Enjoy Being Wise and Save the World At the Same Time

“You think that I don’t even mean a single word I say. It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away” – The Bee Gees, “Words” (1968).

As has been said before, “the world is a mess and getting messier still” (To think or not: Zen, Tolstoy, Depression and Enjoyment).

The number of problems we face is astounding (UN Global Issues). It’s like the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we’re the cause. Go to any zoo, refugee camp or suburb. See for yourself. How can a person enjoy with a clear conscience when so much is wrong?

Singin’, “All we are saying, is: ‘Give peace a chance.'”

Even though we know, “The whole surface of Earth is a series of connected ecosystems” and “every factor in an ecosystem depends on every other factor,” we continue to pave over ecosystems with joyous abandon (National Geographic).

But a change from soil and water to roads, suburbs and industry has a funny way of affecting plants and on animals depending on those plants.

We have pollution in the ocean twice the size of Texas (source). We have poverty, crime, racism, road rage, distrust, violence and an epidemic of death by drug addiction. We have cancers and viruses and the doctors and scientists who try to help us get death threats (‘I hope you die’: how COVID pandemic unleashed attacks on scientists).

Image by Martin Shovel

It’s like nature is out to get us and humans don’t get it. Plants and animals go extinct as economics drive global destruction. People are more irrational than ever and no amount of intelligence, Artificial or otherwise, seems able to save us from ourselves.

So, what’s the answer? Is it escapism and surrender? Is it global conflict and action? Is it ruining your life worrying and not enjoying?

How can a run-of-the-mill human (one of 7.9 billion no less) make a difference, be a good ancestor, live a good life and enjoy good times with love and a calm state of mind?

In such a messed up world what can philosophy do?

Well… a lot actually.

Philosophy comes from the Greek “philein” and “sophia” meaning “lover of wisdom” (source). A lover of wisdom relates to any area where intelligence is shown. Wisdom is the ability to think and act using “knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight” (source). If we valued wisdom more than money, celebrity and immediate gratification, if we practiced wisdom religiously, as in, “with consistent and conscientious regularity” (Dictionary), we could easily solve all our problems both individually and collectively.

Psychology was born from philosophies dating back thousands of years (source). Philosophy is logic. Philosophy is religion stripped of wishful thinking. Philosophy is understanding yourself, other people, the world, and your relationship with the world and other people (source).

“Understanding” means to “stand in the midst of” from Old English understandan meaning “to comprehend, grasp the idea of, receive from a word or words or from a sign the idea it is intended to convey” (Etymology Online).

The answer starts with attention and self-awareness.

According to Kruger and Dunning (1999) without mental tools we can’t see our own incompetence. For example: “hunters who know the least about firearms also have the most inaccurate view of their firearm knowledge, and doctors with the worst patient-interviewing skills are the least likely to recognize their inadequacies” (The more inept you are the smarter you think you are).

There are so many websites endorsing the Dunning-Kruger Effect most people don’t question it, but they should: “Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real“. Truth is, if we’re not paying attention, we’re all susceptible to cognitive biases, as in, “systematic errors in thinking.”

Research shows, for example, there is an asymmetry in our thinking towards negativity, meaning, we register the negative more readily and frequently than positive (Negativity Bias).

But on the flip-side, we’re also susceptible to Optimism Bias whereby our brains are overly optimistic. “If,” for example, “you were asked to estimate how likely you are to experience divorce, illness, job loss, or an accident, you are likely to underestimate the probability that such events will ever impact your life” (source).

Positive events lead to feelings of well being, while negative events lead to risky behavior and not taking precautions (source).

Consciousness is being aware of your environment and body. Self-awareness is the recognition of that awareness. Self-awareness is how you understand feelings, motivations and desires (source). Whether you think overly negative or optimistic can depend on your mood. People are less optimistic in a bad mood and more optimistic in a good mood (source).

A mood is a “temporary state of mind or feeling” (Dictionary). Thinking is a way of dealing with moods. We can think our way out of a feeling by finding solutions to meet the need behind that feeling (University of Cape Town).

According to the World History Encyclopedia (2005, p. 409) the first philosopher was Zoroaster (aka Zarathustra) who lived somewhere between 1500 and 1000 BC (source).

Bachi Karkaria’s Zarathushtra (1974) 

Zoroaster praised “Ahura” (Lord) “Mazda” (Wisdom) and founded “Mazdayasna” which means “Worship of Wisdom.” Before the 6th century BC, philosophy and science were not separated from theology which probably explains how Zoroaster, the world’s first philosopher, started the world’s first monotheistic religion (source).

Imagine that! The first monotheistic God was Wisdom itself!

Starting with Pythagoras (570-495 BC)—who, incidentally, first coined the word “philosophy” (source)—Zoroaster’s followers taught ancient Greeks about the love of wisdom (source).

Pythagoras influenced Plato and Aristotle who influenced Western philosophy which influenced Christianity through medieval scholars like Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) who developed his own conclusions from Aristotelian ideas. 

Farrokh Bulsara before renaming.

Zoroaster’s religious philosophy is known for its motto ‘Good thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.’ It teaches sharing, generosity and kindness. What could be better? Even the rock star Freddie Mercury (1946-1991) born Farrokh Bulsara got into that.

Zoroaster was also the world’s first proponent of ecology through care of the earth (source).

Let us practice wisdom in thought, word and deed! Let us enjoy thinking, Air and a little ping pong.

We can be lovers of wisdom and save the world, one mind at a time.

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 Knowing In the Rain.

It is raining. The question is: Why?

It isn’t what is rain or where is rain or when is rain. We know all that. The question is: Why is rain? Why today? Not that it matters. A philosopher can enjoy a rainy day as well as any other. Rainy day or sunny day. It doesn’t matter. It’s all good, even when it isn’t.

As The Verve said, “it’s a bitter sweet symphony, this life.”

Enjoyment is an attitude. It isn’t weather dependent. It’s immaterial because it doesn’t depend on anything. It comes by way of you. You take a rainy day and enjoy it anyway.

Rubber boots, a puddle, the patter of rain, possibly a hot drink and book later. Doesn’t take much. Jump into a puddle, say, “Here I am!” and there you are.

Gone.

Enjoyment is strapping on life like you’d strap on a baby bonnet – on a baby! It’s gentle, giving and warm, free and innocent and does no harm. You don’t have to be in a beer commercial to be happy or deny that you cry on occasion, “My eyes are just a little sweaty today” (Flight of the Conchords). Resistance to feelings is futile.

As Lynn Anderson sang it, “Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometime” (“Rose Garden“). Feel self pity and fear all you want but when you get tired of it, raise your eyes to the skies and go outside. Forget about it. Forget self-esteem! Forget self-importance! Forget yourself. Heartache fades when you focus outward.

Rain isn’t scientific. It isn’t for the purpose of survival. Rain is Beauty. Rain is Truth. That is the why of rain.

The poet John Keats (1795-1821) taught that, “human sorrow may be vanquished forever in the conquest of the infinite certitude that eternal Beauty and eternal Truth are one” (Thorpe, 1926, p. 10). But what is beautiful? What is true?

That’s up to you.

To see the beauty of a person or object is to recognize its beauty and see beyond the superficial. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” (Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats, 1819). It’s an easy message to follow: cast off your social facade and display yourself naked before the judgmental scrutiny of all humankind (then run like hell!).

That’s all.

“Well, this is  me.”

Let your brainiac intellect go quiet and remember the advice Paul McCartney received in a dream from his mum.

Paul, left, with his mother Mary and brother Michael

Said Paul, “I remember quite clearly her saying ‘Let it be,’ and ‘It’s going to be OK. Don’t worry. You know, ‘Let it be'” (source).

“Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s Easy.“

To which John Lennon said, “I don’t know what he’s thinking when he writes “Let It Be.” I think it was inspired by “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (source).

To which Paul Simon said after writing, “Where did that come from? It doesn’t seem like me” (source).

That’s the mystery.

It’s an eclipse.

When you whisper words of wisdom, “let it be,” when you lay yourself down like a bridge over troubled water for a friend, that’s when you get it. Like the melancholy man said, “A beam of light will fill your head. And you’ll remember what’s been said. By all the good men this world’s ever known” (Moody Blues, “Melancholy Man”).

As a poet said, “Save me a place. I’ll come running if you love me today” (Fleetwood Mac, “Save Me A Place”).

The poet Thomas Traherne (1637-1674) taught that when people get tangled in words, ideas and discriminations they lose sight of the one amazing reality all around.

Traherne in stained glass window, Hereford Cathedral, England.

Traherne wrote, “we should be as very Strangers to the Thoughts, Customs, and Opinions of men in this World as if we were but little children” (Centuries, III, 5).

Today we forget self pity. We set our luggage down. We breathe easy. Instead of focusing straight ahead with laser beam eyes, we use flood lights to see the sides.

Today we walk in slow motion without swinging our arms. Chin up, shoulders back. We have a peripheral vision. We love a lost cat in the rain while Mantovani plays “Moon River” in our brain.

The proof that people don’t understand what they do is in their doing. If they could do better, they would. But they can’t. So they don’t. Those who are cruel have broken from beauty.

People think themselves reasonable as they do something horrible. We are visible manifestations of our inner thoughts and feelings. A terrorist to one person is a freedom fighter to another. We lose self-respect. Those who hit get admired. The trouble is, we can’t stop what we do as we’re doing it (because we’re doing it).

Awareness is the key to self-mastery. Watch what you watch and then watch yourself watching yourself watching what you watch and then, when you get tired of all that, go for a walk and hear sounds without comment. Look for beauty like you’re in a movie.

Imagine you’re on a bridge in Paris. A bell strikes midnight.

You see a man named Gil greet a woman named Gabrielle. You hear Gabrielle mention Cole Porter and you see Gil smile.

You see Gil offer to buy Gabrielle coffee just as it begins to rain and Gabrielle smiles. “I don’t mind getting wet,” she says. “Actually, Paris is at its most beautiful in the rain.”

Gil couldn’t agree more.

And a jazz song from Sidney Bechet begins to play. In the rain. Such is the magic and beauty of enjoyment realized simply in the love of a moment. Content.

It’s the final scene in the movie Midnight in Paris (2011). It’s fiction. There is no Gil or Gabrielle. There is no going back in time, but Beauty and Truth are not fictional. Prove it to yourself by enjoying.

With love and amazement at what is.

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?”

Simple Enjoyment

Sad to say that some people – every now and then, sometimes, on occasion, not infrequently – are observed missing opportunities for simple enjoyment: the kind where it feels good to be alive, the kind where one has the leisure to stand and stare as long as sheep or cows without a world too much with us (see Davies & Wordsworth).

Such missed moments of simple enjoyment are akin to waking up with a start on the street suddenly aware of yourself in your skin, in your surroundings with the song across the universe playing in your mind. You suddenly realize there are no problems probleming you. SMACK! You’ve been sleepwalking in a reality forgot.

It’s simple. It’s enjoyment.

You look at your hand for the first time like you’re Timothy Leary on a psychedelic trip. You become aware of the world that’s been staring you in the face, but you were too preoccupied with the state of the economy, your finances, an argument, over-population and your uncomfortably tight under-pants.

With awareness of simple enjoyment, you feel freedom. You see humour in calamity. You see raindrops in puddles rippling outward for no reason. You hear a distant train haunting and birds on branches.

“Caa, caa, caa.”

Simple enjoyment is the feeling of a Norwegian wood. It’s a shift. Your face goes slack. Nasal passages open. You become Emerson’s transparent eyeball: merry, glad, cheerful, without thought, carefree.

R. Waldo Emerson as he looked in 1846.

“In the woods…. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes)… Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all” (Nature, 1836)

Simple enjoyment of the non-technological and pharmaceutical kind is rarely sought and seldom found.

The philosophy of enjoyment is a reminder of what you know. Give yourself a shake. Slap your cheek gently. Throw cold water.

Step one: Go for a walk.
Step two: Look around.
Step three: Smell the air (avoid the poo).

Take a breather.

Even in the midst of chaos simple enjoyment is near. Don’t go anywhere.

It’s here.

Let human activity pass you by unheralded.

Waste time by appreciating its passage. The world, she goes round and round. Hum to yourself, “Go and do what you want. I know you have the need. You’ll never make me cry“. Why? Because.

At some level you probably agree with the idea of simple enjoyment (stop what you’re doing, look around, enjoy), but actually doing it – capturing a moment of contentment – is another thing. It’s a waiting game and the immediate looms large.

Things up close (jobs, problems, temptations) appear larger than they are. It’s an illusion. The future disappears in immediate desires. The temptation to do what you’ve always done (not enjoy) predicts the future. But, if you bundle temptations (purchases, sex, booze, cake, drugs, computer games…) with the simple desire to be who you want to be in the future, you have a chance.

Time lingered on something small like a seashell, a rock, a leaf, can take you out of yourself so you enjoy serenity now!

Moments of simple enjoyment are subtle. Ethereal. Like Elmer Fudd said, “Be vewy, vewy quiet.”

Try this: When walking somewhere, stop. Freeze.

Remain motionless until you giggle. Let only your eyes move. Such moments so-lingered are well-remembered. Even if Don Rickels – Mr. Warmth himself – were to mock you, you would laugh. Insults are nothing when enjoying.

In a song for his little boy, John Lennon sang: “Before you cross the street take my hand. Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” (Beautiful Boy, 1980).

It’s now a slogan, but do these lines strike a chord, or is it a rationalization for the unprepared?

Charlie Chaplin said something that’s become a minor slogan: “We think too much and feel too little” (The Great Dictator, 1940). Ask not, what you think, ask, what you feel. Emotions decide before we realize.

Ask: What is the meaning of life? How should I live a good life? – not in terms of knowledge, but in terms of wisdom.

Provide yourself with the leisure-time of at minimum, a minute or two, to notice with senses attuned.

Look around and enjoy without demand.

Tell someone about a beautiful moment of simple enjoyment you’ve had so as to re-live it and help someone else live it too. Simple enjoyment can save yourself and, in so doing, save your world.