Richard Collison

Meditations on art, life and anxiety

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Clarity and Reality

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A purposeless cosmos is not a problem

It’s claimed that life is meaningless without religion and it’s an accusation often levelled at atheists. They deny that the cosmos has any intrinsic meaning or purpose so their lives must be the same it’s argued.

Does it appear humanity is lost without some cosmic significance?

With advances in science, a diversity of beliefs in society we have lost a central narrative that unifies us. The vacuous politics, broken economics, it all seem hopeless to fix and what’s left is an existence without direction. 

But do atheists have no meaning in their lives? Is society really bereft of purpose, and must it remain so? Are our lives fated to be doomed and pointless?

I think not. The lack of cosmic meaning is not the problem some think it is.

Impermanence is the meaning

Ultimate meaning it’s claimed, has to exist because we’re finite, so our life must be significant in a permanent timeless way.

Yet we seem perpetually absent-minded and forget that meaning can be found in front of us. It’s all around us in our lives, it shows up every day.

We’re always looking outside ourselves for someone to tell us the meaning. Can’t you figure this out for yourself? 

Also, it’s odd that we think truth, meaning and purpose have to be these fixed, unchangeable things that we keep for life (to infinity and beyond!).

There is meaning in the transient. A sunset is no less meaningless for being over by the darkness. A flower is no less beautiful for one day wilting. Our friends and family are no less important for one day passing on.

We seek meaning in permanence, yet we live in a world of change.No wonder we’re suffering from a dearth of meaning, we’re looking in the wrong place.

The people in the Far East know this because their religions, cultures and cosmology accept the transience of life.

Japanese culture is a good example. There are the unspoken ideas of Wabi Sabi. The culture of imperfection, transience simplicity, and naturalness.

The beauty of nature is a big theme in the Far East. The Japanese Cherry Blossom festival (Hanami) is an example of celebrating nature in its transience. By appreciating the blossom that only lasts about two weeks.

If you can’t find meaning in your own family, friends then I feel sorry for your family. 

Meaning is found as you live your life. It’s the work we do, the connections we make, the value we offer to others.

Life is full of meaning, it’s in front of your face.

Not an act of will

Thing is we think the meaning is something we create, an act of agency or will. I don’t think that’s how it works. 

When I look at a painting, it can be meaningful or not, but I don’t make a conscious decision. The meaning arises naturally from the meeting of me and the world. 

It manifests spontaneously like two chemicals reacting in a test tube. 

We don’t choose the meaning, as much as it arises from within.

The Abyss

There’s also the importance of emptiness that goes with impermanence. In the west, we recoil when looking into the abyss.

The reality that the cosmos is indifferent to our existence, purposeless, and our own demise. All fill us with dread. Yet such a void is important.

In the east Emptiness is an essential part of their worldview. 

The absence of a cosmic purpose means life matters more.

It’s why we should attend far more to the things they give us meaning to treasure the moments we do have. To know and accept that none of it will last, and appreciate them whilst they still exist.

Outside I see summer now, in three months time, the leaves will start to fall, the heat will fade. It gives me the incentive I need to appreciate the time I have outdoors more.

Emptiness reveals what matters in stark contrast, that’s the usefulness of emptiness.

Just like the sages, and wise men all over the world, the void beckons us and teaches us. Just as we see a light more clearly in darkness.

Just like them, we all need to step away from the world every now and then and feel the emptiness, so it can remind us what’s important in life.

Humanity

I’ve been considering my own Existential crisis. As a younger man, I was lost and alone.  I had, (still, have) such a passion, a yearning for something in my life that could guide me. I felt desolate inside. 

Then I began my quest to find out what mattered to me the most and find the meaning in my life.  I had to go through that phase in order to come out of the other side. 

I have come a long way from the emptiness I once had. 

As for humanity, I feel it has to go through the same journey. We have to figure out a purpose for ourselves to guide us.

I see the seeds of such a journey now. In the greater passion to fix the planet, to find new ways to live in this world. To repair the out-of-date economic and political systems. There lies the greater meaning we have been looking for.

The next phase of our growth lies in how we live in a rapidly shrinking world side by side and take care of the planet in the process.

Humanity needs to find a new purpose, one we can all agree on, so it can’t be supernatural.

There is meaning in this world, it’s all around, even in the void. Not everyone who stares into the abyss is scared by it. The claim atheists have no meaning in their lives is not only erroneous but illogical. It shows how some people find it hard to accept the reality they do face in all it imperfect transience.

Our existential crises can be fixed, we just need to look harder and in the right places. Not to some proposed supernatural answer, but to the impermanent reality we face every day.

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The Digital Gluttony trap

In my self-help drive and my writing. I would read books, blogs pick out the good ones and add it to my library or citation manager. Looking back it was as if I was trying to curate all the best ideas in the world.

I felt that if I could have all the good ideas then my life would be better and I would be happier and successful.

However, I found it to be a trap of sorts because I was consuming so much, or Digital Gluttony.

Gluttony vs lean

Over the years of all that reading, and watching I come to see it doesn’t work. A better life was not happening.

It was here I realised just how addictive our information-saturated digital world really is.

With exposure to so many images and ideas at our fingertips, we develop a sort of digital gluttony as gorge ourselves on them out of habit, not from any real need.

That’s the problem today with the Internet. Like Tinder app, we look at a lot and swipe a lot. Bombarded by so much information we get the idea that the more information we consume the smart we will be, the better life will be.

I discovered this when looking to address my anxiety by reading self-help.

I discovered it when learning about blogging and it almost happens to me again in my quest to be an artist.

There a lot of information out there, so much so you could spend the rest of your life consuming it and never fix the problem you were researching.

The more I looked the harder it became to take action because it’s was easier to consume than it is to create. There always more to learn in any field, and if I just learn one more idea I will be ready. 

It became a habit to consume because it’s easy and safe.

My gluttonous appetite for ideas lead to me think just having ideas was enough, it never occurred to me, in the beginning, to act upon them. So I was consuming content without really learning the lesson in the books and blogs.

It’s as if I thought I could find certainty in the knowledge and lay those tracks down before me, so I could move over them, safe and secure.

But that’s not how it works. you don’t find the truth and then act, you act to find the truth. 

The fast, rapid access to ideas is what devalues them because just like in dating app you will always think there’s a better idea, better date one profile or web page more. Satisfaction is never there because there’s always something new out there.

Our eyes become accustomed to the horizon, never on where we are or what we are doing.

So I have cut down how much I consume and how often I look at social media. Cutting back on my digital consumption to focus more on creative pursuits. Because all that input just drowns out your own voice and needs.

Superficial vs the deep

Because of the constant distraction and input the internet offers we have become a culture habituated to skimming the surface, not diving deep.

I have noted once that I had far too many images of art on my PC, far too many artists I follow, far too many files and citations I had bookmarked.

Instead of really trying to understand a piece of art, I just look for the next. It’s become all too easy to just skim the surface, bookmarking ideas rather than diving deeper to grasp their meaning.

To be an artist it’s necessary to dive deep, to understand what you like and don’t, and to find out what art you want to create. That can’t be done in the deluge of content that fed to us. 

For example, one artist was Leonid Afremov. I initially enjoyed his work for the colour but rejected later because it’s too garish.  His style makes it an eyesore and whilst I kind of liked the fairytale fantasy of his style/ The colour made it unbearable. Such highly chromatic colour put me off. 

So the lesson I learned was that: I like the colour, but I also like the subtle colour too. The loud with the quiet. 

This is the lesson I learned from Afremov art. What was an initial excited impulse of enjoyment turned into rejection as a dug deeper into my responses to his art?

Such digging is invaluable as part of the learning process. But can only be learned when you spend time looking deeper art than just skimming what social media offers.

It was the same with my quest to address my social anxiety and becoming a blogger. You have to turn away from the world, turn inwards to find the answers.

Our modern technology is teaching us to be superficially invested in people, things, ideas and art. That’s something we need to be aware of.

Instead of the novelty of new images. Take all the stuff you bookmarked, followed, friended and dig deeper. If it’s art, then find out their technique, ideas, and why they created what they did, why they became an artist.

If it’s a person you admire, contemplate what is it about their story to find so compelling. What have you learned from them?

If it’s a topic or, then dig deeper to find out more and to see how it connects to other ideas.

This superficial engagement with life doesn’t tell you much about yourself or the world. The constant skimming of ideas makes us feel we’re doing something.

But such shallow engagement doesn’t create deeper connections. Neither does it create mastery and skill formation because at some point you have to put aside the books and the podcasts and practice.

To dig deeper and consume less is really to understand the topic of interest. 

For me, that’s ideas about anxiety, what I want to write about on this very blog. Or the art I like and don’t so it can inform my own artistic career.

Digging deeper, leaving behind the noise of the internet is one of the most important steps to skill acquisition, self-knowledge, creativity and better life satisfaction.

By shedding the superfluous and focusing deeper on what’s left I have been able to find my passion, my skills far faster.

My artistic voice also comes out when I dig deeper. What matters to me, what I want to say, and the creative skills needed to allow me to share it with the world. (this as Nietzsche’s ideas of the Tag team between Dionysus and Apollo)

It’s a sort of Parsimony, a ‘Digital’ Minimalism. It’s how the best minds work.

As I believe now.

‘Amateurs think they need more, professionals have learned to do well with less. Amateurs aim to fill themselves up, experts aim to empty themselves.’

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The poisonous side of society

‘Don’t Compare Your Insides to Others’ Outsides.’

So much of our suffering is based upon the ideas we have in our heads, the values we hold to and the expectations we have.

I have often felt flawed, alone and unworthy. Estranged from the reality I have to face every day.

We can suffer because of other peoples behaviour towards us. Prejudice, persecution, discrimination.

In particular, we feel worthless and ashamed because we don’t think we’re good enough.

But where does this attitude come from? The thing is we are not born with such ideas, we pick them up from those around us. They were given to us by the society and culture we grow up in.

A life in prison

‘….you are a slave Neo, like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you can not smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind’

Morpheus, The Matrix

Ever since you birth you have been trapped. The people around you, well meaning though they are have constructed this cage believing it was for your best interests. They did not know how it would one day limit you. It was made bit by bit over many years, before and through school even now others try to keep you in that cage.

Where did this cage come from, who constructed it, when was made?

You listened to them because they were adults. But you did not learn by yourself, you were trained. Trained by culture and society.

You learned not to get dirty or hurt yourself. So the pattern of avoidance became stronger. Each time you failed to challenge your beliefs they grew stronger.

Just do what we tell you to do and you will be fine, happy. Do well at school, get a steady job, work to get possessions and wealth and you will be happy for it.

Over the years playing it safe became a habit. You didn’t really think about it.

Now we come to the real problem. because you ended up in a place you don’t want to be. Or the future you see before you is not a rosy as you were told.

You are now confused and lost.

The problems of this world are myriad and far reaching, yet society creates these problems.

Being judged by others and their sometimes silent condemnation is what John Stuart Mill called the ‘Tyranny of the Majority’.

Society beyond the government has it’s own mandate to judge and police its inhabitants. This is the collective moral code of the people and it can be remarkably intolerant and punitive.

The worst part is that we take onboard their voices so they become our own. We start to punish ourselves with those same values.

The most insidious thing is we’re unaware it’s taking place and it becomes the habits you don’t even notice you follow.

In essence we feel we can’t fit into the box that society is trying to squeeze us into. So we blame ourselves or we blame others.

Yet who is the one at fault here?

Is it you, that doesn’t meet other people’s expectations. Or it the unreasonable expectations and values of society, friends, family and peers?

How much are we aware of these ideas?What harm are they doing to us?

My unhappiness was in part because I was ignorant of the role society played in how I think about myself.

It demonstrates just how much ignorance governs our lives when we are not aware of why we do what we do.

‘The most powerful forces in this world are the one we don’t even notice.’

Richard Collison

Our internal critique is a manifestation of what we’re told by others.

If you told your worthless enough times by people you look up to, you begin to believe it. If you fail repeatedly enough you feel powerless.

Our worldview, is spoonfed to us, our values, identity, aspirations.We are all products of our culture, we all live in a context.

Voluntary Sheep

This prison requires two moves.

On the one hand its the ideas foisted on you by society. You have been born into a particular time and place.

The second is that you uncritically accept them because it was constructed around you as you grew up. We choose to remain in this cage.

There is a part of us that wants others to make the decisions to take responsibility. Someone to take care of us. So we accept partly through choice, partly through ignorance the limitations placed upon us.

Mediocrity is safety. We want to be part of the herd.

All this create the prison of your mind, the ‘I can’t do this’, I’m no good at this’, its what keep you small.

It seems to be how so many of us think. It stops us thinking for ourselves and let others exploit us for their own ends.

We want to be sheep because, to be different is to feel separate, alone, vulnerable.

Being an individual means taking responsibility, and that’s tough. Fighting back also seems like such hard work.

So we sleepwalk through society just doing as we’re told because it’s easier, safer.

Worst of all we feel we deserved it, because we feel worthless.

Becoming yourself / Breaking Free

‘Waking up to who you are required letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.’ – Alan Watts

I learned that I needed a more critical attitude towards the world around me and the messages it sends.

I found my strength, my sovereignty by protecting myself better against the toxic influences that society injects us with.

I’m not going to go into detail about what those poisons are, there are so many and it’s not the point of this post. But by way of examples, here’s three.

Some examples include…

  • -The talkative ideal, where extroverts are considered to be better at relationships (personal, professional) because they talk a lot more.
  • -Capitalism and the consumer society that tells us happiness is to be found by accumulating possessions, and wealth.
  • -Another is perfectionism. Having the ideal body, the ideal home, the ideal life that we strive to live up to.

I came to see that I was a fool to believe what I had been told, what I thought.

It all begins with awareness.

Awareness

The first step, being aware that your unhappiness and is influenced by the world around you But also awareness helps us learn about ourselves.

It shows the studying culture is a useful exercise in liberating oneself from its negative influences. It also shows some introspection and self examination is necessary.

The most dangerous prisons are the ones you don’t know you’re and the values of culture so pervasive that you overlook them.

We were spoon fed these ideas as we grew up. This is one reason why personal growth is difficult. Because it’s a process of liberation. The casting aside of authorities.

Whether that be old habits, old ideas, parents, previous identity, surroundings and circumstances. Then accepting new forms, new ideas that will guide us and become who we are.

The roles we play have been defined before we are even born. 

The world tries to squeeze us into definitions, pigeon hole us into types. In so doing it simplifies us.

The value of studying society is that it allows us to see these falsehoods and lies.

Once seen the illusions loose a lot of their power.

Without awareness, we can’t decide what’s best for us.

I learned to better protect myself from the falsehood, lies and negativity that in my youth I didn’t notice.

Responsibility and power

The next step is to take responsibility and power for yourself. Don’t play the victim or wallow in self-pity. Take action! There are things you can do.

It’s far too easy to blame others for our troubles, even if they might be reprehensible. But we do have power in our response. To make choices and decisions, who we hang out with, what we watch and how we behave.

No one else is responsible for how you live your life. I learned I need to step up and do something about my suffering.

Boundaries and critical thinking

All this shows the importance too of having good boundaries. That’s to filter the influences that affect us to only the good stuff gets in, but if that’s not possible to let go of the negative influences.

Boundaries are the separation between ourselves and the world like a cell has an outer wall. There’s an inside and an outside.

Without good boundaries, we become vulnerable to toxic influences from outside.

Good boundaries mean we don’t accept abuse from others or waste too much time of distractions and trivia.

We don’t take insults personally, nor do we loose our heads when then happen.

Part of good boundaries is in the critical analysis of ideas, and the skill of Discernment. Does an idea help or hinder us? Do our habits aid our health or lead to ill health?

Just like health, what food we eat impact on how healthy we are. The same must be true of ideas, thoughts, opinions of others.

Do they aid understanding? It means accepting the constructive criticism and ignoring the trolling.

What we consume creates our bodies, our minds and we need to pay special attention to what we let in.

It also includes what we let out, what we offer other, our opinions ideas, behaviour. We can cause others to harm by what we say. So choosing our word carefully, understand nuances in language and body language can help prevent us from being a toxic influence towards others.

Self compassion

To break free requires us to face the mistakes we have made. Our shame about our actions can poison us further.

So we need to come to terms with the fact that we can’t change what’s happened and stopping the war against ourselves. By attending to our pain with kindness we can accept our past and move on.

It’s about accepting reality, the truth. Letting go through forgiving ourselves of the mistakes we have made through our ignorance.

Self-compassion is an essential practice in moving on.

letting go

From my own journey, growth often seems more to do with leaving behind limiting ideas.

Letting go of those things that cause us pain. Harmful relationships, addictions, bad habits etc.

Questioning and letting go of the narrative we tell ourselves that were never good enough.

It’s one of my biggest successes to recognise these personal beliefs are false. But it’s still a struggle.

Letting go is the hardest thing you need to do, yet it’s the fastest way to growth and happiness.

Do the people around you accept you regardless, love you unconditionally? Do they want you to succeed, see you grow, let you be who you are without judgement?

If not then it may be time to find some new friends.

Ubermensch and balance

Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of the Ubermensch embodies a lot that’s written here. An Ubermensch is someone who sees the system of values and rules society tries to foist upon them and rejects it. Instead, he breaks free and chooses to live a life according to his own code.

It’s a seductive idea, but impossible because we are still social creatures.So we are stuck with a society that tries to squeeze us to an acceptable shape.

‘So much of our suffering is trying to fit square pegs into round holes’

Society and the complex changing culture we live in both blesses us with knowledge, security and empathy. But it can also, keep us ignorant, ashamed, afraid.

It can stifle our growth, judge us unfairly and get us to act in ways that create our suffering. It can propel us to greater heights, but it also leads us astray or hold us back.

This is the paradox. We need people to help us, but those same people may try to stop us.

It’s finding a balance between you and society. Between who you want to be and who society wants you to be.

Although we’re not perfect, some of the blame can be laid at society’s door and the values and ideas that are passed on.

It’s not so much then as escaping society, but rather being the one who defines your place in it.

It’s not about rebelling for its own sake, but rebelling to find yourself. But it’s also going one step further and working to create a more tolerant society.

‘Anxiety is the worry we have in fitting in, depression, the possibility we never will.’

The solution is to forget trying to so hard to fit in. Discover what life means for yourself, rather than have a package deal handed to you. Your own values, passions, needs, this is what makes your life your own.

Be unashamedly who you are.

It’s like finding your niche, a player that’s part of a team and what position do you fit in?

Society can be a help and a hindrance, we need to find out which and be more choosy with what we accept and reject.

Ill finish with this classic Brazilian story,story I discovered.

The fisherman and the businessman

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.

As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.

The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”

The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”

“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.

“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.

The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”

The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”

The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.

“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”

The fisherman continues, “And after that?”

The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”

The fisherman asks, “And after that?”

The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”

The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”

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Passionate entanglement

Calvin: ‘My elbows are grass-stained I’ve got sticks in my hair I’m covered with bug bites and cuts and scratches…
I’ve got sand in my socks and leaves in my shirt my hands are sticky with sap and my shoes are soaked!
I’m hot dirty sweaty itchy and tired.
I say consider this day seized!
Tomorrow we’ll seize the day and throttle it!’

Calvin and Hobbes

In an article on Tough Mudders it explains how office workers are subjecting themselves to assault courses involving cold water, electric shocks and more.

Are these people masochists? Do they desire to suffer? Or is there something more going on here?

You might wonder what could draw people to such experiences.

But, it struck a chord with me because I understand why. Many times I’ve felt empty inside. With a desire to feel something, passion, pleasure, pain, power.

But why is it that so many of us feel so bereft of vitality, intensity?

Dehumanised

There are times when I just don’t feel connected to the world or even my own body.

This feeling of isolation, disconnection happens to all of us.

The economics of the modern age leaves the individual as just a cog in a giant machine. Society in so many ways leaves us feeling worthless, powerless and alienated.

Our information-saturated world compels us to live inside our heads a lot. Decision, choices, evaluating, assessing. It’s like we no longer inhabit our bodies anymore, we’re just a brain that thinks.

If it’s not thinking then our emotions are the problem. Wild, out of control and often unpleasant. We avoid them when possible, so we become unable to face even minor forms of suffering. Or we bottle them up in a desperate need to feel in control.

Our bodies hurt, and pulse, ache, throb, butterflies in the stomach, racing heart, sweaty palms, such sensations are hard to accept.

Science plays a part too. It tries to explain the universe in a dispassionate, objective way. Therefore, it comes across as somewhat removed from the reality we have to face.

Through distraction such as TV internet, we can also ignore reality.

It’s no wonder in many ways feel detached from the visceral reality of life, a pale shadow of the pulsing, beating reality of existence.

We feel cut off from life so much that we end up feeling numb and empty.

It explains then why some people seek out the thrill of living through sports, exercise, and tough mudders. Such intensity of pain, cold, heat, wind, rain, water and mud reminds us we’re alive.

It doesn’t always have to be extreme sports but the point is the numbness is overcome by diving into life. To feel the low highs and lows that make life ….. life.

This is what I call Passionate Entanglement.

Passionate entanglement

You don’t have to look deeply or too far to see that PA is all around because it’s about connection. It’s how nature works.

The interconnected interpenetrating, woven reality, in constant flux.Nature, ecosystems, the water cycle, the evolutionary struggle, society, even ourselves etc. Life is an immersive experience.

So it’s not so much about individual objects but relationships with each other.

It’s why we are fond of stories, they tell us the same.Stories are about Passionate Entanglement. They all involve passionate people. The protagonist is immersed in the world, they make, waves set things in motions, fix problems. They live and breath, love, and hate. Try, fail and try again.

This is what the Greek called Thumos, the ‘spiritedness’, a desire that’s part of our lives.

It’s their struggle, the hopes, dreams, triumphs and failures that make stories so compelling.

We recognise that we need to live life to the full as our heroes and role models do.

How to live Passionately Entangled?

‘Eat drink an be merry for tomorrow we die’

In part a sensual delight of foods, and drink, of dance, sex, music, the natural world, all to be enjoyed.

But it’s not just about the indulging of the senses like a hedonist.

It’s also about meaning and purpose. It’s what gets us out of bed, to learn, grow, to reach out. The source of our motivation and desire.

PA is not just about how we live life, but why we live at all.

Meaning is not to be found outside of ourselves an objective set of ideas handed to us. It’s something we create. It’s to remember that the living of life is not is some book or theory.

It is often our failure and catastrophes that mean the most.

This place is evocative for us, it’s the place of transformation and destruction, but also the promise of creation.

What we seek, growth, power success, wisdom, they all require Passionate Entanglement.

‘We must Go where angels fear to tread’

To be brave and push out of comfort zones. Terra Incognita, the uncharted, unknown lands.. Facing the world and ourselves, a Reckoning. To be a Player, not a Spectator.

It’s why we are often drawn to danger, the wilderness, artistic pursuits, extreme sports. To live life and really feel it and try to capture something of that experience.

It’s like Albert Camus says. ‘Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears’.

This is where Tough Mudders come back into the picture. It’s a way for individuals to reconnect with life. A way to feel emotion, feel alive, and powerful.

It’s one example of a backlash against the forces of this world that leave us feeling less than human.

To me its a lesson. We must live viscerally engaged with life. To live fully is to live in with agony and ecstasy, not the bland, rational, unfeeling numbness.

Life is a participatory exercise, heart pound, your pulse quicken, your hands tremble. The agony, and the ecstasy.

Life-affirming

Nietzsche had the same idea. In his book the Birth of Tragedy, he lays out the importance of the god Dionysus. Whose existence is suffering and passion is a lesson for us. It’s here he opposes the practice of Socrates who only seek to deflate, destroy and neglect human life.

Dionysus is a life-affirming idea, of the pleasure, pain, joy, sadness that make life what it is.

It’s a ‘yes-saying’ attitude. Like a Yes Man.

The key to a happy life is to love it, with all its brokenness, it’s highs and lows. It’s about accepting life in its entirety. Nietzsche’s idea of Amor Fati. ‘Love your fate’.

It’s reaffirming this life as important.

This is what Passionate Entanglement is about. If this sounds a lot like sex, it’s deliberate. Your purpose is to f*ck life. Libido then is far more than the desire for sex, it’s a desire for life a ‘lust for life’.

Think of it as the passionate desire to feel a part of this life, as opposed to a feeling that’s alienated, separate. A life fully engaged, entwined. i.e. sex.

We shy away from the passion because it feels so unsettling like we’re losing control of ourselves.  We want to avoid getting ourselves dirty in the muddy chaos of the world.

But suffering and pain can be amazing sources of growth provided you know how to harness it.

Our suffering can give us amazing insight, and help us empathise with others. So we can offer compassion and advice to those who also suffer.

The Need For Balance

‘Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.’

Soren Kierkegaard

All this talk of passion and desire could be seen as suggesting we leave behind rationality. But I don’t see it that way.

I’m not advocating we abandon logic and reason, but see it as balancing with our passions. It’s the extremes that are dangerous and we are often pushed towards them.

We can’t live half an existence so we must accept that rationality has its place too.

Therefore the middle way is the aim.

I write this post because society in many ways drives us to disconnect from our desires. It’s a recognition that in some ways go too far towards facts and figures.

Life can be about plans, knowledge, thinking, and reason. But this is only a part of the path of life.

We need to feel the naked and raw feelings that course through us. But we also to take a step back every so often and analyse, contemplate, ponder, and plan.

Our isolation and detachment seems more of a problem than ever before as we’re disconnected from nature, each other, and our bodies.

Passionate Entanglement is the re-connection to all that’s has been lost and a strategy to get it back.

It’s a desire to penetrate and merge yourself with something. It’s a life of novelty, adventure, new horizons and challenges.

This is the stuff of life.

The whole process can be, stressful, tantalising, seductive, terrifying, unsettling. Such intensity can’t be sustained for long, but it’s without doubt a part of it.

Why all this intense connection? Because it’s how can gain our highest potential. (When balanced with reason and detachment).

It’s a celebration of being human, and life.

Think of this as a ‘rational case for irrational’. Passionate Entanglement is the answer for those people think too much, hold themselves back, don’t take any risks.

It’s about diving into life and living it to the full. Seeing life not just as a science, but an art.

The purpose is to die with a song in your heart and a roar of triumph on your lips. Knowing that you want to do it all again.

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Anxiety, self-esteem and Introversion

Part of the reason why I suffered when I was young was that I had such low self-worth. I felt there was something wrong with me.

‘I just wasn’t good with people.’

‘No-one wants to be with me or talk to me.’

That’s how I thought of myself. The extroverts, they’re the ones with the people skills and the desire to talk a lot.

Quiet by Susan Cain

I wasn’t one of them. So I assumed that staying away from people was the best way to protect myself from the scrutiny and scorn of others.

It helped with my stress levels, but looking back I’m not sure that strategy really helped me find my way in life.

All it did was to cause my growth to stall and left me lonely and depressed.

However, in my quest to get better, I have read some books on introversion. They helped me see that being an introvert is not the flaw I once thought it was.

The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney

Not a flaw

One was the Introvert Advantage Marti Olsen Laney, another Quiet, the Power Of Introvert by Susan Cain, and The Happy Introvert Elizabeth Wagele.

This post is not to lay out such ideas in detail but the sort of things I learned included:

Introversion is to do with biology and chemistry. It’s the way some individuals have grown through nurture and nature. There’s no reason to think it’s a flaw or a disease.

Love Ideas

To be introvert is to be more interested in ideas.

Unlike extroverts, introverts love ideas and turning them over in their heads. Exploring ideas is why introverts make good philosophers, scientists, artists.

Contribution to the world

introverts have played a massive contribution in the world and they point out those leaders, artist, thinkers, businessmen and women as examples.

Importance of Lifestyle

The Happy Introvert by Elizabeth Wagele

Accepting what you are is the biggest step towards happiness, and finding a lifestyle that supports your introverted nature is important. This is why the happiest introverts have time set aside for themselves. To do their thinking, their art.

Good at Conversation!

Introverts may be better at the conversation thing then extroverts. Because they listen more deeply and avoid lots of small-talk. Conversing more on issues that are important to themselves and their connections.

Because of this, they can create far deeper bonds with people through Meaningful conversation, than the more superficial extroverts.

More Connection

Some introverts when dealing with the extrovert norm, by hiding away their skills and gifts because they fear the response, of confrontation and conflict.

Instead introverts should be accessible, that is to say, more open. Express our ideas and reconnect with the world around us.

A lot of my anxiety is based upon feeling that I was flawed and had nothing to offer.

Some self-help books on Introversion helped me understand myself better. 

They helped me address my low self-esteem by pointing out where I was going wrong. I had a negative view of myself that was unjustified and not based on reality.

To be an introvert and accept it helped me overcome some of the biggest problems in my life.

Such insight and acceptance helped me to focus on developing my skills and live more in accordance with the sort of person I am.

This to me is what personal development books are best at, breaking down falsehoods and lies. Introverts are not ill or flawed but a part of the rich diversity of personalities and people that make up our species.

Not only that but introverts have skills that the world at large needs, which means we can make a valuable contribution.

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Taking comedy seriously

‘Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass’

Michel de Montaigne, ‘De l’experience,’ 1580-88

I recently listened to the audiobooks by Terry Pratchett. The Colour of Magic, Light Fanastic, Small Gods and Pyramids.

I’ve never been interested in this sort of fiction before. What tickled me the most was the absurdity.

Colour of Magic Audiobook Cover
The Colour of Magic, and ‘The Luggage’

There’s ‘The Luggage’, a chest that has its own set of legs and walks by itself. Such an off the wall idea.

Then there’s Two Flower, the Discworlds first tourist who seeks adventure. Who hires the Magician Rincewind to act as a guide.

It’s wonderfully offbeat, surreal, and comical. It so unusual because it takes the more common High Fantasy genre. With his big important events and a serious tone, then pokes fun at it.

This book, Terry Pratchett’s other writings are part of the genre of Comical Fantasy/Low Fantasy genre.

In Comic Fantasy, there are odd characters and gods, unusual worlds and general physics-defying, commonsense-defying weirdness.

As Terry Pratchett said of his work, ‘It was an attempt to do for the classical fantasy universe what Blazing Saddles did for westerns.’ 

Blazings saddles was the same, a comic send-up of the western genre.
I bring it up because the book reminded me of how I lived in my youth.

Why so Serious

“Smile, because it confuses people. Smile, because it’s easier than explaining what is killing you inside.” ― The Joker – Heath Ledger

The books I read back then were of the High Fantasy type. The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Fiest, David Eddings. (In Sci-FI it was Star Wars, Star Trek types of Space opera).

I reread and watched them again recently which make for an interesting contrast with the Colour of Magic.

Take Star Trek, for example, one of my favourites. One of the problems I have with it now is just how utopian it is.

The crewmembers of the Enterprise, DS9, Voyager are all so ‘well adjusted’ and The Federation is the idealistic future we imagine. Sure some characters are misfits, and some turn out to be villains, but that’s very few.

In this type of Sci-Fi and fantasy there’s a clear distinction between the good guys and the bad. The main heroes display all the values and characteristics that we expect from a chivalric hero.

Contrasting these stories with my life and my past comes into focus.

I was so nieve, so serious and so unhappy when I was younger. Serious because I thought that’s what I needed to be like. Just like the heroes in the stories. I suffered from a joy-sucking pensiveness. Because I wanted to be better than average, perfect.

I see now the folly of that attitude.

The role of comedy

‘Their morals, their code; it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see- I’ll show you. When the chips are down these, uh, civilized people? They’ll eat each other. See I’m not a monster, I’m just ahead of the curve.’

The Joker – Heath Ledger

My youth wasn’t all serious I admit. I did read and watch comedy. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Red Dwarf etc. The Colour of Magic is the latest.

Thinking back to my youth I do remember seeing Prachetts novels in the bookstore. But my mistake was not to take such stories seriously. Back then they seemed too silly and inconsequential. Therein lies my mistake.

Comedy has a lesson to offer us which we often forget in the struggle to be better and live better.

Looking at my own past I see the need for comedy acting as a counter to the seriousness we need to have. A comic foil to keep us grounded in the reality. It’s why there is the archetype of the Joker. The one who doesn’t take things seriously and helps the hero relax, and have fun. The Joker, the comic helps keep it real. (Think Dory in Finding Nemo)

Rincewind in the Colour of Magic is a coward and a failure as a magician. For how can a coward be a hero? How can fools and cheats be successful?

Comedy is the admission that things aren’t perfect and neither are we.
Another example is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Knights, who are supposed to be exemplars of Knightly virtue. Honourable, self-sacrificing heroes, standing for truth, justice and protecting the weak.

Instead, such ideals are mocked and ridiculed as the knights are revealed to be far less than what they claim.

It’s a commentary on the ideas we have about ourselves. That we are not as good, and noble, altruistic, or compassionate as we like to think we are.

We have lofty aspirations but we often fail to live up to them, sometimes ending up looking like a fool.

It’s in our desperate desire to avoid such failure and indignity, we become so afraid to try new adventures, and so anxious when we do. It can suck the joy out of living. Those types of people are no fun to be around.

Which is why becoming older I’ve learned to appreciate the absurd a little more. The Discworld novels are a reminder of the truth that I keep forgetting.

We need a comedy like this. Films and books, also stand up comedy, sketch shows, theatre. Don’t forget your friends who joke around a lot. Questioning the idea that we’re noble individuals by satirising and parodying the heroes we look towards.

Comedy brings us back to reality. Take us down a peg. It’s relaxing as we belly laugh, and unburden ourselves with the heavy weight of being perfect and successful all the time.

When we’re young we have such high expectations and idealsof ourselves. If we don’t take things with enough sobriety we run the risk of never finding success and happiness at all. At least that’s what we beleive.

We think we have to implausibly brave, overly smart to succeed and never make a mistake or look like a fool. Our fear is never realising our potential, but the result is a Malaise of Over-seriousness. Lacking the vibrancy a zest for life.

I didn’t think or see that imperfection and laughter, especially at myself was the way to find it.

Balance

Joking aside. Despite all this, there’s always the danger of going too far.

Taking nothing seriously and just cynically laughing at each other for their naivety. Society would descend into to superficial nonsense. Deadpool style. 
Making comedy and criticism the norm.

If all that’s is left is to make fun of each other, crack jokes then who will take the problem seriously enough to fix it? It’s obvious that either taking it all too seriously or not at all can’t work.

The middle way reveals itself again to be the best path.

We often take ourselves too seriously. It’s the overzealous who become extremists and fundamentalists. They become the hate peddlers and trolls, unwilling to compromise. They are the resentful, embittered and even violent individuals we see on the news.

So wrapped in their own ego, so convinced they are in the right, and so desperate to be taken seriously. It’s a malaise where comedy is the antidote.

Comedy like the Colour of Magic is a reminder that our lives are somewhat farcical. We are absurd creatures, who have fallen for their own lofty ideas.

It’s a the sign of maturity when you temper idealism and noble values with a realism that accepts, alternatives, imperfection, and the absurd.

It’s also partly the joy in seeing how a bunch of misfits, idiots or losers can manage to accomplish anything. (Like the parody of Star Trek, Galaxy Quest). A reminder that success doesn’t require perfection.

Life is tragic and we’re comically inept at it.

Realise that you are not as noble, skilled or infallible as you think you are, and that’s okay.

We all need to see the comical in the world, and in ourselves. Because sometimes the best thing to do is just laugh it off.

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