Giving Thanks

You know what, today is Thanksgiving day.

I woke up at about 3:30 this morning and continued my reading of Ryan Herron's awesome book "Trading Barefoot" that I had started yesterday. It made me realize that while I think about a lot of stuff, and I try to think logically and intelligently... I don't think very positively that often.

I would love to change that, because really, the thinking is where all the magic happens. It's what you think about that plants the seeds of your actions, and ultimately as many know, your actions construct habits that determine the course of your life. You are your thoughts.

I've held a cynical perspective for so long, and for valid reasons, but any perspective is only a partial truth. Yes, there are tons of things to be upset about and potentially afraid of, but I really would like to become a more positive person. I know I personally love it when I come across someone who has the right level of positivity.

On the contrary, it is super annoying to cross paths with someone who is just oozing this naive "Everything will always work out great" mentality. It's like a disease that clouds their mind from rational thought. Every super positive person I've ever met seemed to be running or hiding from something. They didn't seem to be advancing in life because they seemed to be trapped in a fairy tale. I've seen a few people go through life with the blinders on and really get hurt because they are so positive, they don't actually assess risk, and they don't really assess themselves genuinely either. I don't want to ever be that kind of positive. I've decided years ago, I just want to be a balanced person.

But today is a reminder that there is at least one kind of positive I can definitely be that will rarely, if ever, hinder me. I can be thankful for what I have. I have so much it's crazy. I am a wealthy, wealthy person, and it's likely that you are too. I have a home, food, love and health. I have things too, which distract me from other things, but when I look out at the poverty some are living in, those things are fluff really.

I was thinking the other night as I was sitting on the couch playing Fallout 4...

As I normally do when having a drink, I got extremely thoughtful about the absurdity that is this existence. I said "How crazy is it that we are living in this time, with all of this technology?! What we do now is completely removed from what we did 100,000 years ago, and even 200 years ago. It feels to me like we are riding the crest of a wave that has to crash relatively soon here, and I am playing a video game based one way it could all end." The irony was so beautiful to me and I had no one to share it with even though I was sitting next to someone who totally understood it. They simply were in a different state of mind at the time and that's alright. Things like that always grab my heart though. I watched myself feel immense amazement and gratitude that this has been my experience. I watched myself judge a little, in wonderment of how many people ever take the time to consider this, and perhaps how much happier and loving everyone would be if they did. I watched, as I always do, the silent thing (upon which all of this is founded) show up. It is behind every thought I think and feeling I feel. Like the ground under my feet for every step.

And I paused. Brain buzzing. Eyes fixed, but on nothing in particular. As silence  washed over me. Not a fear, or a sadness per se... a futility. The futility of it all took residence in me.

Thing is I'm fine with futility, except for (best I can tell) the curiosity of why. It is the futility, that all religions abolish (to the true believer), and in the absence of futility, comes purpose. And with purpose, comes the sense of progress. Long ago I had purpose because I had belief, but that is different now. I don't see how I could ever believe anything again.

As I sat there enveloped in it, in a sense shedding all identity, the most noticeable thing that remained was a lack of will to do anything anymore. Again to clarify, because it is important to note, this was not a sadness. I stopped automatically associating futility with sadness years ago. It wasn't the traditional human blight of "Oh no my life will end, I don't want to die, I have so much to live for!" But the fact was for me, and so often is, that seeing the end result automatically brings the response of "Well why play? Why lift another finger?"

I've spent many years now asking that question, and working on developing a purpose, or reason, or sense of progression. Basically answering that question with "Because you are here, and it is an option. If you can still watch movies you've seen before, and play video games you've beaten before, and love the hell out of them, this may as well be a movie or a game to you."

The real challenge has been to distract myself enough to stay in the game, because any perspective of "Outside the game" removes any sense of movement, and if you look at life, all it ever does is move and progress and change. That is the clearest message I get from existence: "Move. Forward." but for nothing more than to keep moving. It seems so pointless when you are pulled out of whatever immediate context you are so caught up in to consider the infinite plane. It makes all motion, stillness in comparison. So, for the last... I don't know 10 years of my life, I've had to put a lot of effort into juggling a perspective I'm likely never to lose, with a way of being that dives into a consciously meaningless game.

I've been working on living a contradiction.

Every now and then a knock on the door reminds me, every single time, "It will all end. And there is no set purpose to it, aside what you purpose it to be. But regardless of that purpose, it is illusion, as all things are."

So how do I become thankful in all of this? I make the choice to focus. That's the beauty of the brain, and thought, and habits. Even if it is all meaningless in the end, the brain still sees what you point it at. And if I'm going to play the game, all I have to do is develop the habit of keeping it focused on what I want it on.
It's not a denial of a deeper concept because I'm afraid of it, but a "Hey, if you're going to be here and do this, then let's do this."

If I'm going to play the game, would I rather play it as a happy thankful person, or a sad ungrateful person? The answer is obvious, but living the choice takes work.