowing what I want to do” (source).

People don’t realize they don’t have to do anything to enjoy living. Try holding your breath and see what happens.

Time slows right down!

After a minute or two, you’ll enjoy life by simply breathing!

(It’s the little things.)

Enjoy.

A Ponderous Enjoyment

It’s funny to think, as one watches an old movie, how everyone in that old film has stopped living (even the little kids grew old and died).

Well, maybe thinking about how everybody is dead in an old movie (even the little kids who grew old) isn’t that funny, but it is fun to imagine being alive in the 1920’s. In Paris. In the rain. 

If you’re a romantic and don’t mind dampness (and wool).

For more about “romantics” see Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. The reference to 1920’s Paris’ rain is a nod to American actor, producer, and screenwriter, Owen Wilson (1968- ), and a nod to the alteration of human consciousness from egocentric to universal.

Buster feeling joie de vivre. “Silence is of the gods; only monkeys chatter.” ~ Buster

It’s fun to imagine how the same self-feeling that Owen Wilson feels—that feeling of being Owen, of Owen-ness, of being one’s self, a “me,” a role, a personality, a joie de vivre, a “joy of living” feeling, we who are alive feel (sometimes)—is the same self-feeling Buster Keaton (1895-1966) had and you have, only Buster was a different body living in a present we think of as past.

This self-feeling is like seeing (the act of vision with eyes).

We who see know how great seeing is. We enjoy seeing trees with flowers and bees (see also: “A Way of Seeing to Enjoy (Part 1)”.

Seeing is the thing—not what is seen (although, beauty is better).

Who doesn’t enjoy seeing a Snowbird Hawthorn blooming?

What’s being seen is of the past (if you think about it).

Like the song says, “everybody look at your hands” (“Safety Dance”). If you have a hand, you see it and other appendages in the present at this location with your eyes (if you have them). What you see is experienced as seeing. (If there was nothing to see, seeing would be redundant.)

A goat doesn’t have horns because it butts, it butts because it has horns; likewise, we don’t have eyes because we see, we see because we have eyes. The world is literally nothing without you seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, tasting and thinking about it. (See also “Good Morning Starshine” “Gliddy gloop gloopy. Nibby nobby nooby. La la la lo lo.”)

Imagine seeing yourself seeing. You’d be in the scene seeing yourself seeing. Image: Hand of the desert at night.

When we look into the sky, we see a star’s past at that location. Since nothing can travel faster than light (including what happens to us), “From where we are, the star is still in our sky, because the space we can interact with goes further into the past as its distance from us increases. In other words, we’re always surrounded by the past” (source).

(See also: Enjoy A Perfect World.)

Owen seeing without trying. “Just to be yourself and not to try to sell anything or make a good impression, that’s something worth striving towards.” ~ Owen

We who are alive continue a line of life-energy passed like a torch from our parents, their parents, their parents’ parents, back to the beginning (assuming there was one)—not to mention, procreation and the torch carried into the future (assuming there is one).

The same self-feeling and awareness of aliveness that we who are alive feel was transmitted to us by those before us like a game of tag where we who are alive are it—it being an “energy” we don’t want so the game is to touch someone who, when touched, tries to touch back (for more, see: Sammy Johns “Chevy Van” (making love in)). 

Like electricity in water, life-energy conducts itself in the form of a human baby (comprised primarily of water). Born into society, a “burning” biology begins in the baby whereby fuel (food) is burned (digested) creating body-energy to look for more fuel to keep the fire burning and possibly propagate the species (for the good of humanity).

(See also Billy Joel, “We Didn’t Start the Fire“.)

And so we feel our self as a body in a world, separate and alone. To breathe, sense, think, work and continue as a unit ad infinitum or forever—if possible.

Father plus mother equals child born to live, change, deteriorate and die and all of it traced out in DNA: “a double helix formed by base pairs attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone” (What is DNA?).

The body of a person is like a machine grown out of a mother who was herself grown from a mother. This machine is called Human or Homo sapiens, if you prefer (we answer to both).

Human society shapes the minds of its members and remains after individuals pass away. Like a tree lives on after its leaves fall away in the winter and are replaced, so too does society continue after individual people are gone.

Where it started no one is quite sure but every person throughout history has had a biology and the same “alive” self-feeling of being (or so one would assume).

Only the names and skeletal remains change.

In old films we see people experiencing a present moment captured like a memory.

Watching old films has a way of putting life into perspective (see also: Electric Edwardians).

One can imagine one’s self as a person back then and from this one might conclude:

Playing with cats is more fun.

Behaviour modification in action.

We all know life is an “on” and “off” system (see also: The Essence of This). It’s just that we prefer on to off. On (alive) is the absence of “off” (not alive) but as you can see, they go together.

Those who experience stillness know the opinions and stories we tell about identity, social roles, ethnicity, philosophy, religion, politics and so on do not exist in our immediate experience.

In the immediate experience there’s not even a “you” to be found because it turns out that “you” are a story too. Being “on” is all you know and the seemingly long brevity of existence is a twinkle in an ocean of eons. It’s just a matter of enjoying it as it goes and how it goes as it’s going! (That’s all.)

Enjoy the Art of Being In Touch With the World

Human organisms are motivated by psychological drives. A psychological drive is “an innate, biologically determined urge to attain a goal or satisfy a need” (Oxford). If you are hungry, for example, wanting to eliminate or reduce the unpleasant state of hunger is what drives you.

The psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) theorized that we have two drives: a drive toward life—includes instinctual impulses to have sex, eat, drink and need for fun (see: Pleasure Principle)—and a drive toward death—includes anti-social behaviour, anger, aggression, hate and violence (good times).

From these drives Freud theorized that personality is a system of three interconnected parts: Id (instinctual part: “Give me now”), Ego (realistic part: “No, I don’t think so”) and Superego (moral conscience part: “You should be ashamed!”).

Id, Ego and Superego are a translation of Es (it), Ich (I) and Ueber-Ich (Over-I). Id is like a horse. Ego is the rider and Superego lambastes Ego for trespassing. As your “ideal” self, Superego conforms to society and prohibits unethical behaviour (Simply Psychology).

Freud saw ego as a good thing. Ego negotiates between human impulses and social standards. There are, however, other ways to look at it.

Cue music: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, “Man On Fire”.

As a ‘me’ ‘mine’ and ‘for myself,’ we consider ourselves distinct from the world, but if you look closely, you realize: it isn’t true.

If you want inner peace, break free of what Freud says.

Garry in high school. “It’s not the hair on your head that matters. It’s the kind of hair you have inside.”

Garry Shandling (1949-2016)—a comedian who made loneliness and self-hate funny before turning it into love for the world—said before he died (obviously):

“All my journey is to be authentically who I am. Not trying to be somebody else under all circumstances. The whole world is confused because they’re trying to be somebody else. To be your true self it takes enormous work…. Ego drives the world. Ego drives the problems. So you have to work in an ego-less way. Egolessness, which, is the key to being authentic, is a battle” (The Green Room).

In spiritual circles ego is seen as an enemy and a synonym for “selfishness.”

Psychological drives operate on a feedback control system similar to a thermostat. When a need is satisfied, the drive is reduced. We relax. Eliminate a drive completely and a state of mental balance or psychological equilibrium is obtained. 

When we’re calm and comfortable, that’s room temperature. When our emotional temperature changes, we feel tension and an instinctive response to potential conflict.

Some people perpetuate unpleasant states for purposes of enjoyment. They eat when not hungry, drink when not thirsty and enjoy death defying activities like skydiving and the thrill of almost dying (source).

Some people have a drive for money, power and or fame but such people experience an unpleasant state of dissatisfaction when they realize: externals don’t matter.

This is hungry ghost territory. This is, as Gabor Maté, M.D., said,

“where we seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment.

The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need.

We don’t know what we need, and so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode, we’ll never know. We haunt our lives without being fully present” (Hungry Ghosts).

But, don’t worry. It’s normal.

As one seeks to survive in a culture of consumption and comparison in the midst of mass advertising, it’s only natural to want more than is possible. If you get hungry ghost-like—take a deep breath and ask yourself: “Do I have what I need?”

The psychiatrist Shoma Morita (1874-1938) proposed two other drives: a drive to live fully and a drive for comfort and security. Sometimes these drives are at odds.

With eyes on a need yet achieved, there is anxiety and self-doubt. Such feelings cannot be avoided.  Emotions are messages.

Avoid or suppress feelings and you disrupt your ability to function. For example, if you are anxious in social situations, the inclination is to avoid them, but avoidance perpetuates a lack of confidence and the very anxiety one is trying to escape. Self-confidence comes with experience. Understand a feeling and take action if need be (source).

Some of us have drives that are difficult to satisfy. Sometimes a drive takes over and we are driven.

The question is: Where are we going?

Many humans—many, many humans probably (in fact)—experience a constant dissatisfaction with life. Their minds have made a judgment: Life is not the way it should be.

But why?

It could be that we experience dissatisfaction with life “as it is” because in comparison to life imagined, the life we live falls short of expectations. We try to make life match our ideal by noticing what’s wrong and making changes, but when we achieve what we want, we imagine how life could be even better. We think that once we fix what’s wrong, we’ll be satisfied, but when the “future” arrives, it’s just another dissatisfying moment.

It’s rare for people to feel a deep satisfaction with the way things are. We live as if the present moment is a barrier to the life we’d rather be living. The future we dream of never arrives and herein is the human conundrum.

Most of us live in a world of make-believe—even though we know life isn’t a fairy story. Most of us live a mundane existence in stark contrast to our make-believe world, but take heed: Reality does exist and it’s better than make-believe.

Reality is a world of opportunity, happiness and peace of mind. You might be content within a comfort zone of normal life—happy to take out the garbage, do laundry or whatever (all good stuff)—but there are degrees of happiness.

You could be only scratching the surface. Pay attention to what it feels like or sounds like to be here and now. Do this and you are taken from make-believe to a direct experience of reality. You start seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting the present in a way that you haven’t done since you were a kid.

Like Boston (the band, not the city) said, “People livin’ in competition. All I want is to have my peace of mind, yeah, whoa” (“Peace of Mind“).

Yeah. Whoa. That’s it precisely.

Enjoy A “You-day-mon-I-am!” Inspiration

This is the world. The world is as it is. It is not as it isn’t. The world is an interconnected balancing act. Some people say humans came from the hand of God. Some say they came from aliens or from rocks, water and sunshine, but any way you slice it, it’s really quite amazing.

Cue music: Ravel, “Bolero”.

Like alternating current (AC) and direct current (dc), the world is positive and negative. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. One thing leads to another on the train of days we call life. We hope something incredible will happen—if we’re lucky, if we’re blessed, if a genie grants our wish—but magic doesn’t come from outside.

It is an interaction.

As Sir Isaac Newton observed, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” which means, “The bigger the push, the bigger the push back” (Propulsion). It’s like ping pong.

Everything is put into place and goes from there. There are good people. There are bad people. Sometimes good people are bad. Sometimes bad people are good. They’re inconsistent and situational even when they think they’re being spiritual (and/or reasonable).

The world is beautiful and horrible at intervals. We oscillate between positive and negative emotions every minute on our way to enjoying. Throughout history it hasn’t just been girls who wanna have fun. It’s everyone.

Everything humans do revolves around surviving and enjoying. They go together like bread and butter. It’s hard to enjoy if you’re not surviving and if you’re surviving without enjoying, what’s the point?

High-income countries have the highest prevalence of heavy episodic drinking (source).

That could explain why suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the world. Globally, one million people commit suicide each year (source). 44,193 Americans commit suicide each year and of those, many are drug and alcohol related (source). 

Party on, Dude.

The trick is to enjoy, but not all enjoyment is equal. Behind the eyes of another is a consciousness that is as you are. The workings of another’s mind is reflected in words and actions. If you’re not enjoying, you could do some rewiring. Neurons that “fire together, wire together” (source). Everyone’s brain is capable of physical change.

Neurons firing at the same time develop a physical connection. Through self-awareness and mindful practice you can structure yourself sane, sensible, and not prone to weeping.

We all want to experience as many joy filled experiences as we can. Las Vegas and Disneyland were built on that desire. It’s why we love eating doughnuts (as opposed to just looking at them).

Let’s get started.

In this age of entertainment, where people are immersed in computer generated fantasy or escape through drugs and alcohol, it’s interesting to see that people are still singing, “I can’t get no satisfaction. ‘Cause I try and I try and I try,” like Mick Jagger (“Satisfaction”).

Why is there no satisfaction?

Everyone is searching for something but what that “something” is is sometimes uncertain. Watch reality TV and you’ll see how messed up people can be. It’s as if everyone should be assigned a psychologist at birth to guide them through life.

The ancient Greeks proposed two opposing philosophical traditions for how to find happiness. Aristotle (384-322 BC) called them: (1) eudaimonia (you-day-monia)—right action leading to “well-being” and the “good life,” and (2) hedonic enjoyment—the pursuit of pleasure from sensual self-indulgence.

Eudiamonia combines “eu” meaning “good” and “daimon” meaning “spirit” (“god” or “godlike”). Eudiamonia literally means “having a good guardian spirit”.

Socrates’ daimon.

In psychology daimonic refers to one’s drive towards individuation—the things that distinguish you from everybody else.

Eudiamonia asks you to live in accordance with your daimon or “true self” and hedonism asks you to enjoy an experience where you believe you’re getting what you want and feel the pleasant affects of that belief (source).

But ideas change over time. Daemonic is now associated with a fiend motivated by a spiritual force that is evil, but daimonia is really about a feeling of unrest that forces you into an unknown that leads you to “self-destruction and/or self-discovery” (source).

In “Two Conceptions of Happiness…” psychologist Alan S. Waterman writes, “The daimon is an ideal in the sense of being an excellence, a perfection toward which one strives and, hence, it can give meaning and direction to one’s life” (p. 678).

Socrates and Plato thought human beings wanted eudaimonia more than anything and Aristotle—that eudimoniac!—rejected hedonism saying, “The many, the most vulgar, seemingly conceive the good and happiness as pleasure… they appear completely slavish, since the life they decide on is a life for grazing animals” (Aristotle, 1985, p. 7).

But Epicurus—the hedonist who was like Jesus (Christians and Epicureans shared social practices)—put the two opposites together. He didn’t advocate pursuing any and every pleasure. He identified eudaimonia (the flourishing life) with the life of pleasure and freedom from distress (Eudaimonia).

To shape a state of mind that is eudaimonic, here’s what to do:

First, cultivate virtue through: (1) apatheia (literally “being without passions” like a stoic) and (2) ataraxia (literally being “without trouble” or “tranquillity” like a hedonist). Second, stop thinking like a critic. Third, sing, “Chh chh-chh, uh, chh chh-chh, uh. In the summertime, when the weather is hot. You can stretch right up and touch the sky” (“In the Summertime”).

The world—Reality—is a hand in your face waving, “Hey Dude! Wake up Dude! (Reality sounds a lot like Keanu Reeves). “See that sky? That’s me! See those trees? That’s me too, Dude! If you see the world, you’re in the world. You’re the world seeing itself! WHOA! That’s heavy, Dude.”

Reality answers every question. It speaks every minute. Even when you’re sleeping, reality sleeps with you. The wheels are in motion—spinning, spinning.

Reality says, “Feel the grass under your feet. Incredible, right? The reality of your feet and grass feeling is reality happening. You don’t have to believe there are flowers. There are flowers! There are hummingbirds, rhinoceros, butterflies and robins fluffing feathers under sprinklers.” 

But like in dream where all the roads are congested as you choke on exhaust feeling “stuck in the middle” on this “eve of destruction”, is there anything you can do? Of course there is!

Do nothing.

It’s an effortless Chinese wu wei non-doing in harmony kind of thing. Practice not doing and enjoy yourself in not so doing. It doesn’t mean you’re a slug. It  means to sing, “Don’t worry about a thing because everything’s gonna be all right” (“Don’t Worry About A Thing”). Let muscular tension go. Relax and let time pass (see also: Enjoyment and Enlightenment and A New Way of Looking).

Just duck it. Duck it all anyway. Like a duck in a pond, float without purpose or boredom. Let your face go slack like an idiot and enjoy it. Float with euphoria and swim in living. The whole environment is the duck that’s in it.

“Quack. Quack.”

Feel aware of yourself feeling aware in the world you’re in and like Daniel Boone sing, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s a beautiful day” (“Beautiful Sunday”).

Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy.

References

Aristotle. (1985). Nicomachean ethics. (T. Irwin, Trans.). Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett.

Waterman, A. S. (1990). Personal expressiveness: Philosophical and
psychological foundations. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 11,47-74.

What Are You Overlooking? Another Kind of Shining

If you go for a stroll and get cold, how can you escape that cold? Dress warmer. Go where it is neither hot nor cold. When it is cold, you should be cold. When it is hot, you should be hot. When you suffer, you should suffer. When you are happy, enjoy that happiness. Be ready for anything.

Sound is not noise unless you think it is. You see a red-breasted nuthatch. Its peeping enters your mind. If you think its song is not good, that thought is noise. If you are not disturbed, the nuthatch enters your heart and you are a nuthatch nuthatching.  

Strolling in a landscape is like the title The Hills Have Eyes. Your eyes and those of other woodland folk are the eyes of the landscape.

Whatever you see is in your mind. You think there is this and there is that, but this and that are everything. There are many stars. Together they are a cosmos. There are many snowflakes. Together they are snow. Many and one describe one whole thing contained in containers containing.

Outsides are insides.

Without trying to do anything, when you go beyond subjectivity and objectivity, you come to understand a oneness in things.

Professor Grampy, Christmas Comes But Once a Year (1936)

Thinking shines thought on things out there in the mind. Like Aladdin’s magic lamp, you shine the mind and glow, knowing that what is happening is your doing for without you – to you – there is nothing.

A cold December ramble in snow frees you of time and brings to mind a Christmas carol that goes: “Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen. When the snow lay ’round about, deep and crisp and even.”

King and page go thither into a wind’s wild lament with gifts of flesh, wine and pine-logs for a peasant.

But the page loses heart, “I can go no longer,” so the king says, “Mark my footsteps, my good page. Tread thou in them boldly.” When the page does this, he finds, “Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.” And so it is.

Goodness warms. It shines in the dark.

The are happy melodies. There are sad melodies. The king is not disturbed by cold (bad) or made ecstatic by riches (good). Enjoyment is always with him.

If you listen to the carol a few times (try Skydiggers, Loreena or traditional), it plays in your mind as you stroll with light. Imagine flying high above the ground a few feet below. Float through trees your head a camera on Steadicam-shoulders. In this mind movie outside goes inside and mingles with imagining.

You can dream of being in a movie like the song “Spill the Wine” (1970). Like spinning wheels in an optical illusion (hold your finger to Fig. 3), your mind spins reality to you. 

Fig. 3.

When you say, “There are geese flying,” the geese flying are already in your mind. People say, “The geese are over there,” but if you think more about it, you will find that the geese are in your mind as a kind of thought. Geese flying are within. There are not two things – geese and you seeing. You cannot have one without the other. They are one.

It’s like water. There is water in a lake. There is water in you. Water is all over. Water is a source. Even when you are not aware of water, there is water. The source is there.

But people buy into crazy stuff like con artist Jim Bakker’s Buckets. They harm themselves for pleasures that become habitual and cause problems, but why?   

INXS sang the line, “Every single one of us has a devil inside” (“Devil Inside,” 1987). To some people, the devil is real, but in the song the devil is a symbol of the voice we think is our own that talks us into doing what we probably shouldn’t.

It’s like the comedian Flip Wilson as Geraldine Jones saying, “The devil made me buy this dress,” or Kramer on Seinfeld telling George, “Listen to the little man within,” and George saying, “My little man is an idiot!” (see: Seinfeld clip).

And so he is, but the little man who spins self-centred rationalizations can be silenced by “shining” the mind on a Good King Wenceslas and red-breasted nuthatch.

John Lennon sang the line, “shine on” inspiring Stephen King for his novel that inspired Stanley Kubrick for his movie.

To “shine” is to put an image from your mind into another (source). People who look for hidden meanings in The Shining (1980) find what they look for. “We all shine on” comes from the song “Instant Karma” (1970). Karma means, “action, work or deed” (source). If you get cancer or miss getting hit by a car, that is your karma.

It’s what happens.

Some people think karma is a system of cosmic retribution – a reap what you sow thing, but if you look at it, despite sowing bad deeds, selfish cheats reap prosperity as good deed doers suffer.

It doesn’t seem to matter.

In the movie Signs (2002) Mel Gibson as former Priest Graham Hess puts it this way: “People break down into two groups. When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance.”

Depending how you look at it determines what you see.

The Ruling Class movie clip.

In the movie The Ruling Class (1972), Peter O’Toole’s character, Jack Gurney, thinks he is Jesus. When asked how he knows he is, O’Toole as Jack being Jesus answers, “Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.”

When asked to perform a miracle, O’Toole holds up a hand and says with wonder, “There’s your miracle.”

The normal way of looking rarely sees anything supernatural in a natural world that is simply amazing. The trick to unadulterated enjoyment is to “Forgetaboutit!” Go into the world as if everything is one thing enjoying.

Enjoy A Perfect World

Imagine you’re on a highway. Up ahead is a storm. It’s a big one. You want to get where you’re going, but should you turn around?

Before deciding what to do, you stop to enjoy the view. The air is earthy. Electrified. Colours vivid: dark green, dark blue, pink, distant purple.

Driving for hours in a time machine car has put you in a trance. The road ahead has taken you into the future and left the past in a rear-view mirror as shown In a Perfect World.

The sky rumbles and ruminates upon your fate as you stand bewildered. A thundering song rocks your brain: “I was caught in the middle of a railroad track (thunder!). I looked round and I knew there was no turning back (thunder!)” (“Thunderstruck” AC/DC).

Between waking and sleeping and thinking and doing you breathe deeply.

Source

The storm edges closer but there is no hurry, no tension, no mental chatter. You are as loose as a goose as you listen to sound come and go. Your face is stupidly slack. Vision widens.

Inside the car the Clash asks: “Should I stay or should I go?”

It’s perfect.

Everything is just so: Earth, sky, air, body. The voice within goes quiet when you touch reality. Judgement: suspended! Impatience: gone! A childlike freedom hits. You’re like a bird perched on a branch giving way, but why worry?

Life is forever asking: What are you going to do? (see also: The Joy of Living and Everyday Ecstasy).

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” said Macbeth immersed in a future that didn’t exist. Life is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” but like a lot of people living fictional lives, he confused thinking with reality. That’s probably where the whole notion of a spirit within came from.

We trick ourselves into thinking there must be a watcher for something to be watched, that what happens now follows the past, but it’s the other way round: the past follows from what’s happening now.

It’s a head-game we play in our storied lives where actions have responses and character is revealed.

Even though we know actors are pretending, we pretend with them. Management (MGMT) was correct, “We are fated to pretend” (“Time To Pretend“).

Most stories go thus: want then obstacle then action then response (repeat) – then a final outcome when the want is gone or resources are depleted. That’s the beat of a hero’s journey. Behind it all there’s an underlying message or “big idea.”

What we want associates with what is lacking: a hungry person wants food, a thirsty person wants water, a prisoner wants freedom, a sick person wants health, a cheated person wants justice, a bored person wants excitement, a weak person wants power and so on ad infinitum. 

Wanting never ends.

A person who has everything wants more. It’s hard to imagine that you can contemplate your way into a mental state aligned with nature and make wanting and getting one and the same.

If asked, “What do you want?” what would you say? Is it food, shelter, money, sex, health, longevity, love, happiness, freedom? contentment, excitement, enlightenment… a stupendous high? What?

All of the above?

While you might feel stressed and worthless as you try to achieve, if you imagine achieving whatever it is, there could be a point afterwards when the achievement isn’t that important. When that happens, you realize that you’re the same person you’ve always been.

Within the life you lead, you will be about as happy as you choose to be. No matter how fantastic the achievement, eventually it will pass and become old news. Look at how research into lottery winners shows they’re not much happier than those who didn’t win (source).

Of the 108 billion people who have lived and the 7.9 billion swarming today (according to the World population Clock), there are just as many people with as many problems and wants as ever. At the end of the last day without understanding, a billionaire and pauper will tremble naked and alone under their clothes.

In a world where automation replaces people, in the not too distant future, half the people will need something to do. That’s when a philosophy of enjoyment will be critical.

“It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

Our storied brains help us enjoy despite self-destruction as a species. And yet, if you want to get everything you want, the answer isn’t in satisfaction of urges.

It’s the opposite.

Like Jerry Seinfeld said to George Castanza, “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” “Yes!” says George. “I will do the opposite!” (see: George does the opposite).

Imagine looking at yourself from ten feet above. Feel aware of yourself in all that you see. Breathe consciously. When you’re done reading, don’t do anything. Just pause. Look around. See yourself seeing. This is it. There isn’t any more. Your heart is beating. Love what you see. It’s a perfect world. Sense everything in its entirety and flow with what is. Feel purely natural like a planet going around the sun without any sort of control, force, or attempt to revolve.

All insides have outsides. Yours doesn’t end with the skin. Hear Bert’s “African Beat” and know the world is your body! Engage in spontaneous effortless movement like a stream and what you want and get are made one and the same.

Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy.