Closer Look at Cliché's: "Live in the Present"

There is this deep unconscious drive we all seem have, to "live correctly" and not make "mistakes". It seems to be at the center of every human being, and it makes sense. I think it is obvious that the drive of a person is to be good and do the best they can in life, (whatever that means to them) with some people being the inevitable exception of course, but the striking questions I've always instinctually had in the forefront of my mind are:

"What is best? and Why? What makes that the truth?" But I took those thoughts a step further, and rather than simply asking another for the answers, I did the work and kept trying to find the answers through my own experience.

They say you gotta live in the present moment. People implore each other by the masses. There are movements and groups dedicated to present mindedness, so much so, that being around can make you feel like they think it's some sort of sickness to consider anything outside of the current moment. 

"You mustn't do that!!!" 

I once spoke to a girl in her mid-twenties who was running her own Yoga studio. She had come to me with some inner problems she was having due to a catastrophic relationship failure that took her from total bliss to complete confusion and despair. The more I spoke to her the more clear it became that she was engaging in this Yoga discipline as a way to run away from the pain and fear that was overwhelming her. On a very real level she was in this aspect, a blind person leading the blind. I've seen this a few times in my life and it's pretty much the same template every time. 

To cut through the bullshit, here is what's really happening. People aren't trying to be present minded at all. It's not about living life to the fullest, because if it were, that fullness would include the discomfort and negativity as well. 

The real goal these people have, is to get rid of the pain of life, and they refuse to look at the fact that not only must it exist, they must go through it, and they will go through it, no matter what.  The balance of life demands it. What they really want then out of a "full life", is a life as full of as much bliss and happiness as they can extract. 

A year and a half ago, when I set out to save all this money to trade, and I worked so diligently and spent so little on things I didn't absolutely need... I was commended several times, being told that I was "working so hard". 

I would tell people, "I'm only working so hard because I'm lazy". They didn't seem to understand, but it's the same tactic that the Yoga practitioners employ and the whole present-mindedness movement: People working real hard now, so to avoid the pain later. And there is some wisdom in that... 

Problem is, they don't realize that's what they are doing. 

A part of them want's relief from the reality of life so desperately, they actually believe that their practice is going to rid them of the misery for good. And that hope is turned into belief, because the smiling faces of everyone in the group, and the confident words of the leader become their proof... But those are often fronts and lies, because the people participating feel empty and are ashamed to show the true state in which they are in. They believe that they should be happy and filled with joy, so they must portray it to others. And if there's one thing I've observed in this life, it's that people who want to believe, will believe themselves to total destruction if that's what it takes. I've seen it in others, and myself.

The laziness thing... It's sort of a paradox because one could say I'm not lazy because I'm doing the work first instead of later... and there is a validity to that I suppose. Thing is, life, and our values, are up to us to determine. We'll... we have that option, but few seem to take the time to replace force-fed values with their own personal, genuine values. Especially when it comes to clichés, and that's why I like looking at them critically. They are things most of us are familiar with, so it may be easier to understand the discussion of them. 

According to my own personal values, which I've spent many, many years of my life arriving at, I'd rather be actively lazy than passively lazy (most of the time). I wanna work hard now, because I want the option of being really lazy later if I choose to be. Is it lazier to be lazy now and do the work later? That's entirely up to you, and I think letting anyone make your mind for you about these things is potentially harmful. But since we're really talking about avoiding pain here...  

The fact is, we must face our humanity at one point or another. In my experience, delaying that tends to make the inevitable confrontation more difficult than it would initially have been. But it's usually easier said than done and I am no exception. 

Let's look at the zealous resistance of thoughts and living outside the present moment...  In other posts I've expressed that we seem to naturally polarize every detail of our existence that we can, and I think this is no exception. It's been made black or white.

Lets very simply look at the statement "Live in the present moment".

Why? 

"To live life with maximum lifeness of course! With maximum ...rightness... ??? I dunno, because someone said so?" (That's me mocking the true believer ;)

Just who is it that determined that living 100% present-minded is the absolute best thing you could do and should do? To be blunt, I don't care. I suppose another way of life: Balance and conscious choice. 

[Reminder] It's rather easy for someone like me to sound contradictory in my expressions, as I am neither for nor against absolutes, but expressing my personal values can paint a different picture if one forgets that I know I am only expressing my opinion...   [Onto the Opinion] I find it a bit ridiculous for a human to blindly accept assigned values for which they base all actions of their life upon, without examining them, yet, I consciously do some of those things myself. Yes, I consciously, blindly accept values, haha! I guess what matters in my book, is that I know I am making the sacrifice in critical thinking for certain things because the outcomes don't hold significant importance to me on those items. I think we all do this, but most only do this. 

Who is going to be President? What is happening in the middle east? What is Oil going to do? I've consciously chosen that I don't care about those outcomes, and so I'm willing to let information into my brain and let it sit there and possibly form an opinion for me, because that opinion doesn't hold much sway in the experience of my day to day life. (Yes I can hear it now, about the President thing...)

To get back on track, what does thinking about the future hurt? Fanatics will tell you it hurts your ability to live in the moment where real life and fulfillment is. I think that's horse shit. If your desire is to be happy and fulfilled, and thinking about an event in the future or past brings you that, then who's to say you're not living your life correctly or to the fullest? I get it though, half of the problem is worrying about shit that happened, or hasn't happened yet. Well here's the thing purists, we live in the real world where regret and anxiety can help us learn things and make us "Better" humans. It's really all about balance. But you probably won't know what balance is, until you decide what you really want. That's one of the key steps man... 

I imagine that the present minded movement was started by genuinely aware and intelligent beings, and like all other movements, got corrupted by people who don't understand things the way they were meant to be understood. It comes right back to "Principles vs Rules". The principle was probably "Be present minded so you're not worrying about things that you have no power to control or change" and the rule has become "You must be present minded all the time!". There's a huge difference between the two, and I think people who regurgitate present mindedness now usually have no idea what the point of it is. 

And I'd like to reiterate: Don't let the point be determined for you. If I feel like shit and I know I need a distraction from the present moment, I have no problems thinking about the past or future if that's what is going to help shift me into the state I'd rather be in. There is a balance that can be had of necessity in the negative, which is entirely different than drowning in it, or attempting to avoid it outright. But you gotta know where you want to be, and totally avoiding the negative isn't going to help you.

In the end you could look at any way of being, as a crutch. My active laziness is an attempt to avoid a certain pain. Passive laziness the same. Hell, you could even say that to strive for balance is the avoidance of pain as well, and I would have to agree with you. But in the end if it truly is unavoidable, perhaps it's best for longevity's sake to learn how to accept it and live with it. The total avoidance of it is actually the spiritual equivalent of the Chinese finger trap. And the people professing a life without it are the salesmen, trapped in it themselves. Their fulfillment comes from the money they make off of selling it, and the smiling, lying faces they force themselves to believe are genuinely happy. 

But no matter how much I say, the likelihood is that we will always have that crazy mechanism that just ceaselessly, obsessively seeks out happiness. I think a large part of that is the brains addiction to the chemicals released when we experience pleasure. We are literally, chemically addicted to pleasure, and in this age of instant gratification being the way of life, it is only natural to seek it out. 

What seems unnatural these days, is to understand ourselves, and seek out the mechanisms that drive how and why we interact with our existence the way we do. 

Closer look at Clichés: Judging a book by it's cover

I went to sleep last night with something critical on my mind.... It was a rare spark of compelling and cohesive thought, but I was too comfortable and too tired to get up and give birth to it like I should have... Instead I nodded off to have strange dreams about my late father taking me through the drive through of a McDonald's and nearly running us off the road on the way home. 

After I awoke and came to my computer this morning, as I sat down, the feeling came over my brain that something had been there. It's that feeling you get when you are talking about a specific point, get interrupted mid thought, and then try to remember what it was. It' right on the tip of your tongue like a mental itch you can't scratch and it just drives you nuts.

Thankfully I happened to put it out of my mind and ran my usual course of daily internet activities. I don't know why, but I searched for "Coffee is for closers", a great scene about...

Sorry, I have to pause for a moment and assess for myself what the hell that scene is actually about... 

It suppose it could be looked at pretty negatively if you used to be a failing salesman, but I like to view it in a motivational slant along the lines of "accepting responsibility for high personal achievement". 

Then I saw Ben Affleck's "I'm a millionaire" scene from Boiler Room next in the Que so I watched that as well. Not as awesome to me, but I still enjoyed it. 

Then I decided to Google "6 Harsh truths that will make you a better person" because it had popped in my head for some reason. I had read that article some time ago and I loved it. I'm not sure why, but I had been thinking about it for the last few weeks and was glad to finally re-read it. 

As I was nearing the end of the article, I was getting that brain itch again and suddenly it came to me. I had gone to sleep analyzing the old cliché about judging a book by it's cover. So let's investigate thoughts about that.

People don't like being judged by their looks. That's basically what that cliché is all about. It's definitely not "PC" to do so, but thankfully I don't care much about social non-sense like that. Treating people the way I would want to be treated works better for me. I'm responsible for my attitude, not someone else. 

So anyways, "Don't judge a book by it's cover".

I see a clear reason to agree with that, although I instantly realize that I judge actual books by their covers (and titles) all the time. Funny thing is, isn't that the point? If there happens to be a sexy half-dressed lady on the cover and the title reads "Playboy", I can be pretty sure there will be lots of airbrushed chests proudly displaying overly perky saline implants. (Not a fan, can you tell?) Although the running joke may be "Honey, I read it for the articles!", Adult magazines have long since developed those articles to I guess "rationalize" some of it's carnality away? 

But even so, I can't expect things to get too deep socially in a nude magazine versus a book titled "On Being and Nothingness". Anyone can notice that both books are displaying covers and titles that attempt to convey their contents, or at least allude to them. I think people attempt to do that too. In fact, I know they do. 

People generally wear business suits with an intent to display a sort of discipline, professionalism, or status. Priests wear robes to convey modesty and rank or devotion. The point being, that when someone gets dressed in the morning they are purposefully piecing together an image that they like and also want to portray to those that will be seeing them. But it goes both ways. Often, we can build an image to hide what we don't like about ourselves too. And as a self proclaimed professional "Book Reader", I've spent over half my life reading between the lines. 

In my opinion, books have it worse off than most people do in judging department. some books are so vaguely titled and presented that you just can't make an accurate assumption of what the point really is, thus you may be undermining the efforts of the author to judge that book by it's cover. However to play devils advocate here; perhaps the P.R. department is undermining the author with such loose identifiers. 

Part of the problem with looking at a books cover, is that if we can't tell what it's trying to be we may not have the energy to figure it out. Time is our greatest asset and the less of it we have the more carefully we tend to use it. Thankfully, with books we have the convenience of being able to at least categorize them relatively easily. Humans, not so much.  

Something occurred to me last night as I was staring at the back of my eyelids: Books aren't sentient beings with motives, and their contents have no real way of communicating what's on the inside. In the 6 harsh truths article I was reading today, a statement was made that probably happened to be the trigger to remembering this cliché running around in my head. 

"who you are inside" is the metaphorical dirt from which your fruit grows. But here's what everyone needs to know, and what many of you can't accept:

"You" are nothing but the fruit.

To put it as plainly as I can, Just as books with tits on the cover generally come with tits on the inside... A humans outside image, can easily and often does, paint a similar picture to what is buried in the soil inside them. We display our fruits in so many ways. Often unintentionally and unbeknown to us. 

I'm going to take a moment and really generalize here, but it's to make the clearest, broadest point I can. 

If you look like a gang-banger, (Meaning neck tattoos or facial tattoos and such) the odds favor that you will display behavior of that type.

If you are obese, the odds are higher that you eat more calories than you burn. 

And here in down town Salt Lake city, If you see two men in black and white suits riding bicycles around together, odds are more favorable that they are Mormon. 

If you see a car with a dirty mountain bike mounted to the top of it, odds favor that person being active and therefor reasonably fit.

I think there is a direct correlation to people's "Covers" and the "Titles" they adopt, to who they are on the inside. The issue is, as our society is so focused on political correctness there becomes this illusion that those two do not correlate, or at least you aren't supposed to make that correlation if it's a negative one. 

I've used peoples labels and covers to pre-judge them far more often than not, and it has served me well in avoiding people who have ended up displaying behaviors directly in line with their outward images. It's not to say that people who's fruits you find unappealing are Bad, and that's what I think this hyper-sensitivity has gotten so many people thinking... It's really simple: People don't like being not liked. But it is also a fact of life that not everyone is compatible and the more strict your standards, the less people will fit them.

It took me a very long time to throw away the concepts of "Better" and "worse", for the concepts of "Compatible" or "Incompatible". Those are two strikingly different ways to view human beings. One is about status and superiority, and the other one is about personality and compatibility. 

I can easily tell you what my standards are for people I want in my life. 

I prefer: People who are honest with themselves, honest with me, active and relatively fit, non-smoking, patient and loving people with (according to my values) a great sense of humor and common sense. Those are mostly arbitrary subjective values, but based on the idea of compatibility, anyone outside of that is neither a good or bad person to me. Just different. And being different is not only ok, it's the spice of life. It is the very contrast that exists by which to appreciate it's opposite. 

I've spent hours now and could spend many more, but all in all I think the phrase "Don't judge a book by it's cover" is actually based on the exception, not the rule. 

Peoples actions are indeed the fruit they bare, and their appearances can give us clues as to what kind of fruit they are likely to produce. I look at myself as a careful harvester of social fruit. I have very few plants around, but oh the fruit is sweet.