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!

THIS IS HERE! (or are you disappearing?)

This is about “How to disappear completely” (in a good way).

Some people get the wrong idea about “disappearing.” As Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) saw it, reducing self interest leads to the “calm and confident serenity afforded by the virtuous disposition and a good conscience…” (Nineteenth Century Philosophy, p. 120).

Moreover, says Schopenhauer, “The egoist feels himself surrounded by strange and hostile phenomena and all his hope rests on his own well-being…”

“The good person lives in a world of friendly phenomena… the knowledge that every living thing is just as much our own inner being-in-itself as is our own person, extends our interest to all that lives; and in this way the heart is enlarged” (p. 120).

“Therefore, although the knowledge of the lot of man generally does not make his disposition a cheerful one,” writes Schopenhauer, “the permanent knowledge of his own inner nature in everything that lives nevertheless gives him a certain uniformity and even serenity of disposition” (p. 120).

And, as we all know, serenity is so enjoyable.

See the Virtuous life of Nick Otterman.

Serenity is freedom and tranquillity is lovely. It is time once again for all good philosophers to enjoy the lighter side of being.

Existential Comics “Schopenhauer’s Mom”.

According to science, perceptions of time and motion depend upon the observer’s position. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, quantum mechanics, chaos theory and complexity theory all point to things being relative.

If you’re a relativist, it’s not that things aren’t true one way over another, it’s just that, what’s true for you might depend upon context, laws of physics and your personal and cultural beliefs.

But for now, for the sake of something profundus—that’s Latin for “deep, boundless, and not bounded”—we set relativism and all other isms aside.

Imagine you are a marble trapped inside a three-dimensional box. 

You hover around inside this box. You see six walls and eight corners. If you move in any of the familiar dimensions—up/down, left/right and front/back—you hit a wall.

There is no escape.

Now imagine your marble body “lifting” into the fourth dimension of time (as shown in ghostly red in the illustration). In this “lifting” your position remains unchanged. You don’t come near the walls. You simply elevate to a new three dimensional layer of the four dimensional space.

As you “lift” into the fourth dimension, you see your storied existence as if from a distance. You see the universe interconnecting.

This isn’t a shift to selflessness—that is to say, you give of yourself and still see separation. This is the freedom to rest your face completely (even if it makes you look angry).

This is a shift from first person—“I am living my life! We do things our way”—and second person—“You wait here”—to third person—he, she, it, they—with one’s self observed and observing.

From this perspective, everything is you. A child kills herself—that’s you. Ducks in the park—that’s you.

Begin perspective shift and self expansion (and we don’t mean a pig-out on Cheesies).

You are like a disembodied narrator describing. You can’t see through a character’s eyes, but you can imagine.

This awareness of your self as subjective and objective interconnected, pops the bubble of how you see the world.

This is the realization that other people are as water-balloons floating in water. “I am who I am,” as someone once said. It’s a sentiment we have when we look in a mirror and think of Popeye.

This is the freedom to be what you are and will be.

Read the following instructions and then do them:

1. Look around.
2. Go for a walk without swinging your arms.
3. Look at everything from the side of your eyes.
4. Listen as if you hear something.
5. Walk and look at the ground as if you’re 30,000 feet up above in an air-plane.
6. Think to yourself, “This is me. This is me seeing. I see this. This, is what I see. I can see myself seeing.”

Shazam.

You shift from outside world and inside self separated to a world of here and now as perceived by the one perceiving. It is all of a thing. From a third person self-included perspective, you shift to a decentralized position. You see yourself and others as funny (in a nice way). What you see is seen and seeing. 

Just as Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) shifted from Earth as centre to sun followed by NASA shifting from sun as centre to a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A-star! so too can you shift from yourself as centre in space and time to a decentralized position in an imagined fourth dimension. This shift is revolutionary and quite possibly could save the world (and probably will).

Like Mike Milligan said (Mike Milligan is a character in season 2 of Fargo), “Now, ironically, in astronomy, the word “revolution” means “a celestial object coming full circle. Did you know that? Which, if you think about it, is pretty funny, considering here on earth it means “change.”

This shift is an epiphany. From a first person perspective your life began and will end. All you really know is, “I am here,” but there are two ways to look at “I am here.”

The first way is to say that an individual person is located in a place called “here.” In this, you, as a self, experience the world as separate from your body.

The second way to look at it goes in the opposite direction. The statement, “I am here,” is a statement of fact. It means what it says. It means that “I am here,” Literally. It is to see yourself in what you’re seeing. “Here” is not just a location, but everything and you’re in and of it.

I am here,” is like saying, “I am Jimmy,” or “I am bored.”… I am here.

This is the third person perspective. You switch from a world of “things” ‘out there’—positive shapes against a negative background from a single vantage point, that being, your body—to seeing the space between not as empty but as connecting. With this shift in awareness, you see yourself as the place you are seen in.

To loosen a knot one must trace a string’s path and slowly loosen things up. To loosen the knots of a befuddlement one must first be self-aware. Self-ignorance is a leading cause of unhappiness, insecurity and self-injury. (But no more.)

Today, with the resting-face of true freedom, we accept our lot in this life with humour and love for this story that we tell and are told has an ending.

References:

Nineteenth Century Philosophy

7.3 Billion Ways To Enjoy the World

Not a log. A pillow.

“Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup. They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe. Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind. Possessing and caressing me… (John Lennon, Across the Universe).

Lennon wrote the above after he’d been lying in bed next to his wife feeling irritated because she was going on and on about something. His irritation turned into a song about enjoying an opened mind (possibly inspired by an LSD flashback).

Most people who are not former Beatles would probably prefer something like a product, situation or activity to pools of sorrow and waves of joy.

Words in a paper cup just doesn’t cut it.

People are happiness seeking creatures. Drugs and distractions are big business. To the average person enjoyment is as easy as falling of a log. First you: A) Find something to enjoy, and then you, B) enjoy it.

Generally, if you enjoy sports, you watch TV. If you enjoy video games, you plug one in. If you want to talk, you text and if you enjoy action, romance and thrills, you face a screen.

Reality is virtual.

Plato anticipated this in his allegory of the cave where slaves are chained to couches watching reflections of events (and eating cheese doodles), “while philosophers struggle up to the sunlight to see what’s really going on” (Tom Lewis, Living the American Dream is a Nightmare).

In a human world conflicted between Utilitarianism: “the doctrine that an action is right insofar as it promotes happiness, and that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct” (Google) and Individualism: “the pursuit of individual rather than common or collective interests; egoism” (Google), maybe we need to adjust our hedonistic calculus: “appraisal of possible alternative choices in terms of the amount of pleasure to be gained and pain to be avoided in each” (dictionary.com). 

Dualism means separation.

Our problem is how we deal with reality. Since René Descartes said a person is a thinking thing, we’ve separated ourselves. Almost everything we do to make ourselves happy is outside reality.

We’re so immersed in an ideology: “a system of ideas and ideals…” (Google) that if we step out of it, as Slavoy Zizek said, “it hurts…. the truth can shatter many of your illusions…You must be forced to be free. Freedom hurts” (Slavoy Zizek Explains Ideology).

Real enjoyment.

What if it’s not a product or lifestyle that brings you enjoyment? What if enjoyment is an ability? Like when you feel sick, nothing is fun; if you’re not in the mood, then enjoyment won’t come. You need to make yourself enjoy, but can you cultivate an “enjoy ability”? 

Absolutely.

It’s outside. It is your ride to death.

You can be free to enjoy like a leaf on a tree. With awareness of yourself – not as a disembodied brain – but as a being-in-the world (Martin Heidegger).

Sarte uses the example of chasing a bus. You don’t think, “I am chasing a bus,” it’s just, “getting closer.” The sense of yourself disappears. Like an athlete you are in flow or as Professor Dreyfus says, “When you are absorbed in the moment, consciousness is gone. And self-consciousness, is really gone” (Is Consciousness an Illusion?).

If you live as a direct living being without self-thinking, “What’s in it for me?” marketers won’t like you. Big business depends on a trick: Convince people they need something to be happy like it says on a Coke bottle, “Open happiness.”

Writer Paulo Coelho wrote, “Whatever you decide to do, make sure it makes you happy.” In a search engine this quote has over six million results which begs the question: Why so many?

Is this a revelation? As if one day, people said, “Do what makes me happy? Of course! What was I thinking?” 

What if the dream is a nightmare?

The Coelho quote appears on web sites like: “Every Day Feng Shui to Design Your Dream Life,” “50 Inspirational Career Quotes,” “15 Happiness Quotes to Inspire You to Live Your Best Life” and “40 Ways to Happiness.” (Numbered lists always make things better.)

Alexander Nazaryan of the Daily News said that Paulo Coelho “is the purveyor of “inspirational” schlock like “The Alchemist” that has somehow managed to fool millions, probably because there is so much that is rotten in the world and people will listen to anyone who will sell them bromides about making it all better. He is just Tony Robbins with a pen, nothing more” (The astounding stupidity of Paulo Coelho, 2012).

Ouch. Did Nazaryan even read “The Alchemist“? It’s easy to take shots. Occult symbolism aside, it’s a beautiful quick read. The point is not to trash and be divisive, but to have open eyes and awareness of the ideologies that may blind us. “I’m like everyone else – I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not that actually does” (The Alchemist, large print version, p. 53).

People need comfort. They need enthusiasm. There is no separation between ourselves and the world around us. If 7.3 billion people (current population on Worldometers), did “whatever makes me happy,” what would happen?

We would see a world exploited and destroyed for profit… deforestation, industrialization, polluted water, sprawling cities, massive mines stripping landscapes and factories making garbage that’s out of control.

We all know the world is a mess. It’s complex. Lamenting and carping does no good. Stay calm. Love what’s important and enjoy what’s good. Start with a philosophy of enjoyment and a list.

5 Things a Being-in-the-World Can Do To Enjoy:

1. 

   A scene from Howard’s End.

   Be-in-the-world.

2. Enjoy nature (Keep It Simple).
3. Enjoy kindness & good humour.
4. Enjoy not buying & giving.
5. Enjoy tranquility (no noise, no machines, loving).

Now look around and ponder, “What’s on my list?”