Thinking, Being and Plucking

Now we look at three philosophies inspired by death and suffering. Two came from poets—carpe diem and To be or not to be—and one came from a beggar—Life is suffering—who started a religion.

After looking at all three, we’ll think about thinking and end by enjoying.

We begin with carpe diem.

Most people have heard of carpe diem. Robin Williams taught us all about it in Dead Poet’s Society (1989).

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines carpe diem as “the enjoyment of the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future.” Google concurs saying, “used to urge someone to make the most of the present time and give little thought to the future.”

We moderns translate carpe diem as “seize the day.” It is assertive and refers to taking control or possession of something.

Advertisers use the expression to sell products—t-shirts, posters, beauty products, fragrances, necklaces, wine. They like to remind us that one day each and every one of us will be dead so we better buy their product and book that trip now before it’s too late!

In Carpe Diem Regained (2017), philosopher Roman Krznaric said that “seizing” the day brings to mind people who take what they can get and get things done.

It’s the philosophical equivalent of actor Shia LaBeouf screaming at us to “DO IT! JUST DO IT! DON’T LET YOUR DREAMS BE DREAMS!“

People use the phrase as a warning or direct order to take charge of your own happiness and make the most of it, but then the question becomes: “How do you carpe diem?”

Carpe diem first appeared in 20 BC in book 1.11 of the Odes by Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC – 8 BC), aka Horace. 

Horace’s poem emphasizes the fleeting nature of time. He says we shouldn’t worry about how long we live or waste time talking (presumably about death). Most translations say Horace told us to “Seize the present; put very little trust in tomorrow (the future)” (Wikipedia). 

Years later Jesus (1-33) is quoted as saying something similar, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matt. 6:34).

No offence.

It’s no surprise that Horace and Jesus advised us not to worry about the future. Life was short in ancient days. If you include infant mortality (and crucifixion), life expectancy in the Roman Empire was about 22–33 years (source).

Trouble is, carpe diem doesn’t actually mean seize the day.

Horace has been lost in translation and distorted by modern culture. According to Latin scholars, carpe diem is really a horticultural metaphor designed to encourage people to enjoy the sensory experience of nature (source).

Funny how nature isn’t part of carpe diem today.

(Then again, maybe it isn’t.)

Carpe this!

Carpe comes from carpō meaning to “pick or pluck” fruit when it’s ready and diem comes from dies which means “day.”

“Pluck the day [as it is ripe]” or “enjoy the moment” is a more accurate translation than “seize,” as in, “take hold of suddenly and forcibly” or “take (an opportunity or initiative) eagerly and decisively.”

It’s a subtle difference but philosophically speaking, it’s huge. Instead of a fist pump to “Seize the day!” and assert one’s will, it’s an open palm receiving what is given by nature (of which we are).

Cue music: “Think About It” by SAULT.

But what if you can’t enjoy the sensory experience of nature? What if you’ve thought yourself into not wanting to live? What then?

In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Hamlet asks himself if he should suffer the misery of life (a “sea of troubles”) or should he kill himself (“take arms against a sea of troubles”) to end “heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks.”

But then Hamlet wonders if there is an afterlife, and if there is, what if that afterlife is worse than life?

Source

Hamlet’s question of life and death is a question of existence and nothingness, but according to Harvard professor Jeffrey R. Wilson (2017), “To be, or not to be” is not what it seems to be (source). Hamlet could be faking because he knows someone’s listening.

Wilson points out how philosophy and drama are different. Philosophy is about knowing whereas drama is about doing.

Years before Hamlet debated life vs. death and Horace had his horticultural insight as master of a country estate, another aristocrat, Siddhartha Gautama (the “Buddha”) (c. 5th-4th century BC), bummed everybody out with his Noble Truths including: “birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering, union with what is displeasing is suffering, separation from what is pleasing is suffering and not getting what one wants is suffering” (source).

That’s a lot of suffering. You can’t win, so why even try?

According to this philosophy you’re born to suffer, but if you accept that life is crap, you won’t be surprised when it is crappy or expect it to be any other way.

If the Buddha worked in IT.
“Philosophy Tech Support”, Existential Comics 51: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/51

This idea that we cause ourselves suffering by resisting what is, is something Stoics, Epicureans and Bill W., founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, also discovered.

Gautama maintained that things which cause pleasure eventually fail because when we like something we think about it and we want it again (and again…) and it’s the craving that causes trouble.

The idea is that suffering is created by our craving for pleasure, but if Guatama had an Electroencephalography (EEG) to show brain activity in psychological states, he would see that liking and wanting are in “two different motivation systems in your brain” (source).

Unconscious thinking (System 1) is fast, intuitive, and emotional whereas conscious thinking (System 2) is slower, more deliberative and logical.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman (1934- ) explains how the two systems drive the way we think and make choices. Kahneman challenges the idea that “people are generally rational” because errors arise not just from emotions that can cloud judgement, but from our built-in brain machinery.

If you eat fried chicken, for example, you are conscious of the taste and smell in the present moment, but if you want fried chicken, that wanting could be unconscious because you smelled chicken as you walked by. It’s like a button was pushed in your brain (and you didn’t know).

The trick is to slow thinking down. Forget Hamlet’s mental perambulations and remember Horace’s advice to enjoy nature with your senses. Watch what you’re thinking to identify biases and become aware of what’s going on in your brain and all around.

It’s all interconnected.

Now we dance, eat an apple, and enjoy simply.

Much love.

Is it serious? Up Enjoyment to Bliss Filled Without Trying

While walking in a park one calm and cool autumn, from out of the enjoyment of a ten minute moment, with trees bathed in fall colours, with birds—black-eyed juncos, chickadees and sparrows—pecking among leaves and squirrels running around like maniacs, from out of the overcast white sky comes a question.

Is it serious?  

“It depends,” you say. “What is “it”? Is a mouse serious? A mouse thinks so. That’s why he runs. Owls think mice are serious. Survival is serious to survivors. Owl and mouse do owl and mouse things to survive just as humans do human things to survive (except with TVs, toilets and machines). The difference is, whereas a mouse and owl won’t understand what “serious” is, a human might.

Think of it as a game. (Cue music: Stakka Bo, “Here We Go Again” (1993)).

In the first chapter of Finite and Infinite Games (1986), James P. Carse lays out a theory in two sentences, “There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”

Mouse vs. owl is a finite game. A mouse named Jimmy can escape (win) or be eaten (lose). An owl named Janice can eat (win) or starve (lose). The dead are losers. Death is the triumph of past over future, but if life is the prize for winning, finite players aren’t living. 

What is won in finite games is a title (p. 19). In death, titles replace life. When you die, attempts to win titles stop. We take finite games serious, but in seriousness and certainty we lose awareness of wonder and the infinite game we’re playing.

Beyond the immediate owl and mouse competition (little picture), there is an infinite game (big picture) where owl and mouse play “live and let die” so others can continue.

In an infinite game players play (and die) to keep the game going. Finite games have boundaries, infinite games do not. You can’t actually tell how long an infinite game has been playing.

Is the universe serious? Is air travel, brain surgery and regular maintenance serious? Something is serious or it isn’t unless, of course, what is serious actually isn’t.

Are birds in trees serious? Are fish in seas and people in parks, serious? Is a goose standing on one foot stretching his wings among other geese, serious? Is a woman standing on one foot stretching among other women stretching, serious? Is a man selling drugs to another man, serious? Is a cat pouncing on a sparrow, serious?

Life and death feel serious. Ask any cancer survivor, terrorist or soldier. People who kill themselves are probably over-serious. It isn’t a question of whether it “’tis,” as Hamlet soliloquized, “‘nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” because we know it “’tis!” Hard as it is to consider, suffering is part of the game so the trick is, let suffering be there without resisting. It ’tis what it ’tis! Do what you can and take what comes.

For millions of people, a lot of the time (most of the time?), life does not feel blissful, as in, perfectly happy, but then, as it is written by the Rolling Stones, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, but if you try sometimes, you’ll find, you get what’s agreed.

It’s like the joke Woody Allen told, the gist of which goes, “The food in this place is terrible!” “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.” To Woody, life is “full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.”

Something “serious” is important, grave, sombre, heavy, weighty, critical, sincere, in earnest and not trifling (Dictionary.com). Is that how “it” is? Is life grave sombre, heavy, and weighty?

The  Power Thesaurus lists 509 words that are the opposite of “serious,” including: funny, playful, light, unimportant, silly, trivial, lighthearted, ridiculous, happy, laughable, merry, easy,  trippy, unwise and priceless.

How would it feel if instead of thinking it is serious!, you thought the opposite?

What if you could see finite games for what they are? How would you feel, “to be on your own, with no direction home, a complete unknown, just like a rolling stone?” (“Like a Rolling Stone”).

Truth is, a lot of what people think of as “terribly important and serious,” actually isn’t. On and off. On and off. Now you see it. Now you don’t. Here and gone, as if, what was there never was. That is the infinite game we play so others can continue.

A test for what you see as true is to look at your day without effort to change it. Let your day rock and roll as it will. It will anyway, so why fight it? Recognize what you can and can’t do. Alter what you think is true and with a rock and roll mindset, you are free to swagger because nothing can hurt you.

Don’t get what you want? Forget it. So what? Someone slights you? Big deal. People don’t know what they’re doing, if they did, they wouldn’t do it and there wouldn’t be problems. Instead of swimming upstream, enjoy flowing (see also The Art of Enjoying).

Live without worry and strain. Why not? The less you strain, the more free you are. There is only so much you can do. Beyond that, you’re helpless. Enjoy it. With this realization, comes the freedom to enjoy an infinite game. Look on the light side and give a whistle.

“Why so serious?” shouldn’t be just a catch phrase reserved for homicidal maniacs like the Joker.

As Joni Mitchell sang it starting in 1969, “Enjoy both sides now” because you can’t have one without the other.

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References:

Carse, J. P. (1986). Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility. THE FREE PRESS, A Division of Macmillan, Inc., New York. See pdf: https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf.

Enjoy An Interlude

Which of the following statements are true or false?

#1: Life itself is pleasurable. 

#2: Life is pleasurable like a Pérez Prado mambo. 

#3: Life is pleasurable in a pretty English cottage. 

#4: Life is pleasurable in Syrian rubble. If you answered true to all of the statements, you are probably an irritant to people who find life pleasurable only on condition. To think life itself is pleasurable runs countrary to industrial desires for comfort and convenience (see also: Polarities… and Wisdom).

If you answered false to any statement, it’s probably hard to imagine finding life pleasurable in deplorable conditions.

Surely suffering psychologically in a Syrian city scarred by destruction and murder is not as pleasurable as having Jennifer Lopez sit on your shoulder?

And what about the guy who loves bananas but is denied? For such a one, a banana would be a pleasure beyond measure! Maybe pleasure isn’t in satisfaction but denial? Today we think about thinking and enter a no-thinking-thinking zone.

We drop in to see what condition your condition is in and in a moment of silence or as trippy water music plays, we ponder the mind where all psychological suffering begins (and ends).

When you open your eyes, what do you see? A world opening in seeing.

But does knowing the cause of psychological suffering stop suffering? A drug addict knows the cause of his suffering but knowing doesn’t stop him. We know we make a mess, but knowing doesn’t stop us. Knowing isn’t helping! Selfing isn’t helping! Maybe a no self would be better?

We don’t need self-reflection but self-expansion.

A  truth can hide  in plain sight when you are preoccupied. Reality is obscured by how you see the world. Freedom comes when you can see your self self–thinking.

By singing “I’ve Got To Be Me” (a bill of goods to impress dames) we create a Sid Vicious circle and think our way into a “me” way of thinking where trouble begins.

“…jovial… without anything envious, malicious, mischievous, or despicable… yields that peculiar delight… in Falstaff’s company” (source).

It isn’t about “me” or “we” thinking. It’s all just thinking.

Break free of me-thinking and sing “I want to break free!” by Queen.

In taking time to not do anything but relax and think about thinking you break free of trying to be because you already are.

Everything is a giant puzzle held together by nothing, but don’t take it serious.

Enjoy eating bananas when you can and when you can’t, c’est la vie.

Here we come to a truth, but as the mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) said, “Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth we shall never know it” (Thoughts).

Relativists argue, “all points of view are equally valid” (source), but is something true because it pleases you like a Rick Nelson chorus, “But it’s all right now. I learned my lesson well. You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself” (“Garden Party”)?

If you are blind and someone says, “The sky is blue,” unless you know blue, you won’t know if it’s true. If someone says, “The answer is 42!” (see: answer to life, universe and everything), how do you know?

The crux of the matter is that truth cannot be conveyed to another. In the TV show Boardwalk Empire Arnold Rothstein repeated something Blaise Pascal said, “All of man’s troubles come from his inability to sit in a quiet room by himself.” In an interval without a goal, we sit quiet and let troubles go by not hanging on.

There are labels we ascribe to ourselves that become self-fulfilling. When you look at the world from within a bag of skin, whether you think the world is good, bad or indifferent depends on your way of thinking. It’s more than about having a positive attitude or being self-reflective. It’s about letting go of ego and seeing Reality.

The world you see has a thin film of personality covering it. You imagine who you are through flashbacks, inspirations and self-talk (see: Levels of Enjoyment). Self-talk comes as a voice. In comics it’s a cloud of words. On TV it’s voice-over narration like when Pete did it in The Family Guy or as portrayed in Fight Club except with swearing.

We narrate ourselves into being and the life we are leading but in so doing we don’t see reality.

When the words in your head vanish and the cartoon cloud goes empty, where do you go? Without self-talk are you animal, vegetable, or spiritual?

As long as you think of ‘me and my thoughts’ and ‘me and outside world’ there will be conflict between with no peace of mind.

We think of thoughts as train cars connected on a track puff-puffing somewhere saying, “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can” which is fine for getting to a destination but not so for enjoying.

If you want to slip out of “I-think-I-can” thinking and enjoy peace of mind, shift your centre outward like Copernicus and pick up good vibrations.

“Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be made clearer” Nic Copernicus.

People thought the Sun went around the Earth (a 2012 study found one in four Americans still do), until Copernicus went far out and saw the big picture.

In noticing how things are connected by nothing, in calmly breathing and heart beating, in stilling circular thinking – not doing, sitting quiet, walking across a parking lot, on a beach, up a tree, on a bus, in a store, eating a banana on the floor… in not-doing you are an integrated personality no longer conscious of having a personality! In being ordinary in reality there is tranquility.

Between thought and not trying (on occasion), a profound realization and peaceful sensation beyond explanation spontaneously arrives in body and mind like snow gently falling and all you do is enjoy enjoying.

Enjoy A Perfect World

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

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

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

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

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

Source

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

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

It’s perfect.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wanting never ends.

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

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

All of the above?

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

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

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

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

“It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

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

It’s the opposite.

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

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

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

Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy.