Belly Button Lint

Feeling Lint-y?

Tag: action

  • Theme:

    The “knower” doesn’t know

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    1–2 minutes

    How we communicate can determine how we think.

    Alan Watts shares that, grammatically, we have a noun perform a verb or interact with an action; we must have a “knower,” who is “knowing,” or a person (noun) having emotions (verb-y feelings).

    More accurately, as Buddhists or Deleuze might say, “you” is a process: the noun is a verb happening.

    You don’t have feelings, but feelings are happening. They show up unbidden and uncontrolled amid an entity called “you.” At best, the “knower” is partially aware, but is acted upon and is an action becoming, tenuously holding onto the continuity of noun-ness.

  • Theme:

    laziness and impatience stem from fear

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    1–2 minutes

    The impatient need to speed things up in an anxious attempt at control, which can soothe fears.

    The lazy procrastinate and ask for patience. Claiming they are unwilling to expend excess energy, the lazy inevitably feel anxiety as immanent failure approaches, yet do not alleviate it (act to directly solve it).

    Both stem from a fear of not doing enough, well enough, but in polar approaches.

  • Theme:

    life as chess

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    1–2 minutes

    Given a well-constructed set of rules, only a few solutions exist, yet moves must be made to progress.

    Each action/step/move can be made with anger or poise. Either way, it must be made.

    You do not have to play the game gracefully, but you must keep in mind the outcome you wish. Playing with rage can achieve your outcome, but in the iterative game of life, it alienates potential allies who see the move, not the game.

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  • Theme:

    action is distraction

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    1–2 minutes

    We swing into action to purge our negative feelings, making things worse.

    We claim it comes from “love” or “justice” when it comes from the impossibility of sitting with something painful until you figure out who you are and what’s really going on.

  • Theme:

    control your flow

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    1–2 minutes

    When you “go with the flow,” you abdicate control to access emotions to release stress.

    The problem is we cannot control our moods: they pass through us, and when safeguards are unleashed, some toxic rage or wallowing despair bubbles up, causing self-damaging behavior.

    Yet, we want to be free, lively, and spontaneous, not in a gray, restrictive, robotic life. The paradox is needing control to allow freedom.

    Consider going with the flow, similar to surfing or painting: a masterfully developed skill that does not let go as much as channel attentive excitement into expressive action.

  • Theme:

    I vs. me

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    1–2 minutes

    Let’s define our terms: the “I” is the core you, the “me” is your reactionary ego, the conditioned self.

    The “me” gets offended and overrides the “I.” The “me” is protectionist and a liar and tells you it is “I”… to protect you.

    The problem: if we claim all strong reactions arise from “me,” it implies we would cease to react.

    The core self (the “I”) must react clearly and without blinding negativity.
    However, the problem remains that we must distinguish between the “me” and the “I” as we leap into action.

  • Theme:

    Overload cycles

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    1–2 minutes

    When we are content and peaceful we begin looking for an additional challenge: some tension, hopefully, constructive and growth-oriented.

    We take on the challenge and become stressed, this is when things start to break in our lives.

    How we handle ourselves during these moments is vital, because being under stress creates a narrow focus of our attention, which leans towards analytical efficiency and rationality, not towards empathy.

    Understanding and witnessing this cycle allows us to keep from overreacting, which prevents us from having to clean up a mess we made with apologies and self-recrimination. The trick is to ride the highs of overload without creating the inverse lows.

  • Theme:

    Who you are: Building vs looking

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    1–2 minutes

    People look for who they are.

    The decision to search implies the self is somehow lost and by seeking it can be recovered.

    It is easier (more practical and possible) to quit looking and build who you want to be.

    You will know who you are when you deftly handle tasks that were previously daunting: you are a person who creates themself, not someone who picks up found items.

  • Theme:

    Active Patience

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    1–2 minutes

    Patience can appear passive, but it is widely acknowledged that it requires great willpower and discipline.

    Passive patience is abdicating responsibility while playing virtuous, but active patience is setting yourself up for success in the future: you can appear patient while building skills, discipline, and fortitude to pounce when the moment is right.

  • Theme:

    Return to Nature: a reaction to precarity that is precarious

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    1–2 minutes

    The first reaction to precarity from complexity is returning to a natural state (rejecting society). Which is noble and -definitionally- insane.

    The attempt is for humans to return to themselves and reinhabit the flesh in a state of nature as they exit the digital, mechanical, cybernetic systems that distort you.

    The anxiety producing the rejection is real: We are in a fragmenting machine chewing apart the world’s stability. T

    The problem is you enter another level of precarity by excusing yourself from society: you have no sway or power and are entirely reliant on compassion when they decide to displace you.