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.

World Views, Weird Edges & Higher States of Consciousness

It’s difficult to discover anything beyond presuppositions. Presuppositions are assumptions assumed in advance. When it comes to presupposers, it is as Nobel Prize Winner (1915) Romain Rolland said, “Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.” (Above the Battle).

Ideas running contrary to assumptions are subject to argument and ridicule.

If someone says, “Yesterday I saw angels sitting in a tree!” You’d think that person is on drugs, mentally imbalanced or a romantic poet named William Blake (who also saw angels in a tree).

The presupposition is, of course, that angels don’t sit in trees.

They prefer chairs.

A presupposition can be true, partially true or totally false. Most people – knowingly or not – have assumptions relating to their world view.

A world view is how truth and reality is understood. It asks: What is reality? What is a human being? What happens when you die? How do you know what’s right and wrong?

A world view can affect one’s goals, ability to enjoy life and attitudes towards society, progress and nature. Collectively, a world view can affect the world itself.

World views are fundamental assumptions. Fundamental assumptions always have an opposite. They can never be completely proven. There are two basic world views: one is religious (spiritual) and the other isn’t (secular).

Secular juggler.

Secular types say, “There are causes for all effects!” There are (1) atheists: there is no God or gods, the universe is material, theories like the big bang explain things scientifically, death is the end, what’s right and wrong is what we decide; and (2) postmodernists: we create a social reality, there are no truths only preferences, moral values are relative so do what feels good.

Spiritual types say, “Some effects are without causes!” Spirit is more important. There are (1) pantheists (Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, new agers): everything is God, we’re all of the same stuff, divinity is us, God is an impersonal Force, Energy, Vibration, there is no sin only ignorance, we die and are reborn; and (2) theists (Christianity, Islam, Judaism): there is one eternal personal God of infinite wisdom and power who created the universe, we pray and obey and exist beyond death.

A scene from Northfork (2003).

When a believer of whatever orientation has a prepackaged model, it’s hard to experience something outside that model.

But if you can set aside assumptions and self-interests for a minute or two, you can come up from day-to-day thinking to enjoy a higher mental state that is not only blissful (perfect happiness), but peaceful (free from disturbance).

There’s something curiously unconscious about this good feeling that’s easy. First: Relax. No pressure. No worries. This is not a competition. Put yourself in a beautiful scene (real or imagined) and let yourself feel content and tranquil.

“We can never discover anything outside the brain,” said Paul MacLean.

Instead of three bears, picture three brains inside your skull like neuroscientist Paul MacLean (1913-2007) said there was.

Imagine climbing from the lowest brain, the reptilian (think: road rage!), up past the next lowest, the paleo-mammalian – paleo means older – (think: threatened mama bear with cub) to the highest brain sitting on top like a cloud.

This is the neo-mammalian brain (neo means new).

The neo-mammalian (or neocortex) is the seat of perception and imagination. Whether religious or not, the three brains theory allegorically explains why people think and do what they think and do do.

The reptilian brain is responsible for “aggression, dominance, territoriality, and ritual displays;” the paleo-mammalian (limbic system) is responsible for “motivation and emotion involved in feeding, reproductive behaviour, and parental behavior,” and the neomammalian is responsible for “language, abstraction, planning, and perception” (Triune Brain).

Lower brains are said to be instinctive. Their concern is with reproduction and dominance, sometimes necessitating deception and violence.

When under the sway of lower brains, we’re principally concerned with our self and successes. We strike back when hit. We shift blame. We lack introspection. We rationalize behaviour in a so-called dog-eat-dog world while maintaining a flattering image of ourselves.

But in rare moments, when there are no demands put upon us, when one is quiet and comfortable, in such a peaceful interval, we are free to enter a higher mental state. When released from pride, ambition and self-justification, one looks at others not with criticism and judgement, but with a realization.

Human behaviour is driven by primitive mental pressures. People are nasty, emotional and self-interested, not out of evil, but out of hurt! In a higher mental state you see distress for what it is and not in terms of how it affects you.

“It is the artist’s business to create sunshine when the sun fails,” said Monsieur Rolland.

Romain Rolland (1866-1944) described higher intelligence as a religious feeling independent of any dogma, credo, Holy Scripture, mission statement or self salvation. It is simple and direct. It is contact. It’s a feeling of the eternal in the sense of not having limits – like an ocean (Oceanic Feeling).

Bird.

With self-interest gone, caring not for status, power or possession, boundaries are broken. We connect with things like trees, clouds, rocks, and birds. As William Blake said in Proverbs of Hell, “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees” (1789). We see visions as children until worldliness blinds us.

The trick is to set aside self-concern and go into nature wherever that is. Step out of mechanical garments. Look up from technological gadgetry and have a poetic vision. Attend to sensations in the world without thought of advantage and know there’s no difference between any two world views. As a rational witness, let your higher mind drift above and beyond the weird edges like a cloud minding not minding at all.

Melvin Sokolsky’s 1965 photo spread entitled Fly.

Enjoy A Simple Plan

We know what makes us happy (at least, in theory). If you’re not sure, just watch little children or read about elves and hobbits.

First, you enjoy something simple – preferably something in the natural world – and then, you, as an egotistical critic, get out of the way and let happiness happen.

How you value the world leads straight to enjoying it. With the right use of your senses, you can enjoy the world and accomplish a purpose for being in it. Without thinking about what you want or don’t want, you can convert a material world into a spirit of happiness.

People try to make themselves happy. When Judy Garland sang “Get Happy,” she did her best, but the song didn’t take. She was tired. She struggled to escape herself and died of an overdose at 47.

A clue as to why is in something she said, “I tried my damnedest to believe in the rainbow that I tried to get over and I couldn’t. SO WHAT!”

Judy wanted something magical to come from outside herself to make her happy. When she sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow, she saw happiness as somewhere out there – over the rainbow, way up high – but it’s not. Happiness is here. Beyond joy and sorrow, utopia is now! If only Judy could have experienced the world like it was when she was a baby. Then no crying she’d make.

You become an act of happiness by losing self-consciousness. Happiness is not in the intellect. It’s in the light that you see by. Let your eye and the object you see complete each other.

Imagine that you are a cloud seeing and replace a dead mechanized world bound by selfish motivation, mental manacles, debt and scientific manipulation. Recreate it with your sense of enjoyment.

Think about how a rainbow appears. It’s your eye at the right angle combined with sunlight and water drops. Without you to see, a rainbow doesn’t appear. But a rainbow is more than light refraction. It isn’t a symbol. It has no reason for being. It’s light playing. It’s fun. It’s beauty.

It’s a miracle! It’s you seeing!

Imagine yourself as a child. You are fed and content. Your world is not filtered by custom, interpretation, and analysis. The world is new. Imagine seeing a butterfly for the first time!

A child without want is as free as a bird or flower. No regrets or worries. As a child of whatever age, you are as you are and in this, you are humility and humility is happiness.

In The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy, Gregory Bassham lists six lessons in happiness we can learn from Tolkien’s elves and hobbits: 1) Delight in simple things; 2) Make light of your troubles; 3) Get personal (cultivate friendships); 4) Cultivate good character; 5) Cherish and create beauty; and, 6) Rediscover Wonder (it’s not just bread).

We know that we should live a simple life. We should find hope and humour even in dire circumstances. We should have close friends. We should have good morals. We should clean our psychological window so things don’t look drab and familiar. We should be less self-interested and more amazed by the world.

Even though we know what we should and shouldn’t do, something invariably happens to complicate simplicity and sour generosity. Irritation, frustration and sadness can shred good intentions.

We can remind ourselves to be wise and live uncomplicated lives like a hobbit in the Shire, but something in the outside world can happen to shatter our plan.

By the end of the day we’re tired. We wind up flaked out on a chair, covered in cheesie dust. What went wrong? We tried, but therein is our problem. Who was the one trying? Was the spirit willing and the flesh weak? Remember Dr. Schwartz’s scientific dictum, “You are not your brain” (see: It’s Not Me. It’s My Brain). A person must be detached enough to see himself objectively while at the same time committed to his own values (Kierkegaard).

Our brains can be like a Siren song luring us like sailors to shipwreck on a rocky coast. Thoughts become habitual through repeated pleasure-seeking and dopamine. Our heart may say, “No-no,” but our brain says, “Yes-yes!” Our brain often urges us to do what we probably shouldn’t.

We may have more luxuries and conveniences thanks to the magic of technologies, but that doesn’t mean we’re happier. We’re busier. We now lack time to focus on things that produce a quieter happiness.

What’s to be done? Nothing much. Just some rewiring of our brains by forging new pathways and enjoyable singing of a Tom Bombadil song.

Henry David Thoreau said in Walden: “Our life is frittered away by detail… But men labor under a mistake.

“The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before… Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! (Ch. 1) …a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone” (Ch. 2).

You don’t have to build a cabin in the woods to live deliberately. You can live deliberately anywhere. Randomly stop what you’re doing. Freeze! Take the world in and move your eyes to gaze and listen.

All it takes is an ever so slight shift in focus, not to see what you think is there, but to see what is and isn’t.

 

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For little friend Timmy. Who enjoys a good thunder storm.

Enjoyment Without a Head

Imagine walking into a forest. It’s winter. There’s snow but you’re not cold. It’s silent and still and magical. As you stroll you notice how thoughts come and go, until gradually, as you pay attention to the graceful world, thinking subsides and a gentle feeling arises.

This is a path you’ve walked before. You can picture the former you walking here. And it’s a funny thing: You’ve lurched between wanting and not wanting throughout your life, but in a moment of attention like this, you don’t do either.

You see your breath in the air and ask: “Who are you?” Who but you would know? Why not look into what it’s like being you – first person, singular, present tense? “Would you want to live and die without looking at the one doing that?” asked Douglas Harding.

You see yourself as a kid looking in a mirror. Your mom said, “That’s you!” and you believed her. Again and again you see the person under glass and think, “That’s me!” You think you are as you appear in the mirror, but that’s not how you actually see. When you look out of yourself, you don’t see a head.

You see hands, feet and knees. You see objects. You see trees and rabbit droppings and pine cones. You see far and near, but try as you might, you can’t see the one seeing. Your self is like that. Your self is a concept like a reflection in a mirror.

The ancients spoke of beauty, goodness and truth. Immersed in a world of snow, grass, trees and colour, you put one foot in front of the other and care not for images, politics and economies. You see beauty. You see goodness. You know a simple truth: You’re here and glad of it.

The poet William Blake (1757-1827) wrote, “Every Eye sees differently. As the Eye, Such the Object” (Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake, p. 19). Everyone may see the same tree, but experience it differently. Blake said, “a fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees” (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). The fool is less aware. He sees, “trees” like a million others. Meaningless. Insignificant. But a wise person lives in gusto and pays attention. A wise person’s tree is more real.

You are the space between. Before a thought comes, there is a thinker. You are the one thinking. You are consciousness itself.

Writer Douglas Harding saw philosopher Ernst Mach’s 1885 self-portrait where he closed his right eye and drew himself. While walking Harding had an insight and wrote, “What actually happened was something absurdly simple and unspectacular: I stopped thinking. A peculiar quiet, and odd kind of alert limpness or numbness, came over me.”

Harding looked at himself and realized that he couldn’t see his head. “It took me no time at all to notice this nothing, this hole where a head should have been, was no ordinary vacancy, no mere nothing. On the contrary, it was a nothing that found room for everything—room for grass, trees, shadowy distant hills, and far beyond them snow-peaks like a row of angular clouds riding the blue sky. I had lost a head and gained a world”  (On Having No Head).

In the 1960s Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band saw a similarity between poet Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) and Douglas Harding. Heron wrote a song about headlessness that begins, “When I was born I had no head. My eye was single and my body was filled with light. And the light that I was, was the light that I saw by. And the light that I saw by, was the light that I was” (song: Douglas Traherne Harding). 

In the 1600’s Traherne wrote, “You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars.” Traherne was a philosopher of enjoyment. He wrote, “Your enjoyment of the World is never right till every morning you awake in Heaven” (Centuries of Meditation). Wade (1944) writes of Traherne, “In the middle of the seventeenth century, there walked the muddy lanes of Herefordshire and the cobbled streets of London, a man who had found the secret of happiness… He became the most radiantly, most infectiously happy mortal this earth has known” (p. 2). This is the secret: It is in paying attention without thinking. Don’t be fooled by personality.

You are like the surprised squirrel silently watching you watch him.

If this squirrel were a person, you would feel self-conscious and probably look away, but when you’re headless, you don’t worry. Both you and the face you see, don’t see their own face. It’s just a you looking back at another you. 

You are a tightrope walker. The path you walk (in or out of forests) is the rope you’re on. You walk between thought and attention. The trick is to enjoy both. You are the world seeing. You are not a thing. You are not your appearance. You are seeing itself. You are capacity. This year is dedicated to paying attention without distracted thinking. Wherever you go, there you are. You are the world to yourself. You are the one experiencing.

Trust experience and enjoy it.

References

Wade, G. (1944). Thomas Traherne: A Critical Biography. Princeton University Press/Oxford University Press.

 

A New Way of Looking

Here’s the thing: If someone says, “The secret to life is...,” that person is unknowingly (or knowingly) misleading. Why?

Because.

It isn’t a secret. If it was a secret, everyone’s secret would be different.

It’s like looking for keys and not finding them even though they’re right under your nose. You’re in a hurry but waste time running around looking for keys and not finding them because you’re in a hurry! You look repeatedly on the table where they should be (and are) but you don’t see them. Why? In desperation you start looking in weird places. So too do people look for enjoyment in weird place when they don’t have to. Enjoyment is right under your nose.

When you finally do find find your keys, you feel extra extra annoyed because they were there all along, and you wonder: “How could I not see them? Am I blind? (No.) Am I an idiot? (Only partly).”

The power is in the focus. It’s a matter of attention. It’s all a matter of awareness.

In the hurry to find what you’re looking for you see with eyeballs but not with brain. Hurry causes stress. Stress causes the release of cortisol in the brain. Cortisol can kill brain cells in the area responsible for memory (Your Amazing Brain). If you add multi-tasking to a frantic searching, you have zero attention (Brain Rules…).

Searching for keys in all the wrong places is like searching for enjoyment. We don’t see what’s in front of us. Enjoyment is simple. It’s so simple that we don’t get it until we do and then we doubt it because we might be expecting something that isn’t so subtle.

If you’re reading this—wherever you are in this world—you’re probably alive. If you’re alive, you’re halfway there, but the other half isn’t easy. Nature isn’t on your side. Nature isn’t on anyone’s side. Nature is cause and effect.

The trouble is that happiness gets tied to desire and expectations. We define happiness as, Wanting what we want and getting what we get and hoping the two coincide.

You see, it’s because of our brains. We either over-think and make it complicated, we under-think and act on insane urges or we multi-task and miss everything.

We think, “If I have this (or that), I’ll be happy,” but not only do we think that something outside ourselves will make us happy, we’re drawn to things that actually hurt us.

Our brains send messages. Sometimes these messages are destructive—ask anyone in therapy, rehab, prison or who is about to blow himself up. Not only do we deceive ourselves, other people trick us with their deceptions and w can become like pawns in the game of life, sacrificed for someone else’s idea of enjoyment.

So, what’s the answer?

Picture brain messages symbolically like they do in cartoons with a devil-you and an angel-you on each shoulder arguing their case for you to decide (see Internal Multitudes and Enjoyment Decisions). The devil-you often wins and when he does, he gets harder to stop.

Pleasure and habit are linked. Cells that fire together, wire together. In other words: Habits are hard to break (see: It’s not me. It’s my brain.)

It’s like a battle between, on one side, the Rolling Stones at 120 decibels singing “Sympathy For The Devil”, “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste,” and on the other side, a string quartet playing “Hallelujah” in your living room.! Who do you think will win?

On one side are symbols of light, innocence and wholesomeness (sappy?) and on the other, just the opposite (exciting?). In the battle between it comes down to focus. What do you choose to enjoy?

Enjoyment of life and of healthy beauty is decided by awareness of what “you” choose to pay attention to.

Do you take the gentle path of life as represented in Wordsworth’s poem, “I wandered lonely as a cloud; That floats on high o’er vales and hills; When all at once I saw a crowd; A host, of golden daffodils“? Or is that boring? “Daffodils? You’re kidding!”

Do you prefer your entertainment on the excitingly evil side? How about delightful depravity and edgy cruelty that’s funny too? What’s your pleasure? Do you choose a quiet read, a walk in the park, a pint with a friend, or ‘gorified’ death in a Zombie Apocalypse?

It’s a tough decision for most people.

Subtlety is missed by mobs fed on chatter, drugs, violence, convenience and bread and circuses. A butterfly caught in a web is easily killed by the spider. It takes heart and courage and a focus on what is wholesome to overcome dark greed.

Wholesome isn’t a word used much these days. It alludes to marketing all-natural breakfast cereals and family values but back in the year 1200 wholesome meant “of benefit to the soul.” It comes from the word “whole” meaning “healthy” (undamaged, entire, safe) and “-some” meaning “tending to” (Etymology Dictionary).

Wholesome relates to “Hallow!” as in Hello! Health! Holy! It’s a greeting and a call to health and Hallelujah! (Word Origins).

Imagine: You go to a concert in a high school auditorium but your brain is messed up with problems. You miss the first part before your spirit gets caught up in the music and then… and then…

A switch to whole.

You see where you are. Your face relaxes. Totally still you breathe and your eyes… your eyes! they widen and go slack. You see as if you were life itself.

What was a disheveled auditorium with flickering light bulbs about to die and chattering nuisance people becomes… beautiful. You enter the stream. You are empty absolutely. You know that life runs along like a runaway train as you float in your body behind a face.

A scene.

You look out of yourself self-aware. This moment is captured in the very being of yourself – not as an ego, but as… a spirit.

The purest illuminations come unsought.

You are transfigured but no one knows. How could they? You are alone in yourself but through the eyes of another you see the importance of all this. It’s in relationships and immersion. You’ve put your will to the side and thrown yourself out.

Such is enjoyment seeing.

Cease demanding that life conform to desire. See daffodils and ignore zombies (they aren’t real).

Comical Animals and Imaginative Exercise #1

Each of us is a comical animal. We’re funny creatures. All of us. Life is a struggle for most people. As a philosopher of enjoyment, you should praise each person for their life struggle. Each person is a hero. Flatter them for what they have to endure. It isn’t easy being human.

You know the struggles people go through because you go through them too. Each of us wrestles with this thing called life. It is as the song says, “Life is a funny proposition after all.”

If you cultivate awareness of the tragic absurdity of us all and of the special silliness of people (including yourself!), you recognize the pathetic heroism presented by each person in their struggle with this monstrous thing we call life.

If you recognize the tragic absurdity of people, you will have a silent respect for every single wrestler. Recognize the struggles of others and praise them for their heroism.

The struggles of people is monumental. People do the best they can. Failure is understandable. Success is a surprise.

Happy moments of contentment occur when a struggle isn’t a struggling but an enjoying. Resist not the struggle. To struggle is to live.

How do you deal with struggle? Do you get worked up by troubles or do they roll off your back like water off a duck?

One way to deal with the struggle of trouble is to use your imagination.

There’s a trick you can use to deal with any difficulty. It’s called the trouble-bag. Imagine taking all your fears, worries, horrors and terrors and stuffing them in an invisible burlap bag.

Take that invisible burlap bag stuffed with troubles and tie an invisible cord around it. The cord cannot be broken. Once in the invisible trouble-bag, all your fears, worries, horrors and terrors can’t get out.

Should you feel a fear or a worry, merely picture the invisible bundle of trouble and shake it against your side. Rattle it. Laugh at it. It’s in the bag! Shaking your imaginary bag of trouble is enough to free you from your worst mental obsessions.

No one needs to know, but even if someone notices you shaking your invisible trouble bag: Who cares? Tell them how you’ve taken all your fears, worries, terrors and horrors and stuffed them in an invisible bag and how you’ve tied that bag of troubles, fears and worries with a magical invisible cord that can’t be broken.

So what if they think it isn’t normal? You can laugh at them for laughing at you. It’s fun to use your imagination. Wishful thinking can be enjoyable. Imagine feeling free of worry and fear. Can you imagine it? If you can imagine it, you can make it happen.

If you tell people about your invisible trouble-bag and they laugh at you and think you’re crazy, in the end, if it works and you’re trouble free, who has the last laugh? You do! This is a funny thing to do. It’s an enjoyable thing to imagine. Be as a kid and practice the power of wishful thinking.

You can have the last laugh because you’ve got your imaginary bag of troubles all tied up. Those who think it’s a crazy and pointless to stuff troubles in an imaginary bag tied by a magical unbreakable cord can continue to suffer from the fever of their fretting. You’re done.

Imagine yourself worry free and become one of your imaginings.

Busy Bees and Peripheral Visions

Question anyone on a busy street anywhere in the world and ask: “How are you?” The reply could very well be, “I’m busy like everybody.” It’s the mantra of modernity. “Busy, busy” is said as humanity hives the world, but to complain is ineffectual, not to mention, unenjoyable.

You can’t stop busy bees any more than you can stop ants or humans. You can’t change them. Despite the malleability of the human brain (see neuroplasticity), most people don’t (or won’t) change their habits even if it made life more enjoyable for everyone, but there is a loop hole you can use to enjoy your life. What is that loop hole? Enjoyment (your own).

Enjoyment is its own reward. Life isn’t meaningless (see: The Great Big Huge Secret). Let this be your litmus test: In any decision ask: Is it enjoyable? Considering a new job? Is it enjoyable? Considering marriage (or divorce). Is it enjoyable? Whatever the decision, think: Is it enjoyable?

Sometimes the answer won’t be clear-cut. “Should I drive fast?” Is it enjoyable? Yes, but a speeding ticket or crash isn’t. Weigh present enjoyment against future enjoyment. Temper enjoyment with reason and go with the flow. Use an enjoyment strategy.

If you have to do something you don’t enjoy (such is life), you can endure for the sake of future enjoyment or for the enjoyment of having enjoyable thoughts as you do the unenjoyable.

The expression, “If you’re not busy living, you’re busy dying,” takes on significance when considered in light that both occur involuntarily. Life happens. Cause is in effect and vice versa. Society exerts pressures to keep us busy and people judge those who aren’t. If you don’t believe it, try this experiment:

Go some place busy and stand still (without being in the way – that wouldn’t be enjoyable). Look around. Watch the world. Imagine you have a special power to slow time down with your own boredom. Shift the focus of your eyes to the periphery. See from the sides. Listen. Imagine everyone is hypnotized except you. Be brave and look dumb.

No doubt you’ll get strange looks. You might get reported for statue behaviour. Serious people will think you’re odd, but who cares? Odd numbers are not divisible by two. If you’re an odd number, you’re alone, but this is your secret power. If you can endure the loneliness, you are home wherever you are.

Lonely souls enjoy a special bond with other lonely souls. Feel sorry for busy bee-people and be kind to them. They’re too busy to know what they’re doing.

People hurry. Don’t believe it? Look around. Millions of cars are visible at night like red and white corpuscles in city-bodies. Nature, as in “the wild” is designated, sectioned off, preserved. Animals are moored in small island parks, but it is pointless to complain. It is a human race we live, but you can enjoy the wild even when it’s tame because wherever you go, there you are (see: Where Are You?).

Some people seek thrills. That’s enjoyment to them. Waiting in line is torture, but if impatience is quiet, time slows down. If a watched kettle takes forever to boil, why not watch kettles? Live longer. Enjoy time not doing.

The counter argument is, “If I’m not busy, I’m bored. I may as well be dead!” This may be true, but if it isn’t, it could be that you’re not doing ‘not doing’ quite right.

To not do isn’t a lull between doings. You can be not doing and look busy. To not be busy is to take the time to watch something far away. It is to linger on a sensory memory (see Keep it Simple). It is to shift focus to the periphery as you walk down a long hallway without swinging your arms and feel amused in so doing. Enjoy yourself as yourself where you are. Why not? Is the alternative any better? What have you got to lose?

To not be busy is to take your time. You are here to be here. This isn’t serious. Enjoy a rock and roll groove as you watch trees shake and shimmy to distant thunder.

Snakes and Ladders and Butterfly Kisses

What sets the philosophy of enjoyment apart is the will to enjoy. It’s an application of willpower to enjoyment. Willpower is normally used to deny immediate gratification for a long-term goal. We force ourselves to do things that we don’t want to do – not enjoy dessert, not enjoy a drink, not spend money – or we make ourselves do things we’d rather not do – run on a treadmill, work late, eat bran flakes. This “will to enjoy” is the opposite of that.

People think that with enough willpower they can improve their lives, but results from the American Psychological Association’s 2011 Stress in America Survey shows that a lack of willpower is the No. 1 reason for people not making healthy lifestyle changes (see: What You Need to Know About Willpower: The Psychological Science of Self-Control). People blame faulty willpower for their imperfect choices, but is willpower to blame?

What if you turned willpower on its head? Instead of willing yourself to not do things that you want to do or to do things you don’t want to do, step out of self-conflicts and will yourself to do what you want. Force yourself to enjoy! Does it take an effort to do what you want?

Enjoyment is subtle. It’s so simple people miss it. We focus on big stuff like long term goals and on more of something when it’s actually less that we need. It’s the butterfly kiss of happiness that we miss. Less is more (more or less).

If you enjoy ice cream, does it take willpower to make yourself have some? No. It’s what you want! Be reasonable and force yourself to enjoy ice cream! Use willpower to do what you want and it doesn’t take an effort.

Optimize every scrap of enjoyment. Be enjoyment strategic and remember that too much ice cream isn’t enjoyable. It’ll make you sick. If you understand the fragile nature of enjoyment, you’ll know how to play it. Enjoyment is a game of strategy.

According to John P. Carse in the book Finite and Infinite Games there are two kinds of games. There are finite games where the object is to win and there are infinite games where the object is to continue playing. The suggestion here is that you make wholesome enjoyment your infinite game.

Note the word “wholesome.” In this infinite game things that bring pleasure (i.e., things we enjoy) can be muddled with pain. Eating chili peppers or running marathons, for example, can bring a strong pleasure, but too many chili peppers and marathons can become painful!

When we enjoy something, we want to experience more of that something, but it’s important to separate the source of that pleasure from the state of feeling pleased. Chocolate cake can be a source of enjoyment, but if you eat chocolate cake all the time you can get sick of it. A source that brought you pleasure in the past can become a source of pain (see: Wholesome Pleasure).

The world isn’t necessarily a friendly place. It doesn’t owe you happiness. What does it mean to force yourself to enjoy? It means to make a choice to enjoy and to use willpower to generate a fighting spirit. With a fighting spirit, take every annoyance, every pain, every discomfort, every sickness, every humiliation, every horror, every fear as all in a day’s work in the infinite game of living. Play to continue playing. Enjoy to continue enjoying.

Picture unhappiness as a woman determined to be unhappy. She’s your personal antagonist and her breath is not good. Now, imagine playing a game of Snakes and Ladders (aka Chutes and Ladders) with her. Will it be enjoyable? Most people would think not, but for a philosopher of enjoyment, it’s a challenge.

The game is considered by some as a metaphor for life. On the board of Snakes and Ladders there’s a grid of numbered squares with pictures of snakes and ladders each connecting two board squares. The object of the game is to navigate your piece according to die rolls from the bottom to the top helped by ladders and hindered by snakes.

Historically, the ladders represented virtues (positive emotions) – they take you up – and the snakes represented vices (negative emotions) – they take you down. The trick to winning is to get lucky and have more virtues than vices.

If you are going to enjoy the game with a sad halitosis friend, you have to roll with what happens. It’s beyond your control anyway. Accept what you get. Look for ladders and avoid snakes. Enjoy both the ups and downs. Have a conversation with yourself. Encourage yourself to enjoy. Be a good companion to yourself and kind to your unhappy friend. Offer her a mint and your own enjoyment. Enjoyment is like laughter, it’s contagious.

The only thing you control is the way you think. Win or lose, it doesn’t matter. Enjoy Snakes and Ladders like you’re ten years old and it’s 1927. Imagine the enjoyment and you have it! Play the music and fly baby fly! Help others by helping yourself. When you defy depression and enjoy yourself, you win even when you lose.

Roll the die before it’s you.

What’s your philosophy?

If you’ve reached adulthood, it’s probably clear to you by now that everyone has to face good times and bad. There are ups and downs and how you deal with them depends on your philosophy.

Whether knowingly or not, everyone has a philosophy. The trick is to keep it simple. Find a philosophy that’s right for you.

With the Philosophy of Enjoyment, from The First Step to the Will to Enjoy, the goal of life is to enjoy.

This isn’t to say that you enjoy yourself at the expense of others. Enjoying yourself at the expense of others will lead to trouble. If you think you are more important than other creatures (think Presidents, movie stars and or billionaires) you are not. True enjoyment requires kindness, humility and sensitivity.

Helping others to enjoy themselves is enjoyable and if you hurt others, they will enjoy hurting you. It’s a ping-pong thing.All creatures are alone, together. Whether duck or human, it’s appropriate to enjoy.

If enjoyment is selfish, then every living creature is selfish. Even helping another could be construed as selfish. It’s all in how you look at it.

The keys to enjoyment are found in sensual awareness and contemplation. You don’t need a particular lifestyle with lots of possessions or acquaintances or admiration from the crowd. You don’t need luxury. Those things might be enjoyable, but they’re not necessary.

Professional philosophers debate the nature of enjoyment and happiness, but you know what it’s about. You know when you are enjoying yourself and when you are not. You know that when others are not enjoying themselves, its better when they are.

If you have a philosophy of enjoyment, morality is simple. What is good is kind and what is evil is cruel. It’s what children know. It’s natural. Trouble rises when people get unnatural.

Imagine that you are a cloud hovering above a city. What do you see?

You see a few people enjoying themselves in a park (a few sky watching), but the majority are busy acting like ants in an ant hill or wasps in a wasp nest.

Why is that?

People act like ants and or wasps because they’ve lost touch with enjoyment. They’re busy for the sake of business. In the battle of life, they think it’s a survival-of-the-fittest game. They don’t realize that survival for the sake of survival isn’t what it’s about.

People conclude that life is suffering so they go about doing just that. They get technological, industrial, mechanical and electronic. They lose touch with nature. They choose virtual over a real. They favour artificial intelligence over biological.

One reason for ant hill behaviour relates to the type of person each unique individual is. There are basically two types of people: There are saints and there are earth-creatures. People get lost between two extremes. Let’s break it down.

A saint’s mind is fixed on pity. Sadness is the prevailing emotion. Other people are the priority and suffering love is the ideal. For a saint personal enjoyment is pretty much irrelevant. Saints thrive on abstractions, not sensations.

A saint is sad about the tragedy of life because there is poverty, starvation and disease. Saints feel sorry for people but not themselves. Saints feel superior. Saints aren’t funny. They don’t laugh at the absurdities of life. They take it all very serious.

Earth-creatures on the other hand, are just the opposite.

Happiness is the prevailing emotion in earth-creatures. Self is the priority.

Earth-creatures are happiness seekers. They understand what drives other selves to do what they do because they have a self and they do it too.

Earth-creatures live sensuously on food and drink. They cope with tragedy and focus on beauty. Unlike a saint who may see life as tragic, earth-creatures like to laugh because life is comic. Humour helps them enjoy life. They know ecstasy comes and goes.Earth-creatures (including some humans) enjoy the lightness of being. They value humility over superiority and power. They live for sunshine and rain and if they are like that woman in a Rolling Stones’ song, they might even be a rainbow (see: “She’s A Rainbow“).

Despite death, disease and starvation, earth-creatures can experience moments of elation from simple things like a drop of rain, a kiss, a kind word, the sight of a happy dog’s wagging tail, a country road, a piece of bread and jam, a hot beverage, a friend.

So, what’s it going to be? Which would you rather be: a saint or an earth-creature?

What’s your philosophy?

Cloud Hovering

Imagine that you are a lonely cloud hovering. Can you do that?

Imagine your thoughts are projected onto a cloud that is detached and free-floating above you. As a cloud, you can look down and see everything.

If your imagination is rusty, go back to a time in your childhood when the things you imagined felt real. You’re a lonely cloud hovering. Note: This goes well with the earlier post entitled “Sky Watching.”

Imagine you’re a lonely cloud during a business meeting, stuck in traffic or some other unpleasant experience. As you hover above yourself – without worry, without care – imagine that you are immune to insults. You are immune to attacks. You are immune to anger.In lonely cloud form nothing anybody can say or do will irritate you. You are impervious to annoyance! In your lonely cloud essence, you can make some interesting observations about the nature of enjoyment.

First, you notice that it’s just you up there hovering. No one can join you. It’s your cloud. That’s why it’s lonely, but, it’s the good kind of lonely. It’s lonely because it’s just you, but you like it. If someone tried to get onto your cloud, you’d say, ‘Hey! You! “Get Off of My Cloud“!’

As a cloud hovering, you can see a connection between your feelings of enjoyment and your feelings of being alone inside. Your thoughts can be untethered. You can use your imagination to feel enjoyment.

If you contemplate yourself as a cloud hovering, you can be like Joni Mitchell seeing from “Both Sides” now.

Being alone is what you know. Unless you have a split personality disorder, being alone is the only way you can be. You are alone and have always been ever since your eyes adjusted to the light and you came to know yourself outside your mother.You are alone, but this isn’t sad. Far from it. You have yourself. You are not unhappily alone or lonely. There is really no other way to be.

You can share a connection with other clouds, but only you can know your cloud from the inside. You’re like a hummingbird, humming the song that is your life.

As a lonely cloud hovering, you realize that enjoyment is a personal experience. When other clouds crowd together, there’s static. It can be energizing, but clouds can rub each other the wrong way and when that happens, there are explosions until someone cries and then everyone cries and you’ve got a storm on your hands.

Second, as you hover like a lonely cloud, you notice the absence of extreme pain. You realize that extreme pain counteracts enjoyment. It could even be said that a day without extreme pain is enjoyable. If you remember feeling extreme pain, you probably don’t remember there being anything funny about it. One is less likely to laugh when feeling extreme pain.

In your imagination, as you hover like a cloud or a hummingbird (if you are tired of being a cloud), you know that in whatever bad situation you might be in, it could be worse.It has been said that there is no beauty equal to life. It would certainly be more difficult to know beauty if there wasn’t a you to perceive it. As a person who has found the secret thrilling life of intense happiness, you do not need a lot of stuff or acquaintances because you can contemplate any time you want.

Find out what you know then hum the tune before you are “Out of Time.