Time

http://youtu.be/HAMO9c0NX9M

The Point of Dialogue

Once, I was in traffic, at 3 pm, leaving Houston. I had been trying to leave from 10 am, but had delayed myself with distractions. And then I got stuck in rush hour.

I was very angry. However, I did not realize my anger until I vocalized it.

'Fuck!'

And once I had vocalized my anger, I stated aloud what was bothering me.

'I am angry that I am in this traffic right now.'

But no, that wasn't quite right, was it?

'I am angry at myself for not leaving earlier.'

But, that was in the past; what was the point of being angry now? Anger over a past decision is unnecessary.

Huh. The only thing I can do is take a lesson from it.

And when I realized that, the anger was gone. And I realized the situation had never been bad in the first place. I was in my car (and I enjoy being in my car) and there was a nice NPR broadcast (and I enjoy NPR).

My anger at the situation had been the very thing causing the anger! Once it had been discovered, it had shriveled and died.

And left, unobscured, the present moment, laid out shining on the freeway in a sun-soaked Houston afternoon.

Reflection as an Optimizer

Doing absolutely nothing, sitting with my eyes closed, just breathing - this is the time I am most productive.
It is hard to remember this sometimes, when things are so busy. But that is when it is absolutely essential.
Feeling overwhelmed accomplishes nothing. Randomly starting, rushing from activity to activity, accomplishes little. But optimizing your activity - that's the key to cutting through, when the bullshit is piled up high on top of you.
You have to think. And you have to stop thinking. Thinking until your thoughts run out. You have to give time for that. Because those thoughts... they can either hurt you (if you ignore them) or help you (if you acknowledge them).
When you ignore them, they don't go away. They sit like a cloud, like buzzing bees. And every activity seeds a new one. "Oh, I'll think about that later," and a little bee joins the swarm, until the buzzing is so loud that you can't think, or see, or feel, anything.
Take a moment. Take each one, give them a breath. Just one breath, that's it, and they dissolve and envelop your mind; they consume it, and then are consumed. Don't be afraid to give them away, throw them back into that black abyss. You don't lose them. You just... sort them.
If you let them, your thoughts will decide your priorities for you. And then you can just pick that thing that floats to the top of your mind, and it will be the right action.
What is the right action now? Right now?
Sit. Think. Stop Thinking. Then do it.

Do not seek and you will find

The Tao is something that slips into the periphery when you try to look at it directly. How can such an object be confined to a name?

Pleasure and Moderation

I like pleasures. They please me.
Pleasures can be indulged in - at times, pleasures are necessary.
And when they are necessary, I usually find myself uniquely positioned enjoy them - ample time, great location, in a wonderful way. It is like the universe is arranging itself for me to take that moment and simply enjoy.
A lot of times I desire something when it is not what I really want. Often, the fact that a certain delectation would be too much, or that a type of thrill would be inappropriate for the time and place, perversely motivates me to partake of it. My mind tests the resolve of my intellect - how strong is the refusal?
Sometimes I give in. These are the moments of pure enjoyment for now - fuck all future nows, those are laters... I usually regret this, begrudgingly accepting it as yet another mistake made.
Sometimes I hold out. I usually don't regret this later. Because the desire has been resisted, my mind yearns to renew it later, with full force. And satisfying that resurfacing intensifies the indulgence.
I could imagine that pushing the desire under consciousness enough times will eventually sink it forever - this must be the way of sages, true jnana yogis. But to follow that path, a greater desire must motivate you - the desire to lose desire, ascetism.
I have never desired to lose all desires - though most are unnecessary. I have desired always to do, to accomplish in this world, and sometimes that doing encompasses pleasurable activities.
I eventually give in - my mind deserves some satisfaction. But the best time to give in when the stars are aligned, when everything is in its right place, when it seems that all my life, all I have ever wanted, was to be right here, right now, doing this.
That is a pleasure worth waiting for.

Contedness

It's amazing how sometimes I forget to be content...
It starts with some problem, some change in my situation. Then I begin, frantically, to better my situation. And the harder I try, the less and less I accomplish.
I eventually end up like a hampster on a wheel, just spinning and spinning...
Somehow, I find my way back. It takes time for most changes to settle in. Sometimes you just have to let things play out.
And in the meantime, enjoy yourself.

Taking a moment

Why do we say that we "take" naps?
Why do we say that we "take" a moment?

I think it might have something to do with an attitude of time not being ours, and that we have to take it, from some being, or from something else that we "have to" do.
Time is ours, give yourself ownership of it.
The next time you want to sleep, "give" yourself a nap, and "give" yourself a moment to rest.
The moment is yours to enjoy.

Resurrection

What is the resurrection, really? It is the revelation of the divinity inherent in man. That is the result of contact with the Godhead; that can come only after years of contrition. (Sathya Sai Baba 28 February 1964)

Recognizing that divinity inherent in you... this enables anything - even the conquering of the constraints of your physical body...

Learning to Listen Again

I have felt its absence. This is evident in my previous blog posts.
Focusing on improving myself - am I not already as I should be?
I am even pretentious in my approach to this blog, seeking to improve others, to write intelligent, relevant articles. Others do not need my help - they are as they have been made, in the current moment.
I do not seek to improve. I do not strive for excellence - thus, I am excellent.
God, the Tao has been absent from my life for so long. How has it taken me so long to realize this?
Perhaps it was the absence of music. I used to pursue music. What happened to that?
I stopped listening, even caring for listening. I made pitiful stabs at melodies.
Perhaps I don't do justice to my recent attempts... What I do feel negative about, is the attitude with which my latest attempts have been made. It has been forced a lot of times, motivated by desire for music mastery, rather than resulting from my inner self expressing thoughts and feelings in one of the few languages it can speak: song.
Music flows, when it is made from the anima.

Jung described an anima and animus creating the inner core of a person's true self, whereas his persona represents the outer (conscious) aspects. I feel that there is some truth to this model; at times in my life, I have felt motivated by forces beyond what I am consciously aware of. I could call these unconscious motivations a sort of psyche...
Lately I feel that my persona has been obscuring these motivations. My financial desires - these are inventions of my persona, not my anima. And when the external desires are in focus, my view of the primal self is obscured.
I could probably equate this primal self with the silent observer. How false this blog's name is! The last several posts have not been the voice of the observer at all - they have been the rantings of my outer self, which, of course, is not worth listening to.

My goal: listen.

Making Money and Triumphant Loneliness

I had a feeling that I could not express. I felt it creep up as I walked down to the lake near my house. It is a spot that I avoid, especially at night. I have bad memories of my visits there. I had only visited it when I was brooding, and the lake is the perfect place to brood.
Is it desperation? Or loneliness? Neither pinpoints it exactly. There is a feeling that grips me, as I stand on the gravel drive that descends towards the shore, steep enough that it seems to drive right into the water.
The wind is overpowering. It gusts across the whole expanse, funneled into this little gravel drive by the surrounding low, dense thicket. I get the feeling like I am standing in front of an ocean-sized aquarium, and a wall has just broken, and the weight of all the water is smashing against me.
I cant see anyone else, and though there are houses that overlook the lake, I get the feeling that there is no one else in the world, just me and the ripples in the lake that never end.
Tonight I went there, because I was walking around the neighborhood, and passed so close to the lake I could almost see it, but then was seized with dull dread. As if it could ruin my mood for the night, just standing on its edge.
I went almost on a dare with myself. I felt that I was in control of my mind, there was no need to avoid a certain environment, just because I was afraid of its influence on me.
But I felt it, when I stood there, that feeling. And now, I can't even remember my emotional state before.
Tonight I saw one pair of headlights in the distance, and I felt briefly ashamed of my romanticism. Whoever that other person was, where they also coming to the lake and brooding, staring across its waters from the other side? Or were they teenagers, escaping to an isolated place to explore each other's bodies, completely oblivious to the lake?
Was I just inventing this feeling?
I didn't feel that it came from me. I felt like it was a feeling that originated outside myself, from the environment itself.
I was wrong, I am not in control. I was wrong to even try to control. The environment can change my mindset; it can wholly determine it. Whatever the reason - maybe some cue set by evolution - that lake, with that wind, and those ripples, and the sense of sheer vastness, makes me feel...
It isn't necessarily bad. That was why I succumbed to it, and stood there for some time. I even indulged in it. It felt like the thing to do in that moment: take it in, even enjoy it. I need not rush to bliss and happiness all the time - there is pleasure in nostalgic pain, triumph in loneliness.
Yes; that's the perfect phrase; I've found it: triumphant loneliness. A celebration of supreme isolation. With the lake spread out beneath me, and the dense thicket both to the side and below, I feel that I have just conquered a world that is abandoned. An empty victory, but a victory nonetheless.

****

Perhaps this speaks more about me than I've let on. I have recently been turning my attention towards financial goals.
Pursuing financial goals is necessarily a solitary task. It may be done in the presence of others, even involving others, but it accomplishes only one individual's goals - yours.
Even if your job requires you to talk to many people in a day, can those interactions really be compared to true social interaction? How many genuine moments of human empathy does one actually experience in a typical workday, or a week, or even in a year?
The rest of the moments - you might as well be talking to robots, that simply resemble human beings.

Pulling Together: Ray Dalio and Kim Ung-Yong, world's smartest man

Why does progress matter? Is progress for society worth pursuing, if it comes at the expense of happiness?
Kim Ung Yong attended university classes at 5, simply because he could, and went to work for NASA very early in his life. As potentially the smartest in the world, he held a unique position in society, as someone who could (literally) rocket humanity into a new stage of existence. Humanity does occasionally need people like that, who have the ability to create things that will solve humanity's pressing problems, like scarcity of resources.
However, does humanity have a right to demand such things from those who possess the ability? This was a central debate in Ender's Game. Ender, the (2nd) smartest in the world in that book, is sent to battle school, and essentially used up. He constantly feels lonely, alienated, miserable, and by the end of his time in school, all he longs for a simple life. He cannot even imagine the luxuries that other people take for granted: simple living, getting to choose what you want to do.
When I read this article about Kim Ung Yong, I was reminded of Ender's (fictional) experience. All Kim wanted was to live, with people his own age. From the time he was born, he had never experienced the luxury of having friends.
What does this have to do with Ray Dalio? Well, in a nutshell, Ray Dalio argues that doing what is in one's personal interest is usually in the best interest of society. But here is a clear counter-example.
It would probably be in society's best interest to use Kim. If Kim has the ability to come up with systems that could colonize Mars within the next few decades, or to mine near planets for resources to support Earth's rapidly exploding population, that would bring huge benefits for society. But what is in Kim's best interest? He clearly values his own personal happiness more than the advancement of society.
Is that a morally wrong choice on his part? I feel the gut answer that most people would give would be "no". Yet, his decision could have vast implications for society, by not utilizing his resources.
So doing what was in his best interest , perhaps, did not result in society's best interest.
But by Dalio's measure, success is defined as "nothing more than getting what you want -- and that is up to you to decide what that is for you." By that measure, Kim did end up quite successful.
What about me? I have concerned myself so far with the question of, "how can I do the most good for society?" However, if I go down that path, it is likely that, at some point, my own interests - namely, happiness - will be at odds with society's. Perhaps I am even working against myself right now. How can I choose?
I have learned to distrust extremes. Extreme dedication to self-satisfaction and extreme selflessness both seem  like unfulfilling paths.
Let me examine this from a different angle - timeframes. Happiness seems to deal with present-mindedness, and dedication to society seems to be concerned more with the future. I have always felt that a concentration on the future, with regular doses of present minded completeness, and a sprinkling of past reminisces, ends up creating the maximum satisfaction.
Is that true? My spiritual teachings usually focus on being completely centered in the present. And the Tao te Ching instructs that improving the world is a fool's game. It is best to do your work and then step back.
I need to give up these foolish notions. Who am I? I am no great resource, that society must use, or I will expire.
Who is Kim Ung Yong for that matter? Is he not doing an essential function for society now?
Everything does find a place to belong. And with that, I will step back, and find where I belong.

Ego-Trippin'

Look at my ego. Hear it roar.
It is seductive: ego-tripping. As my head swells with hot air, I look down on everyone I know as beneath me in a way, because I aspire to higher goals, think more complicated thoughts, and am simply better.
How foolish.
I wish that it were just naivete. But no, it is sheer egoism. I feel that I am better than everyone else, better equipped to handle problems, to make discoveries.
I want to accept myself, really, as a no one, as an everyman, and be content with that.
No, that's not true. I realize I have talents, and strengths that no one else has. Also, weaknesses.
I want to accept myself as an individual - unique, just like everyone else. Ha.

Unity in Thought, Word, and Deed

There is a big difference between having a thought, and being capable of having that thought.
There is an even bigger difference between doing something and being capable of doing something.
Intelligence is something, but it is not everything. History rewards those who take action.
Therefore, one should seek to maintain thoughts that accord with values, words that accord with thoughts, and deeds that accord with words.

There is only Tao

I felt it, however briefly. A shimmering neon blackness. Utterly devoid of thoughts, emotions and being.
It welcomed me, like an old friend. Familiar.
Ah, it is only the shortest glimpse I get. How many layers of garbage I have! They block this beauty that lies deep within me. Like the golden Buddha, covered in protective clay, we have a shimmering preciousness inside that, when set free, is more powerful and complete than the person we could be without it.
The vanity we cling to obscures this force. It forces us to carry more masks than we need to wear.
I still maintain that some masks can be necessary. And, on some level, the wearing and shedding of the masks is fun. In improv comedy, I invent and destroy characters with such rapidity that their having existed at all amuses me. Similarly, in a packed day, that might include a trip to a store, a conversation with family, hanging out with friends, and meeting new people at a party, I might wear many masks, and at the end of such a day, I feel satisfied with the quantity that I have lived.
I need to have a strong center to maintain a steady rotation of masks. Without that, I become confused, and think that I am the mask. The center comes from regularly cleaning the mind of the remnants of the masks, so that the Tao can be found, and the silent observer can view one's actions with clarity.
When I view my life through the silent observer's lens, I am not overwhelmed by challenges, I don't cling to my thoughts, and I experience every emotion so fully and completely that they all feel like different forms of bliss.

There is no Tao

Existence. Anti-existence.
What can be the meaning of a life that can be snuffed out so easily?
Is it because we are out of balance somehow that we die?
Can I exist in perfect harmony with the Tao? Or am I prone to mistakes, errors that lead me astray?
The Tao is easy, yet people prefer the side paths. Why are we so tempted?
At the end of a big meal, I sometimes feel like taking more food. Why? I am no longer hungry. The food may not even be something that I crave. I feel obligated somehow. Perhaps, I think, the memory of this bite might bring me happiness.
Without meditation and contemplation, my life dissolves into a miserable, desire-seeking existence.
When I meditate and contemplate existence and non-existence, I can immediately appreciate my surroundings, and, further, come to grips with the cyclical nature of life. Things begin, and things end, and I am content.
I will not be pushing for that extra bite tomorrow.

Purpose and Pushing

What is purpose?
We, humans, need something, a reason, not to survive - we can do that and barely exist at all - but to push.
We could simply float, coast on a draft, maybe one that is stirred by someone else, who has purpose. This requires no purpose. This requires no thought.
But humans are not content with this existence. This is stagnation. We mold and decay without working, without pushing.
We need to push. It works on our beings as exercise does on our bodies. It tones, sharpens, and clarifies existence.
I feel vaguely guilty when I haven't worked, really strained in a while. Not to some external party, like parental figures, but to myself. I feel that I owe myself more with my life. I, in the present, am forever indebted to my future self. I am his bondslave, and I work for his fulfillment.
What will he deem my purpose to be? What would set me free?
I, in the future, would assuredly release myself from this method of thinking. I feel that the answers that that I holds lie at the end of an entirely different route of thoughts.
I know that what I need is not more work. Pushing in every direction yields little result. I need a concentration of effort. And for that I need clarity, not of my own existence - I seem to have come to terms with that quite well - I need clarity of my purpose.
How can I gain clarity of purpose without becoming too attached to a desire? Is a purpose a desire in disguise?
Would a Tao master seek his purpose, or take comfort in not knowing his purpose?
I have heard some gurus expound on the difference of the desire to be one with God from other desires, that the desire for God is a sort of divine desire. But even this does not quite ring true for me.
I feel that I should seek out the true nature of reality, simply because it is what is. If that is not worth knowing, then what is?

Pride and Vanity

I wonder how to reconcile my vanity, my conscious attention to my appearance, with my inner observer.
I have often though that vanity was necessary, simply to present others with a more pleasant experience when interacting with me. But now I wonder, because if that beauty is not appreciated, but rather offends others, or makes them feel inadequate, I have only glorified myself at someone else's expense.

And I cannot lie: I like to feel like I look good. I am proud of my looks.
Mary, one of the Bennett sisters in Pride and Prejudice, remarks, "Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us."
Can the answer be as simple as pride is good and vanity is bad?
Perhaps, but I feel that I must explore it more. There are occupations, for instance, where, as part of one's duties, one must maintain a certain appearance. The appearance of a politician, for example, is a necessity for his/her message to be heard.
But even this vanity probably should be avoided for the benefit of society. If a politician affects an personality that cannot be reconciled with his true personality, the public would not be best served by electing based on that image.
On a personal level, I do think that vanity without pride can be dangerous. The mixture can lead to a sneaky path of self loathing while one is being showered with adoration by others.
Ultimately, I think vanity is self-defeating. Too much attention to vanity can often either undermine one's pride, by tying it to validation received by others, or reveal itself as insecurity to others, which is rarely the appearance that one wants to affect.
Perhaps, the ultimate answer is to cultivate pride in one's self, and let appearances take care of themselves. Perhaps, others will actually think the best of you when you think the best of yourself. This approach certainly sounds much easier than monitoring every outfit, every conversational response, and all body language during interactions. I hope I can rely on my innate laziness to guide me towards this easier path.

Active Practive vs. Wei-Wu-Wei

As an Taoist, I like to follow Wei-Wu-Wei in my life. Doing things without trying so hard to do them seems like a much easier way to live. And I like doing things the easy way.

But the principle of active practice seems in direct opposition to the principle of Wei Wu-Wei, which is based on not actively thinking about a task to achieve the best possible.

In order to reconcile these two philosophies, I think it is important to differentiate between practice and performance. I have noticed in tennis, I may try to push myself during practice - pushing when I have limited energy, trying for tricky shots, and actively attempting to change up the pace and direction of rallies as much as possible. 

But in tennis matches, if I think too hard about what I am doing, I find myself going for harder shots too often, and forcing myself into errors. I have to rely on an empty mind to give me the right attitude of playing the appropriate, high-percentage shot.

Further, putting myself in an automatic mode is a necessity for escaping the emotional upheaval that occurs during a match. I let the silent observer consume me, and sometimes even feel that I am watching myself in third person as I play my matches. This is when I play the best.

I postulate this: that practicing using our cognitive mode increases our autonomous level of skill, but that the two are not equivalent or even comparable. The cognitive mode is not associated with a level of skill at all, except for the skill of being in the cognitive mode. It is the autonomous level of skill that is the true upper bounds for our skill at any given time. 

To summarize, a quote from the Steven Mitchell translation of the Tao Te Ching:

"We work with being,
but non-being is what we use."

Getting Good

I think it is inherently virtuous to get good at things: We have come into possession of these bodies and minds, and use them to fullest of their abilities honors our own existence.

This morning I read a piece from Moonwalking with Einstein (a book on the art of memory), that made me think deeply about the notion of practice. Now I am struggling to reconcile two notions: that quality of practice or that quantity of practice matters more.
The author, Joshua Foer, flatlines in his pursuit of memory skills at a point he calls the "OK Plateau." A person  goes through three different states of practice when learning a new skill

1. The cognitive stage - where you learn strategies and actively think about putting them to work
2. The associative stage - where you become more efficient at using the strategies
3. The autonomous stage - where you are no longer thinking actively, and "running on autopilot"

Foer mentions psychological studies that postulate that once a person has gotten good enough at a task, they slip into an autonomous stage, and stop actively trying to get better. Thus, if one could stay in the cognitive phase, there would be no limit on how good a person could get.
Further, Foer mentions that the amount of practice only loosely correlates with skill, and that the quality of practice matters much more.

But this seems in opposition to the notion of 10,000 hours, popularized in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. The idea is, basically, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve a master level in something.
Let me first say, I have not read Outliers, so I cannot claim a full understanding of any ideas that Gladwell put forth in his book. But I wanted to mention it because I was so disheartened when I learned of this statistic, and figured that my idea of becoming a renaissance man was potentially unattainable, because of the time constraints on every aspect of life I wished to get good at.
Foer has shed a slim beam of hope on my dream. The notion that through active concentration on improvement, one can compress the time necessary for mastery, suggests that as long as I let my natural curiosity guide me towards deeper understanding of the things I want to get good at, as long as I challenge myself with new tasks that are increasing in difficulty, I can master everything I want to get good at.

The Silent Observer

I have arrived at my current model of my consciousness from various readings. I started with instruction from the late Sathya Sai Baba - a model with four elements:

1. Senses

2. Mind

3. Intellect

4. Atma

The intellect should follow the Atma, the mind should follow the intellect, and the senses should be used by the mind. 

I think this model is very useful, and comparable to Freud's model of 

1. Ego

2. Superego

3. Id

Where the senses are not included as an aspect of consciousness. 

I strive to better understand my Atma, because this is the deepest and most mysterious part of me. I like the terminology Ellie Roozdar uses in describing a "silent observer," which I feel is roughly equivalent. At any given time, it watches, without judgement, the actions of the intellect, mind, and body. 

Through meditation - which I take to mean stopping the actions of the mind and thoughts of the intellect - I believe we can better hear the nothingness emitted by the silent observer. And by using this nothingness, this absence, to guide our actions, we can arrive at a state of non-action. 

Therefore, I use the voice of this observer, who does not speak, to not-say my non-thoughts. And I hope that they all make as much non-sense as this post does.