Author: Reality Laughs

I’m nearing the end of listening to all of the back episodes of a podcast I enjoy. As soon as I reach the most recent episode, I will start again at the beginning. This time, I will listen at my desk, with a notepad.

I’m midway through a book. Two people mentioned it within a week, so I bought it. There isn’t a lot of actionable advice (so far) but that’s not the author’s objective. In a dozen different ways (and not in a spiritual context), he’s saying the Kingdom of God is within, and find it yourself. Outsiders (like him) can encourage you, can point the way. Only you can find your Kingdom. He says as much: he doesn’t help people to access the Inner Kingdom. He insists they must do it for themselves. He is certain that the Kingdom is within all of us, not just a fortunate few. It’s a book about pro athletes, mostly. I do not like pro sports. Serves me right for having a closed mind. Look what I would have missed if I wasn’t willing.

I will read the book again as soon as I finish, and get the audio book to listen to while running. Probably I will buy the Kindle version, too. My phone is my friend now, full of important, useful, inspiring books. (I gave away my actual Kindle. Semi-useless.)

After a triple play of Taleb’s works, I put them to the side for a while. But not for long.

Read deeply. The great books are all talking about the same ancient truths, all from their own perspectives.

It’s probably not necessary to read widely, for spiritual purposes at least. Maybe for other endeavors it is. But to keep my mind clean? Half a dozen books would be enough. (I will cheat and use Taleb’s characterization of his books as a single work, the Incerto. Or just give me Skin In the Game. Otherwise, I will make the list a dozen books and be happy.)

I don’t know anyone else who reads like this.

Note. I just remembered one that I haven’t picked up in a while. If it sold 10,000 copies over the last 40 years I’d be surprised. OK maybe 20,000. I don’t know where I could find another copy. But it’s part of the foundation that made me who I am today. On the shelf, right now. It’s coming out for a refresher.

There is one little self-published book I read and re-read 30 years ago that kept me sane during a hard time. Full of horrible grammar and typos, it was. Somewhere along the way I lost the book or loaned it to someone. I don’t remember the name of the author or the title of the book. I hope whoever found it experienced the same relief, belief, and transformation that I did.

The book was about renunciation as the key to inner peace. Not renunciation of worldly goods, but renunciation of desire for things, people, approval, etc. The author was some sort of self-appointed swami who went through alcoholism, poverty, and deep unhappiness, and found this path for himself.

And that reminds me to find and reread St. John of the Cross. Dark Night of the Soul. That title tells you that St. John lived that life. Then there was the other book, apparently a true story, about the happy monk a long time ago.

Renunciation of desire sounds a lot like the Stoics from a different point of view, doesn’t it? Everything is the same, at the foundation.

Reread.

How can you tell if something is bad for you?

The easiest way is to stop doing it and see what happens. Via negativa.

One old saying I remember hearing is the definition of alcoholism:

An alcoholic is a person whose life gets better when he stops drinking.

Take away the drinking, and things improve? Diagnosis: complete.

I am having this experience with the internet generally. During the election time I became a different man, someone whose attitudes and behaviors I do not like. I was a cranky, close-minded bastard. Even if my beliefs were (and are) correct, my actions and words surely were not.

Nota bene: it is the election-year experience (especially lurking Twitter) and the questioning of my beliefs that led me to start writing here. What do I believe to be good for me, for the community? Why? The Moronathon on Twitter alarmed me and I was becoming one of them. I do not want to be one of them. One can hold a belief sincerely without being childish. It only requires some intellectual honesty, some humility, and a willingness to change if reality shows you are mistaken.

Daily, I set the Freedom.to blocking software to run from when I wake up until 1:00 a.m. it keeps me away from all tempting sites. Sometimes the blocking is a hinderance to a task I need to perform (e.g., I can’t view YouTube videos) but that is a small loss.

My mind is at peace. My principles for living are better known to me. I live a better life. I am happier.

Just like the alcoholic who has a better life when he stops drinking, I now have a better life without the worst elements of the internet. People who aren’t alcoholics can have a glass of wine. Other people can read stuff on Twitter. I have demonstrated convincingly to myself that I should choose not to be one of those people.

There is probably value to be found there, but, it appears, I have not missed much of value by abandoning Twitter, Reddit, etc.

What is the fuel that drives me forward? Here is an important but incomplete clue:

Anything that creates a private challenge and tests you to control it before it controls you.

Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable, by Tim Grover, p. 85.

Elsewhere in the chapter he notes that big time achievers crash across the line for their specific thing, without fear. That’s why big time achievers so often experience scandals. (And, at least outwardly, they don’t seem to care about scandals. Cf Bill Clinton.)

Not that I want scandals. I care deeply about living the good life, as better described by Marcus Aurelius and others.

But Marcus Aurelius clearly was a big time achiever. He had something driving him, with positive output and results for the man himself. Clearly one can achieve massively without scandal, for whatever definition of “achieve” you choose.

The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.

Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. 5.16.

Good thoughts bring forth good fruit.

Bad thoughts rot your meat.

Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts, by George Clinton, performed by Funkadelic.

I love that song. Eddie Hazel’s guitar-playing? Wow. That’s what struck me the first time I heard the song, even before George Clinton started saying his remarkably unexpected words. WHAT is THAT? From the early 1970s? Why haven’t I heard this before?

I look at what I write here and I don’t like it very much.

But I hit publish immediately.

And I like me as a result.

I keep coming back to this comment by Harry Callahan. Important important important.

Memory of long ago when I started down my professional path and was tempted by the high risk, high reward (if you’re lucky) shiny path. An older, wiser man in the same profession told me I had to know what I was: a “bet it all” personality or “slow and steady”.

Even me as a dim bulb young lost person knew who I was. I wanted the high payoff but couldn’t tolerate the risk. I also knew the slow and steady path would pay off handsomely, because I had the older, wiser man in front of me as an example.

I doubled down on the slow and steady, and here I am, reaping the rewards.

It works the other way, too. Know who you are and see if who you are is slowing you down. I have been blinded by one of my skills, and now realize it is slowing me down.

Be careful that your biggest assets don’t become your biggest liabilities.

But you can only have those realizations when you know who you are.

Reality laughs. Now I have a clue about why, in a certain activity, I have been stymied. I assumed I should be using my biggest asset. Nope. It’s holding me back.

The brain is noisy today. It is quite a change from yesterday. One obvious reason: less sleep last night. When I sleep well I’m in better shape mentally. Make a note to self about that, will ‘ya? Something to work on!

I’m reading Marcus Aurelius and everything seems so trite. “Yeah, yeah, I know that.” Except I don’t know that because I’m not doing that.

I’m rehearsing speeches and conversations in my head—and they will never happen. But in my head, in these imaginary conversations, I sure sound wise. People look up to me because I’m so wise.

Constructing this facade is all for puffing up my ego.

Stop with the rehearsals.

Use the method you have used a million times before and will use a million times again: stop talking to yourself and start talking to God (in your head so people don’t think you’re psycho!). “Hey God, here I go, yapping in my head to myself about how wonderful I am and how much I know and how people should love me more. Help me out, here, please.”

Remember the Jackson Browne song and the line in it. “Get up and do it again.” The title of the song is The Pretender. Get up and do it again, but do the right thing again and again and again.

And it works. All of a sudden I’m thinking about what I should be thinking about, doing what I should be doing, thinking about the person in front of me instead of what the person in front of me thinks about me.

Maybe this is what the Carpenter is talking about with that admonition. “Pray without ceasing.”

Here is the first verse of The Pretender. See how it sets a scene in just a few words. I know those houses. I know that packed lunch, in real life and spiritually. I can’t listen to the song anymore; it cuts too deeply.

I’m going to rent myself a house

In the shade of the freeway

Gonna pack my lunch in the morning

And go to work each day

And when the evening rolls around

I’ll go on home and lay my body down

And when the morning light comes streaming in

I’ll get up and do it again

Amen.

Say it again

Amen.

The Pretender, by Jackson Browne

Say a prayer for the Pretender. I am a pretender.

. . . why Marcus Aurelius comes back to the same thought, the same topic, the same idea. Again and again and again.

Because he needs to re-examine the thought in that moment. And so he writes it down.

Daily, hourly reminders. I need them, too. My head can go to hell in an instant. These reminders help me return to heaven.

Again with Freedom.to. The old saying is “God did for me what I could not do for myself.” The same is true for a simple piece of software. Freedom keeps me away from the hellseeds of the internet, because I am not yet strong enough to do so myself.

Daily, I set the blocklist. I could set up a repeating schedule but it’s better for me to do it daily. The simple action helps me remember myself.

At some point I will not need Freedom. I know this is true because I see websites on my list that used to consume my attention, and now they are meh. In time, I will be able to take other websites or leave them, indifferent. Training wheels, for now.

Admit weakness, take action. Not necessarily to become strong so you can resist evil, not so you can banish evil entirely, but strong so you can make the evil irrelevant to you.

I simply, for instance, drink black coffee. Through time and repetition I weaned myself from added sugar, then added cream. Now the presence of sugar and cream is as relevant to me as the presence of salt and pepper. Don’t want, choose against.

Admit it, though. Today you need help from software.

Yes I do, and I’m grateful for it and the people who brought it to my attention.