Enjoy Love, Understanding, and Possibly Dancing

Source: Will Clickbait ruin Quora someday?

Here at a Philosophy of Enjoyment there is no clickbait and shrill exclamation points are strictly avoided. Yes! Here there are no broad claims made to sell you something and no “100% Guaranteed If Not Totally Satisfied!”

With a Philosophy of Enjoyment, there are no phony directives. There is no lack of logic and no lame clichés to disenchant you. There is no, “Make All Your Dreams Come True In Three Easy Steps!” Such claims beg questioning: How do you make all your dreams come true? What if your dream is world peace and a low-cost iPhone?

What then?

That, of course, depends. It depends on your philosophy and the love you have. It depends on how you think, feel and behave. If you’re open to it and not afraid to feel silly, enjoyment can be as easy as dancing freely.

People are people. More than a few are goofy, bad and scary. Most of us start off OK—even those despised today—but then we start thinking and reacting in a negative way to a world filled with people who appear cruel, irrational and greedy.

That’s when the trouble started, back on day one.

As Hans Fallada (1893-1947) wrote in Every Man Dies Alone (1946)—later made into the movie Alone in Berlin (2017)—”This boy was three years younger than Karlemann and heading in the same way—no love, no belief, no ambition, only thinking of himself” (p. 340).

The Beatles were right all along: “All You Need Is Love“.

Love is not just the domain of religion. Look at what religious people do! It’s like every self is one and the same, and differences, a matter of opinion. Anyone can be duped by fear, hate or desire, but of course, everyone knows that, don’t they?

It’s a matter of understanding.

Clickbait is prone to hyperbole, as in, a claim that’s “not meant to be taken literally, but used to create dramatic effect” (Seneca Learning).

Exaggeration is used to stir desire so you’ll buy what’s being pitched (10% off if you buy four). Getting you to want something is the sole purpose of advertising and propaganda (not to be confused with soul purpose which is quite different).

Hyperbolic geometry is not an exaggeration.

From the word hyperbole we get the word hyperbolic which is an “exaggerated claim,” that is, unless you’re talking hyperbolic geometry. Exaggerated claims tend to be short-sighted, superficial, misleading, and more than probably, disappointing—especially if you do what’s advised and no dreams are forthcoming.

It’s disappointing when expectations are thwarted by realities beyond our control.

We swim in a world where advertisers and propagandists tell us who we are, what we should be, and what values to share.

Advertising executive Jonas Sachs said this about ads, “We see 3,500 of them a day and the majority of them basically tell us you suck and if you don’t buy this product, you’re not going to be rich enough, smart enough, hot enough, and so we walk around being told 3,500 times a day how deficient and lame we are” (How Commercials Get Us to Buy Crap We Don’t Need).

No wonder people get depressed.

According to these captive audience ads, to be happy, a man needs TV football, alcohol and jewelry (to appease angry partners about TV football and alcohol).

If you watch the News or get caught in the crossfire, it’s even more depressing. There are maniacs in politics who are greedy, hateful and fear-filled who get others who are greedy, hateful and fearful to do their bidding. Without checks and balances, anyone can run amuck for self-focused reasons.

And therein is the problem: Who is this self causing all the problems?

As our natural environment gets trashed for reasons of comfort, convenience and violence, supposedly good people who claim to love others, go ahead and kill and elbow those in their way.

Silly humans. They rage and fight and trash others with words, fists and guns (sometimes with knives).

As nutty old Nietzsche observed in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883), “You yourself are the worst enemy you can encounter” (Freedom in Thought). This holds true for everybody: good, bad and nutty (including Nietzsche).

Consider your Philosophy of Enjoyment as a way to get away from not enjoying. No need to buy, do, or go anywhere. First, become aware of how one is manipulated by one’s self and others and then: Do nothing. Think, “Nothing is going to bring me down“.

With a Philosophy of Enjoyment we listen to thoughts and feelings like they’re messengers. We don’t deny them. We accept the flow of passing thoughts and feelings and ground our behaviour in reality like the psychiatrist Dr. Shoma Morita (1874-1938) recommended.

“Accept your feelings. Know your purpose. And do what needs to be done,” Shoma Morita.

The goal is to not let one’s ego or “I think” or “I want” or “I feel” run the show. The problem of unhappiness isn’t a matter of alleviating discomfort by ignoring thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings cause problems when not addressed directly. To take action in one’s life is to not be ruled by passing fancies (Morita therapy: 1919 to 1995).

Here with yours truly, with consideration, humour, an open mind and accepting nature, by experimenting with what’s recommended, you can find advice that could change your life—even if that advice is unsolicited.

This is what your unsolicited advice sounds like, The New Yorker.

The goal is to use one’s way of thinking and feeling to understand what’s happening. Through a Philosophy of Enjoyment anyone can avoid conflict to experience beauty, forgiveness and an over-abiding feeling of happiness no matter what the situation.

Happiness comes from our being alive, not from a bag, bottle, needle or store. The goal of it all is to experience a peace of mind which can’t be bought and paid for with any amount of money.

In this philosophy we consider nuance and complexity. A person’s feelings and thoughts tend to exaggerate either the negative or positive consequences of a now-threat (the Russians are coming) or a now-reward (shark fin soup makes me happy).

The primary role of one’s brain is to help one navigate the environment. Threats and rewards fire in different parts of the brain. On a basic level our brains avoid threats and seek reward, “Cortisol makes us see things in black or white, yes or no and leads us to over-assess the level of threat in front of us. From an evolutionary viewpoint, those ancestors that thought “better safe than sorry” presumably lasted a little bit longer” (Threat vs Reward).

Source: “Threat vs Reward“

In the old days before hairdryers, Artificial Intelligence, missiles and fingernail clippers, this orientation was useful for finding food and avoiding being eaten, but in the 21^st century, it creates problems.

And there it is. Watch what you think and feel and don’t do anything to add inflammation. Take the high road. As Dr. Morita said, “Accept your feelings. Know your purpose. And do what needs to be done.” And, when it’s safe, we can dance. And, if you don’t dance, you can enjoy a good song.

On behalf of life, life is all we have. Why not enjoy it?

A Ponderous Enjoyment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who doesn’t enjoy seeing a Snowbird Hawthorn blooming?

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

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

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

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

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

(See also: Enjoy A Perfect World.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only the names and skeletal remains change.

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

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

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

Playing with cats is more fun.

Behaviour modification in action.

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

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

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

The Enjoyment Argument

Starting the day with an argument isn’t fun. Maybe some people enjoy a rip-roaring argument in the morning (sets the tone for a rip-roaring day!), but most people don’t.

Arguments can feel threatening. Threats can activate the fight or flight response, like the song: “The foot bone is connected to the leg bone. The leg bone is connected to the knee bone…” except it isn’t bones connecting; it’s brain chemicals and physical effects.

When we argue, we sing the “Fight or Flight Song” (set to the tune of the Delta Rhythm Boys’ “Dry Bones”): “The amygdala is connected to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is connected to the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is connected to the adrenal medulla…”  and then it’s: “Release the hounds!”

Or rather, “Release the hormones!” First adrenaline then cortisol causing: “increased heart rate, bladder relaxation, tunnel vision, shaking, dilated pupils, flushed face, dry mouth, slow digestion and hearing loss” (source).

Great for running from killer air-planes when you need bladder relaxation, but not when arguing about money, underpants, the existence of God or the Big Bang Theory.

We can try to stick to facts, but emotions get in. A rock and roll philosopher can be left feeling somewhere between the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”: “No colour anymore!” (see also orchestral version) and Annie Lennox’s “Why”: “This boat is sinking.“

Academics, Mercier and Sperber, argue in the “Argumentative Theory” that arguments aren’t about getting at the truth. They’re about winning!

Dr. Jonathan Haidt said of the theory, “Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments” (source).

Bias and lack of logic are social adaptations.

They enable one group to defeat another or, as George Carlin put it, “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubt, while the stupid people are full of confidence.” Or, as Patricia Cohen from the New York Times put it, “Certitude works, however sharply it may depart from the truth” (source).

“I’m smart; you’re dumb. I’m big; you’re little. I’m right; you’re wrong!” (scene from Matilda)

Arguments can become loops of back-and-forth like Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic”. Reason is argumentative and people become skilled arguers, but skilled arguers are not after the truth: they want a better argument to support their views!

Reason is responsible for some fantastic achievements, but as Mercier and Sperber point out, we should be cautious with these accomplishments since “failures are often less visible” (source).

Some people blame emotion. 

Researchers at University College London say that rational individuals “can override their emotional responses” (source).

Paintings showing emotion: Picasso (on the left), Chagall (on the right).

The implication being that, rational individuals are unemotional and therefore better able to make rational decisions, but (and here’s the kicker) people left without emotion from a brain injury are unable to make decisions (source) because reasoning is full of emotion (source).

Thoughts are representations of reality.

Thoughts accepted as true become beliefs.

Once a belief is accepted, it is established as a fact that is rarely questioned.

What separates a reasonable person from an emotional person is not, feeling or not feeling. It’s the quality of those thoughts tied to those emotions (source).  The more we believe we know something, the more we ignore contrary information and look for information to confirm our beliefs (confirmation bias).

What we believe is like our personal operating system or window through which we evaluate everything we see.

Phenomena comes in two types. One type can be verified (ice is cold). The other type can’t be verified (do good and good things happen). Verified things are scientific. Unverified things are philosophical and religious.

Of things that can’t be verified, if it is accepted as self-evidently true, it is religion.

Beliefs carve grooves in our brains. Some beliefs start as theories developed from assumptions, observation and deduction. Some beliefs grow from emotional viewpoints that feel logical.

In the “Logical Song” Roger Hodgson sings of being taught to be logical: “When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical. And all the birds in the trees, they’d be singing so happily, oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me. But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, oh, responsible, practical…clinical, intellectual, cynical” (Supertramp, 1979).

In the song Hodgson wonders who he is and therein is the key. What happens when you notice yourself and what you see?

source

Poetical philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) said that he not only knew himself as “the scene of thoughts and affections,” but he knew a “doubleness” to being where he could, “stand remote from myself as from another” (Walden and Other Writings, 1950, p. 122). It is from this “doubleness” that we too step back to see how beliefs pull strings.

Some beliefs shaped from childhood experiences can block one’s ability to be happy and free, but as Jiminy Cricket advised, “Always let your conscience be your guide!”

That’s especially true when it comes to enjoyment.

In adolescence we start believing in unhappy thinking and consider self-interest as the primary motivator of human behaviour but in so doing the carefree passion that was once natural and easy in childhood gets squashed by social expectations, subtle shame and criticism.

As comedian George Carlin (1937-2008) observed, “Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.” Mix one part disillusion with two parts pessimism and you get cynicism, but as Nana Grizol sang it, “Cynicism isn’t wisdom, it’s a lazy way to say that you’ve been burned” (“Cynicism”).

Profound enjoyment combines two awarenesses: an awareness of yourself: “This is me! I’m incredulous! I AM ALIVE! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?” and an awareness of your immediate surroundings wide-eyed in wonder accepting everything as mysterious and better than imagined.

This is when your face goes slack and you see from the sides. It’s when you feel an incomprehensibly beautiful feeling inside.

Click Here.

If this philosophy is to ring true for you, it will depend upon your preexisting beliefs and ability to lighten up.

The light simply won’t get in if you block the way.

Enjoyment is balancing in a tree. It is imagining yourself as the tree seeing itself feeling the existence of being and the sky above.

John Keats climbs a tree and comes up with the poem “Ode to a Nightingale” in the movie Bright Star (2009).

The Men Without Hats advised everybody to look at their hands (“Safety Dance”), so you do, and there, like the poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892)⁠—who also looked at his hands⁠—see a hair on the back that is “just as curious as any revelation!”

You have The Cure when on Friday you love everything (“Friday I’m in Love”) and, like The Kings, “mobilize some laughs with just one call” as “the beat go on” (“The Beat Goes On”).

Now Enjoy yourself.

What have you got to lose?