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What does it mean to “live in fear?” How does fear misshape us over time into petty and cruel things?
Can we redeem ourselves with one moment of bravery at the end? If so, your redemption could more easily take place right now: being brave now (looking within) saves a lifetime of inflicting pain around you.
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Our feelings spring forth as ideas from our consciousness. Yet, where and why do these arise?
There is a complicated interplay we casually neglect of how our body -an endocrine system of humors- both moderates and produces feeling: it both feeds notions to consciousness and works to dispel wayward ruminations.
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We are bombarded with the imperative mission to seek happiness, but from an evolutionary perspective we are motivated to avoid discomfort.
Anxiety, ambition, and desire are discomforts from which we act: we re-act. There is no “carrot and stick” of reward and punishment. Our only motivating force is avoidance, which is a response., and the challenge is to harness our response as responsibility.
Meanwhile, happiness seems to be a by-product of achievement or participation, not an end to be pursued unto itself.
Merging these notions: “dis-traction” (avoidance) towards happiness will fail to bring it, because you gain no “traction.”
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How much of our identity do we form around what we are not? This would be negative identification, keeping us concentrated on what we loathe or despise rather than focused on what we love.
This is not a new idea, just one that I need to be reminded of on occasion: your focus determines who you are and the decisions you make.
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In a more subtle (often subconscious) version of “deflect deny discredit” the person who initially hurts another will justify causing pain by claiming prior wounding. By inflating their previous pain to match your current pain they are no longer at fault: your pain is retroactively deserved.
Feelings cannot be quantified or objectively measured, which allows for easy manipulation and justification according to personal circumstance. Unfortunately, this allows for someone to be the bully while claiming to be a victim by acting in bad faith.
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When you are the center of the world, every emotional pain is amplified. The pain gets trapped in a loop becoming stronger and more hurtful.
The cure is to care more about something outside of yourself.
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One enlightenment tactic is broader and broader empathy: if you are empathetic for a person, I am empathetic for people; if you are empathetic for animals, I am empathetic for rocks as well.
To win, move from the individual particular, to the abstract universal.
Going meta is not love: true empathy is staying here in the messy particulars.
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Erich Fromm says we pretend happiness because to be unhappy is to be a failure, which leads to shame.
We have made happiness into a necessity and marketable commodity, when it is a byproduct of purpose or meaning, according to Viktor Frankl.
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Your brain’s "default mode network" can be seen as your "ego," interpreting (mediating) your inner and outer worlds.
Too much ego can lead to rumination, depression, OCD, and addiction.
One way to quiet ego: get a physical hobby that recognizes mastery. Move out of your head into reality.
The newest shortcut: shrooms.
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I was angry when I went to bed, I was angry when I woke up. After three hours of being angry, I sat down and let myself be angry. I looked at the anger.
The emotion turned into ennui instead of anger; an inevitable sadness weighed upon me.
Sitting with that sadness I began to journal, and it lightened me some.
To dissipate the emotional cycle completely I shared the day’s struggles with a loved one.
