Reality Laughs

“Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.”

― Miyamoto Musashi

It’s a good day to be moving fast.

I remember that line . . . or something close to it . . . from a poem in the Cal State Fullerton student paper sometime in the early 1970s, I think. Maybe it was a special publication of one of the academic departments — not the newspaper. But whatever the publication, I remember holding newsprint. My mother was doing a Master’s degree in music, and would bring CSUF publications home from time to time.

I don’t remember the rest of the poem . . . maybe riding a horse on the beach? Anyway. “It’s a good day to be moving fast” has stuck with me ever since.

I wonder how that single line has affected my life? To the same effect, Fatboy Slim’s “Push the Tempo” is a part of my mental playlist. How often I have heard that song in my head, pushing me on.

Am I driven, and therefore hear and remember messages that reinforce that tendency? Or did these messages create a driven man?

Yes.

The name of this website means something different to me now. Originally, I picked it because I could see all of “them” “doing it wrong” and suffering the consequences. Reality laughed at them because they reaped exactly what they sowed, and were shocked. “What do you expect?” laughed Reality.

The website name, in other words, came from a feeling that I had: smug superiority. I am very smart, etc. Clearly, that is false. I know very, very little. Every single person on the planet is smarter in some dimension than I am. Humility is in order.

Now, I am coming around to a different view. When you are properly aligned with reality, life is easy. When you are cross-wise with reality, life is hard.

Reality Laughs. It means something else now. When my mindset is right, Reality says “Hey, you get the joke! Life is pretty good, isn’t it?”

Reality laughs with me. Not at me. Reality is not laughing at “them”—the people I judged (and unfortunately I still judge them, so this is a work in progress for me). They just don’t yet understand cause and effect. They will continue stepping on the metaphorical rake until they do.

And when they realize that stepping on the metaphorical rake is part of the joke, they will laugh . . . and change.

Life is good. Reality laughs with me. We laugh together.

Seth Godin’s Linchpin is wonderful. I have it in print and in the Kindle version.

I discovered that the Kindle version isn’t the same as the print version.

Here’s a screen shot of an excerpt from the Kindle version:

Now look at this picture of the print version. There are three items in the list.

The universe explodes with possibilities when you read the third item on the list in the print version.

3. Start your own gig. Understand that an organization filled with linchpins is itself indispensable. Hire accordingly.

Linchpin, page 202 (in print, and not in the fucking Kindle version that Amazon fucked up).

I no longer trust Kindle.

Things are a distraction. They diffuse focus. Sell, give away, or trash as many things as needed to give yourself focus.

We have a shelf of cookbooks in the kitchen. Maybe one of them is used once a year. By keeping them, unused, we are lying to ourselves. We are telling ourselves that these books are important—when they are not. We are telling ourselves that we are cooks experimenting with new creations—when we are not.

These unused books reveal other lies we are telling ourselves, too. They present a facade to visitors: we are gourmands, skilled in the kitchen. I’m sure I could think of other lies we are telling ourselves by keeping the cookbooks. I will stop here.

Throw the cookbooks in the trash or donate them to Goodwill. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we tell ourselves the truth about ourselves. And the act of tossing books in the garbage will be an self-affirmation of who we are.

I am using “we” here because there are two of us in the house.

Practicing what I preach, I threw away a bag of buckwheat flour that has been sitting, unused, for about a year. Go me. I’m not going to toss out cookbooks until I get my wife’s buy-in.

“As a man thinketh . . . .”

That being true, your thoughts become exceedingly interesting. What are you thinking?

Positive or negative. I can either want X and or I can not want -X. Mathematically or logically, they are the same.

By spiritual impact, they are opposites.

“I want to be calm” and “I don’t want to be stressed” may seem interchangeable, but they are not.

A thought of “calm” introduces an image of calm in your head. A thought of “don’t stress” introduces an image of stress, then resistance to stress.

Which is preferable? The answer is obvious.

Action: every time you use the words “not“ or “no” or “don’t” immediately say to yourself “So, what do I want?”

Refocus your mind on what you’re running toward, instead of what you’re running away from.

the stuff you joke about (even ironically or whatever) has a way of shaping your reality so be careful and deliberate with that stuff. a lot of people out here fumbling their own bags by joking about outcomes they don’t want. you might as well joke about the outcomes you do want

https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1394772091660951555?s=20&t=yqQ90C8FTgEeztIHaXN_Fg

It’s another way of focusing, isn’t it?

And for fuck’s sake stop with the self-deprecating humor already. You’re focusing on what you don’t want when you put yourself down in order to make others laugh.

“What one thing am I doing wrong that I could fix, that I would fix?“

“Meditate on that long enough and you will get an answer. It won’t be one you want, but it will be the necessary one. “

Straight quote from Jordan Peterson.

You'll get an answer.

From The Diary of A CEO podcast with @SteveBartlettSC. pic.twitter.com/bQyJ6ioG1a

— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) April 18, 2022

I finished re-reading You Are a Badass, by Jen Sincero. This is a focus technique. I have probably cycled through Meditations 20 times, just to keep the ideas alive.

Then I remembered the @visakanv emphasis on focus. Joke about the outcomes you want, etc.

And then I thought about a houseguest who left yesterday. His focus. And how all weekend I had to be aware and alert when he spoke, because mindset (a good one or a bad one) is contagious. I had to consciously reject (silently, in my head, of course) his statements of his reality. That is not my reality.

But oh God, mindset is contagious. Our houseguest has a back problem, for which he has had surgery. When he stands up, his back hurts. Once he is standing, everything is good.

Damned if my wife didn’t have the same pain by the end of the weekend when she stood up from sitting on the couch.

As a man thinketh.

I’m now thinking of the experience that Marcus Aurelius describes in Meditations, when his philosopher friend is ill but refuses to talk about his illness with his visitors, instead speaking only of philosophy. Presently, he recovers.

Be that man.

Focus your attention on what you want more of.

Everything I want already exists. Allow it to be. Allow it to come to me.