Warm and fuzzy fairy tales

Two concepts I’m not sure I believe in anymore: “being true to yourself” and “living up to your potential.”

These are the foundations of my upbringing, the warm and fuzzy ideals of humanistic psychology. Perhaps many middle-class children of the 80s and 90s can relate. Be true to yourself! You are special! Follow your heart!

But who am I? What is the self, and is it something worth being true to? And why should I try to actualize this self, if I can define it at all?

It doesn’t make sense anymore. The self is a construction, an interaction of experiences and brain structures, always changing. A brain injury could destroy the memories and preferences and abilities that define this self. Even new experiences alone can cause significant changes in the brain. The self grows; it changes; it is not anything I can easily define or contain.

Be true to yourself. Be true to what? To this version of yourself, frozen at this point in time? To an interpretation of what you believe the self to be?

Live up to your potential. What, the potential of your genetic inheritance? Or the potential of all the abilities you have developed so far, based on your life experiences?

I used to believe in these ideas so firmly. I carried a heavy burden as a result, because I was trying to uphold standards that were ambiguous, ever-changing, and ultimately unattainable.

Part of growing up is realizing that much of our worldview has been founded on fairy tales. And realizing that we may not be able to replace that foundation with anything solid at all.

It’s not that bad. Probably.

I know a lot of people who complain about a lot of things. In fact, I think most people seem to rather enjoy complaining about the minor mishaps that befall them. Sure, it’s kinda like picking a scab. Strangely satisfying.

But guess what? There’s something called life, and it doesn’t go according to plan. Life really doesn’t give a shit what you want.

Besides, what you think you want now could actually cause you more suffering later. Today’s fortune could lead to tomorrow’s misfortune, and vice versa. The very concepts of fortune and misfortune are value judgments we place upon situations, but we can’t know if those judgments are correct. We can’t really see the bigger picture.

Thank god I haven’t gotten what I wanted throughout my life. The things I thought I wanted were really quite limited, but I was unable to see that at the time. Now, when I don’t get something I want, I remind myself that I probably lucked out.

Of course, if you want to spend your time bemoaning the “bad” things that happen to you, feel free. However, you are probably wrong. It’s probably not that bad. Fortunately, it probably doesn’t matter, either.

I’m beginning to truly believe that everything just is what it is. We get wrapped up in our dramas, but everything comes to pass eventually. There is nothing to complain about, really.

Reflection Time!

On my birthday, I thought it would be good to do some reflection. I mean, I pretty much do that every day, but today I thought I would really go all out. Make it epic.

So, I began thinking about my life, and I thought, “What do I want?” How very individualistic and First-World-privileged of me, I know. Really, I could ask myself why I chose that question above all the other “big” questions, and I think that in itself is a good question and probably comes down to cultural conditioning along with individual factors.

But anyway. The first answer that I wrote down was, “I want to not want anything and be happy with what I have.” Which would be awesome, because then I wouldn’t have to think any longer about what I want! I could just want what I have and be done with all this striving bullshit.  How very Buddhist of me.

The alternative, of course, would be to write a long list of what I want and start working towards that stuff. I’m pretty sure it would look something like this: 1. Gain wisdom and life experience 2. Have love and friendship in my life 3. Learn a lot of stuff about the universe/world/people  4. Share my knowledge and wisdom with others. 5. Get a PhD 6. Be financially stable. In about that order of importance.

Of those items, the highest ones are the ones I am already in the process of having and can’t really make go away unless I crawl into a hole or something. The bottom couple are the ones that are less guaranteed but could happen if I work towards them.

I guess I’m saying that I pretty much do have what I want. My life is rich. Even though I put wisdom as #1, because I am a philosopher-type person, I know that #2, relationships, is really the most important. Without relationships, I would have little wisdom or life experience. I would not be here right now. We live in an inter-dependent web.

Ultimately, though, what I want surely isn’t that important. I could want a whole page of things or I could want nothing. I could want materialistic and selfish things or I could want to help humanity and be a better person. Who knows what is the “right” way to be a human, if there is a right way to be at all? Step back from this whole life we have created on this planet, pull back until you see the globe of the Earth, then the solar system, the galaxy, the darkness of space. What is it? I don’t know. I see nothing.

I guess that’s pretty epic.

Game Over

I will preface this by saying that I am in a decidedly un-cheerful mood; quite pensive and gloomy, in fact. At least I am finally delivering on my idea of labeling my mood at the beginning of my writing.

I’m thinking about the great truism that life isn’t fair. Yes. There are winners and losers in the game of life. It’s just a truth of biology: scarcity of resources, competition, winners and losers. Certain individuals win the genetic (and life circumstance) lottery; others lose; most of us muddle our way through somewhere in the middle.

I am reminded of baboons here. They live in a hierarchy, in which some males rise to the top and gain access to the best resources. The lower-ranking males live under great stress, having less access to food, fewer mating partners, and the constant threat of being attacked by the dominant males. These weaker males’ brains have released so much cortisol (stress hormone) over the years that their brains become damaged in certain areas. For them, life is harsh, indeed.

That, of course, is just one example from non-human animals. I don’t think it’s terribly difficult to find parallels in human society, in which some individuals live under constant threat and stress, while others are quite comfortable. So, we have winners and losers in the material game.

Then there is the happiness game. Some individuals inherit a predisposition to be happier, which is also augmented by positive life circumstances. In that complex interaction of genetics and environment, these individuals come out on top. As a result, they are highly optimistic, and their cheerfulness spills out into many aspects of their lives; they have better marriages, they make more money, and they live longer than their pessimistic counterparts. Happiness begets positive outcomes, which causes more happiness. And it is an inversely downward spiral for pessimistic folks. Of course, I am oversimplifying here, using extreme examples for illustration.

Overall, I think it is hard to deny that good things are not evenly distributed. Life is not fair. Some people have all the luck. These truisms are true.

As with most things, I blame evolution. Evolution does not care about us. It does not want us to be happy. Maybe we will be happy; maybe we won’t. There is some degree of control we have over our happiness, but only some. Ultimately, we are just players in a game that we don’t completely understand.

I love the analogy of life as a game, and I rely on it quite often. The thing about a game is, it doesn’t really matter. People win and lose, but then it is over, and you know it was all pretend. So it is with life.

Smiling at the moon

Today was sunny and windy and a bit chilly, a beautiful, blustery day. Biking from downtown over the Hawthorne bridge at sunset, I came to the point where I can see Mt. Hood, just before crossing onto the bridge sidewalk. At that moment, the snow-covered mountain was luminous, glowing in a faint pink hue from the light of the setting sun. I gasped in delight.

As I continued a few feet forward, a view of the full moon arose to my left. The moon was ascending from the horizon, huge and dazzlingly bright, popping out beneath a background of lavender-gray, dusky sky. It looked like a picture, like something that could not possibly be real. I laughed and felt overwhelming happiness, almost to the point of tears. Continuing across the bridge, I kept eyeing that breathtaking orb and the glowing pink sunset behind, smiling.

“I must remember this moment,” I told myself. It was a moment in which I felt the thrill of being alive, of being a creature on a strange and wonderful planet. I knew that the moment would pass, and I would suffer again the pangs of despair, confusion, or apathy. But in that moment, there was no questioning my place in this world; I was alive, and I saw something beautiful.

Fallen leaves

Being a true nihilist is incredibly difficult. Because our brains are always telling us to care about stuff. Our brains are always saying, “I’m hungry;” “I’m lonely;” “This situation feels unpleasant,” etc. We can tell ourselves all day long that there is no absolute truth and that meaning is a human construction, but our stomachs will still be growling when it is dinner time, and our hearts will still skip when we see our lover’s face.

There’s just no easy way out of being human. We’re in these bodies, and they demand a lot of us. They are propelling us onward, even if we don’t really know where the hell we’re going. We’re like leaves floating down a river, completely swept up in the current. We fell into this thing called existence, and it is moving us.

And yet we really get caught up in thinking we know what we’re doing. We get these little plans of what we think we want to happen, how our lives should be. “I have to catch that bus!” “I hope he likes me!” “I don’t want to die!” But really, what do we know? Pleasure now might lead to suffering later, or vice versa; the future is never certain.

Still, we can’t help but care; we’re human. We can never fully understand the larger current that carries us. We only see hazily, just a little bit in front of us. And we care so much about that little bit. That is what we do.

T-Rex says it better

My awesome friend inserted my blog post into a Dinosaur Comic.

Dude.

Winning at life

I’ve been thinking about my previous post on negative emotions and the analogy of bad weather. I stated that I like chilly, rainy weather more than most people I know. And I wondered why people insist on calling such weather “bad.”

Upon further reflection, I think it is simply a matter of degree. As an example, let’s just look at temperature and ignore all other variables. As the temperature gets lower, the number of people who call that temperature “bad” will increase, until virtually everyone will call it “bad,” perhaps around 20 degrees and lower. I mean, no one (except a suicidal person who wants to freeze to death) will step outside in 0-degree temperatures and say, “This weather is fantastic!”

Obviously, this is because as the weather gets more extreme, it becomes more and more likely to kill us humans. It’s just a matter of biology that we want to stay alive, except for those of us who don’t (the aforementioned suicidal folks; cheer up, guys).

Now, getting back to the 50-degree, rainy days that I find so enjoyable at times. I think I am simply above the mean (top 10%, eh?) in my tolerance for discomfort. But as the temperature gets lower or the rain turns to pounding hail, I, too, fall in line with my fellow humans in agreeing that the weather is “bad.” I know; lame.

So, my cold-weather example shows that our value judgments about bad weather are based upon a natural aversion to pain and, ultimately, death. I bet most of our values arise from similar biological imperatives.

Perhaps if you just stop being so anthropocentric and fearing pain and death, you realize that 0 degrees is just a number. It is what it is. At last, all value judgments can be relinquished as you accept the utter finitude and inadequacy of the human perspective! But then, you freeze to death. Not awesome for you, in most cases.

Oh shit, you guys! I think evolution selects AGAINST nihilism!

But wait! Cheerful nihilism, on the other hand, is all about promoting survival and reproduction. It can embrace absurdity and meaninglessness while still having a good time. It is the perspective that totally wins at life.

Time to go eat a tasty and nutritious dinner while remaining safe in my 75-degree room. Survival status: excellent. Reproduction status: try again later.

Yay! It’s raining!

Sometimes feeling bad just feels good. Now there’s an oxymoron for you. Which is why I like it, of course.

Some people have a hard time understanding this. They think “bad” feelings are bad and “good” feelings are good. But no! Language fails us here. It’s the same thing with “bad” weather, which I find to be quite lovely sometimes.

There is something delicious about feeling that strange mix of sadness, despair, loneliness, and confusion that sometimes descends upon me in quiet moments of aloneness. There is a sense that nothing is right, and I can’t see my way out of the fog. But isn’t fog beautiful?

If I really surrender to the dark, complicated mess of those emotions, I feel something warm inside me, a glowing feeling in my chest. It is decidedly not a “bad” feeling. It almost feels like being in love. Perhaps in love with being alive?

I miss believing in Santa and stuff

Okay. It’s time to let the cat out of the bag, or throw it out the proverbial window, as it may be. And let me preface this by saying: I am not a sociopath. In fact, I am a very nice and social-norm-abiding person.

Yet hiding under that veneer of social normalcy lies a dark suspicion: I don’t think morals have any objective truth. Folks, we just made them up! Not intentionally, of course; I think most morality is based in brain structures that probably evolved to help humans survive and thrive in social networks. But whether these moral systems are biologically- or culturally-based (obviously, it’s a complex interaction of both), the fact remains that morality is just a tool.

Still, does that make it invalid? Tools are quite useful, sometimes. But if you know they are just tools, you can discard them or change them out at will. Somehow, that seems a bit unsettling when it comes to morality. Can I just invoke some moral rules and discard others, depending on what suits me? I think I can. And yet if we all did that, the social order would fall apart.

Whew, good thing very few people will ever read this blog.