Reality Laughs

It’s amazing how many doors open up when you just say yes to stuff you don’t think you want to do. If a penny is on the sidewalk, pick it up.

It’s amazing how cluttered life becomes and how distracted you can be when you say yes to everything.

It’s amazing how focused and powerful you can become when you say no to almost everything. Suddenly all of your energy is aimed at a single target. The payoff is staggering and obvious.

Treat life like a big bag of marbles that you empty onto the kitchen table. Say yes.

The marbles roll this way and that. With minimal effort some of them stay in the middle of the table. Some roll towards the edge.

With minimal effort some can be shoved back to the middle. Others might be too fast to catch, and they fall off.

Balance your efforts. Let the marbles fall off that want to fall off. Focus on the few that remain solidly in the middle of the table. Let more and more marbles roll away until you have your few, your stable, your reliable marbles.

Now say no to new marbles.

As a practical* matter, there is enough for me and for everyone. I’m going to be OK. so are they.

* There may be theoretical limits, but they are so vast that neither I nor anyone else will ever reach them. Why fingerpaint with theories that matter not?

It comes from the religious upbringing of my childhood. It’s astonishing how it has imprinted on me, even though I consciously rejected it in my teens. The Book of Revelation. And of course The Time of Trouble is coming, isn’t it? Persecution of the righteous, of God’s chosen people. Flee to the mountains!

And nuclear war. That was a pervasive background hum in my childhood. I remember thinking that I shouldn’t have children because why subject them to the horrors that were surely coming?

Money beliefs. These probably comes from residual, subconsciously passed-along subliminal beliefs from my parents, learned from their parents who experienced The Great Depression, and of course their own experiences as children themselves. Hunker down, be thrifty, there’s never enough and if there is enough now there won’t be in the future, probably, so hunker down. Sensible shoes!

I manufacture my own doomloops today. Political trends. Stupid economic policies creating inflation and possible economic crashes. Authoritarianism everywhere. Wars.

What IS this?

You see what you’re looking for, I guess. And what I see might even be real!

This is fear. All fear. Fear of dying. Fear of physical suffering at the hands of others. Fear of not having “enough.”

Interesting how all of those fears are so ill-defined, so woolly. They can mean anything. They can be anything I want them to be in the moment where I choose to feel bad.

When doomlooping, stop. Say to yourself, “Well, that’s a thought. There are other thoughts.” And then think a thought along the lines of gratitude, abundance, and clarity.

When you’re in the ditch, your first job is to get out of the ditch. Do so by focusing your attention on the good, on the specific, on gratitude.

I ask myself this question as a first-level defense against propaganda.

The first correct answer is “because I put myself in a position where this message became physically visible to me.”

Take ownership. Of everything. Yes, meteors fall out of the sky and can bonk you on the head. But the reality is that almost always I did something to put myself in the metaphorical line of fire.

I kept seeing shitbags be shitbags on Twitter. And I would get agitated, which means that my life was worsened by some unknown person’s bloviation.“Why am I seeing this?” gave me a simple answer: because I installed the Twitter app on my phone, logged in, and started scrolling.

What’s in my control? The existence of a Twitter app on my phone. What’s not in my control? Shitbags shitbagging.

Obvious problem solved with the obvious solution. Far, far more effective than telling shitbags they are wrong and that they should stop shitbagging. Yeah, good luck with that.

The second step in anti-propaganda is to listen to the statement made and say, “Well, that’s a thought.”

As soon as I remind myself that the random shitbag’s utterance is just a thought, and there are many other possible thoughts, I remove the urge to agree or disagree with the statement.

That gives me permission to leave the topic undetermined and unsettled. I don’t have to choose amongst an infinite number of possible thoughts, and I certainly do not have to agree/disagree with the propaganda presented to me.

Deflect by taking yourself out of the line of fire. Disengage by realizing that this is just one of many ideas.

Carry on with your day. Take care of what you control. Ignore the stuff outside your control. Life gets better.

And no. It isn’t necessary for you to “keep up with the news and everything that is going on.” Because what you think is “the news” is not what’s going on. It’s propaganda presented to you for a specific reason that probably doesn’t affect you at all.

What is necessary is your character and integrity. That’s in your control. Own that task and pursue it in your daily life.

That’s my speech to myself today. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk to myself. (Picturing me on stage talking to one person in the audience in a vast auditorium, also me).

Music with vocals.

Lyrics are affirmations. Do I really want to be installing those affirmations into my brain? Probably not. Listen to instrumental music instead.

Modern music. Is any random song #Lindy? Probably not. Just think of all of the songs on the radio when you were a kid and how few still get air time. Listen to old stuff.

How old? How about 200 years or more, as a rough threshold? Chopin and Liszt, sure. But that’s about as modern as I care to go right now.

And if you’re going old, allow sacred choral music. That a good affirmation to install. This is an acceptable exception to the “No vocals” rule.

Minor key music. I noticed that this is my preference. Let’s switch it up to major key.

Podcasts. In the effort to level up I run a steady stream of podcasts into my ears. No. Time to do, and learn by doing. Not learn by listening. (Exception: learn a language.)

Or install silence. That’s what I’m doing right now.

Let the brain be undistracted by music or podcasts. See what thoughts come up and gently let the thoughts go. See where the brain and self-talk settles in, as default mode. I’ve been shouting it down for my entire life. I have avoided silence.

Yeah, I read Max Weber’s The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in college. So did you.

I’m now realizing that I have about five productive hours in me every day. Then the intellect and the hunger and drive to succeed isn’t so sharp. But my The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism brain module doesn’t turn off and I keep grinding for hours more, to negative effect.

Apparently the book describes something real in me. Or it spun a myth that I took as true.

It’s something to look at.

Probably isn’t compassion. It probably serves the giver more than the recipient of seemingly compassionate acts.

Anon is a good way of life. It keeps true motives visible.

I’m back here for journaling and writing and thinking. I created a Twitter anon alt. It’s easy to publish, easy to write. Got into a rhythm. A good, self-reinforcing rhythm.

What’s also easy is the distraction. Even though I followed only one person (a relentlessly positive poaster), I found myself off in the weeds of the Itchy and Scratchy Show that seemingly infects all who inhabit Twitter. And many of those who did not play the political bashing game seemed to be playing the commercial marketing game. Lemme sell you something. Or the ego game. I’m so smart, look at me.

No more Twitter. Back here. No agenda, no distraction, no commerce, no ego-stroking. I’m just here because it’s an easy, low-friction way to get stuff out of my head, with the added benefit of “I done did something!” because I hit “publish.” Yes, I am that shallow. There is no commerce because I’m not selling anything. There is no ego because I do my best to stay anon.

There is a Twitter account to accompany this blog. @reality_laughs. That’s me. It’s there. I think I will just leave it sitting, unused. It was a hidden method to promote readership of this site. That’s my ego, so the Twitter promotion must cease.

. . . is a thing. When looking at the environment for clues, remember that you are seeing the survivors — people, ideas, businesses, intact families, etc.

Some of these have stood the test of time. All are still being tested; their failure date has not yet arrived. Be mindful of this, too — just because it exists does not mean it is a survivor. It is a survivor up to now.

Time is the filter. Remember that everything worthwhile is Lindy.

But most of all, in your day-to-day life, remember this single imperative, your goal above all other goals:

The big lesson of survivor bias is that you should optimize for being a survivor.

Thank you @visakanv for that insight.

I think most people are lost, frankly. Only a few people do the inner work that is necessary to be at peace.

People give the facade of spiritual development and inner peace but they don’t have it.

People give the facade of “I got my shit together” but they don’t.

All it takes is imperfect efforts at spiritual growth. You don’t even have to be good at it. Just sincerely desire to change and take whatever shitty efforts you happen to be capable of at the moment.

Put those spiritual pennies and nickels in the piggy bank and after a while you have some real spiritual money. Everything is OK.

Who dares wins.