I feel like I have hit life’s jackpot when I just am.
When I just am, I’m not Striving, Hustling, Achieving, Gaining Knowledge, Leveling Up.
I’m curious. I poke at stuff. I notice stuff. And I’m OK.
It’s like running and noticing where my foot hits the ground. Out in front of me? I’m stressing and pushing, and sooner or later my heels will hurt because I’m hammering them by lengthening my stride. I will be thinking about time and speed.
I did something last night. Shortened my stride, hinged to lean forward a bit at the ankles, kept my feet beneath my body (shorter stride) and just felt how my feet landed.
I could have run forever, but soon enough my 5k loop was finished and I never even breathed hard.
Notice the bottom of my feet. Just notice. Notice how they land. Notice how they feel, where they feel. The sound of the footfalls—it’s different.
Do one thing. Notice it. The tiniest part of it is enchanting.
Or the other night at the little mini picnic/free summer music thing. Just there. People all around us. Kids, dogs, my family, music in the distance barely audible because we are so far away from the stage.
Or the business. Sit with pen and paper. Not “the right pen” (it’s at my office), just a generic pen. Outline my thoughts. Rewrite. Huh! Wouldya lookidat!
That’s interesting—all of a sudden I see connections I never saw before in my day job stuff, which is a knowledge-worker thing and I’ve been doing it a long time so you would think I would know stuff. Apparently there is much to learn. Apparently I’m a journeyman and maybe that’s the default position for contentment.
The point. Look around. Just sit and look. Everything happening around me. The tree growing as I look at it. Squirrel on the cables on the telephone poles running along the back fence.
Or close your eyes and just listen. All the sounds: air conditioner. Dog moving about. Tinnitus ringing in my ears. Car goes by, tires making tire sounds. My brain chatter chattering. Small plane flying overhead. In my head and outside my head. Sounds.
It’s all happening and I am part of that happening.
And that’s the jackpot.
I think a lot about the alternate universe idea and how of a million different lives I could have lived what are the odds that I would live this one. If you gave me a chance to roll the dice and get a do-over, I wouldn’t take it. This roll of the dice turned out to be sweet.
That’s another sign that I won the jackpot.
Now it’s just a matter of maintaining the spiritual conditions to create the jackpot. This is fairly straightforward (not to say that I do it well, though).
Taleb says something somewhere in Skin In the Game that there is no reason why things exist (why for all of the randomness did I end up HERE?). But there are good reasons why things die (evolution quickly snuffs out random variations that aren’t useful for survival). (Or approximately that thought).
So just address the main reasons why I would not stay in the jackpot, just like I focus on avoiding the major causes of premature death. That’s how to stay in the jackpot. Via negativa, to use another Talebism.
The Golden Key is a via negativa path that keeps me in the jackpot.