Two different worlds

Yesterday I understood something about myself.
I was just here doing stuff, but I couldn't feel any purpose.
I was drifting around the place.
Lost.
I felt lost.
Why ?
I didn't really believe I would ever achieve my life's purpose.  Hell,  I didn't even know what it was.
I couldn't even tell myself what it was.
Everything I thought of as worthwhile, my inner critic shot it down in in flames.
I was going through the motions.

Oh, but don't you remember that reality confirms your beliefs, whatever they are, they will be confirmed and become self reinforcing.

Yea, I remember that, - I told other people that reality was like that.

Well how about applying it to yourself ?

As in ?

As in believing you have a purpose and that you will achieve it.

What just believe it and I have it ?

Kind of.

That's crazy.

Reality confirms your belief.

Yea, that's what I told others.

Tell yourself.

Hmm......

(A short while later)

Oh, it's called 'Faith' isn't it ?

Yep, that's what some call it.

I feel something different now. 
I don't have to be in charge of my destiny, I can trust a greater power that it will all work out somehow, even though I have no idea how.
Yes.
I don't need to know, in fact I can't know all the steps.
I am a part of all there is and all there is has manifested me .

Something like that.

What do you mean 'something like that ?'
Do you know more or better ?

No, I don't.

Why say "something" then ?

Any expression of 'it' in words, any attempt to encapsulate 'the truth' kills it.
We can only approximate it.
The minute you think you 'got it nailed down' its gone, you have a corpse.

Hmm.... yes ... I get that.
This blog article is my attempt to 'catch it'.
I knew when I started the article it wouldn't really ever hold 'it', but I did it anyway.

Yep, I thought so.
That's what we do.
Do it anyway.

*******************

When I look back on my feeling yesterday, i was in a place where I looked for my purpose, couldn't find it, didn't know it, couldn't express it.
So i didn't believe I had one.
I tried to get used to taht.

And what happened ?

I felt crap.
It was like getting used to a missing leg and arm.

Yep.

And as I told you, I remembered the bit about 'Faith' about 'something being real only if you believe it to be so' which makes no sense to the rational mind.

Yes you told me all that.

The strange thing is: when I'm in the 'rational mind frame' I don't see my purpose, I can't express it.
So i get down.
I feel crap.
For no rational reason, but I feel crap.
I drop into pain and feeling the pain.
Then at the level of the pain, i  enter the world of feeling.
In the world of feeling things that didn't make sense in the world of mind, make a lot of sense.

Things like what ?

Stuff like:
Believing that I will get my life's purpose done.
That even though I don't know the steps of "HOW", I will get there, I will get there.

Yes, that sounds like you got a grip on what is going on.

My rational self doesn't know how to digest food, how to beat the heart, it all just happens.
I grew up from a one cell egg in the womb, I will go back to dust, and yet some part of me, of the 'i' is still there.
Other parts will go to dust.
It's a FEELING, level of being, which still includes mind and logic, but mind and logic are not the only citizens in that world.
The trouble starts when mind and logic do a 'coup de'tat' and try to seize total control, then they kick out 'feeling' and everything else.

Yes that's what I noticed too.

And once mind and logic try to seize total control, and deny feeling and intuition and all the rest of life, then life becomes a battle, a duality, a fight for survival.
It's 'me against them'.
I, the mind and logic, have to run the whole show.
But that is not reality.
The rest of the Universe is still there.
So a dictatorship of mind and logic creates pain.
And since feeling has been banished, into the jail of the subconscious, pain is not acknowledged.
It can't be.
But it's still there.
So what happens ?
Pain is allowed back in through the backdoor of pseudo reason and rationale.
Pain is projected onto  something, someone 'out there' and then its labeld 'bad' and 'enemy' and then the battle begins.
You get more duality.

Psychology calls all that "projection".

Yes, that's it. 

The rational mind likes to be 'in charge'.
It doesn't say that in so many words.
If you ask the rational mind "do you want to be in absolute control?" it will say "of course not, it's not even possible."
But because the rational mind has denied (can't understand) feeling, those feelings don't go away, they do what they want.
The heavier ones come up.
That's usually fear and anger.
Fear and anger then direct the mind, and the mind not able to understand or accept feelings, makes up "reasons" and "rationales" that it can accept, for those feelings so it can act on those feelings.
Not realizeing that the true motivation comes from outside the mind i.e. those feelings of fear and anger.

Why do you say the 'rational mind likes to be in charge' ?
How can you say that ?

How can you say a fish likes to swim, and a  bird likes to fly ?

Ok Ok, I get it.

You can't solve a problem at the same level of the problem.
A fish who lived in water all his life can't conceive of air and flying or earth and walking, if it insists that there is nothing but water in the universe.

There are two worlds then.

Yes, many more but let's just talk about those two.

The world where reason and logic are the dictators, and claim absolute control, and the world of feeling and faith.

yes.

How do you move between the two ?

You have to 'want' to move.
Nothing can force anyone.
No amount of reason of evidence can convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced.

You mean the fish that doesn't want to leave the water ?

Yes.
The fish doesn't have to leave the water, he just needs to acknowledge that there are a limits to the ocean.
But it's more than that.

What ?

Free will.
Respect.
If the fish doesn't want to leave the water or even swim close to the limits you can't force him.

Ok.
So let's say someone wants to move between the worlds.
How does it usually happen ?

Pain and or imagination.

Huhh ??? What do you mean ?
We talked about how the dictatorship of reason and logic creates pain. That's one way.

So given enough pain people will change and see the truth ?

No.
They still have free will.
To be forced by pain is not free will.
It's like someone holding a gun to your head and asking you to say that you freely choose to give them all your money.

Hmm.....
I guess that's where the idea of 'hell' comes in.

I guess that's one way to see it, yea.

Ok, so what's the other way, you said 'imagination'.

In our fish and ocean analogy: if the fish is curious, and imagines something different than just ocean  then he will check out the limits of the ocean, discover that there is a bottom, and top and sides to his ocean.
And the idea of something 'other' than his world comes into his mind.

I see.
I have heard about worlds created from imagination.
The act of creation is imaginative.

Yes :-)

aguissettes - pain, peace, bliss.....

For years I went to bed really late  (still struggling with that....).  It put a mist of pain and lack of energy over everything,  my whole waking life was covered in mist of discomfort. Nothing major, not bid deal.

Yet I didn't have to do that. 

I blamed work, I blamed life, I blamed whatever.

But really I knew, it was just that I chose that way of living. 

Ok this is a mild example but it makes the point. 

When I was free of pain, free of obligation I wanted 'some action', when I had action, I wanted peace. 

I remember times when I was totally ok, no physical pains, no huge obligations, nothing terrible looming in my life. 

And what did I do ? I couldn't stant it, I had to something to create pain, drama, anything to fight against.

After half a century of this, one day I realized: "You know what Haiko ? THIS is IT NOW ! This IS your life NOW. Not in some distant future, not when I get the Nobel prize but now. 

Even if we take the best case, most optimistic outcome in your life:  Pretend I do get a Nobel prize, it will be a few hours of glory on a stage, then back to the hard work that got you there in the first place." 

Hm... then I realized that I kind of created my own drama and pain to a large degree, not totally but to a large degree. 

Hm.... now what ? 

Why is peace so hard to imagine ? So hard to take ? 

Because heaven is NOW, it IS the challenge of NOW, the key is: it is what I'm doing NOW, and what I'm feeling now. Do I reject the moment ? or do I savour it ? 

One day I will look back on a time when I was healthy, strong and able to do things, run around, watch movies, vist friends, travel the world, and I'll wonder: did I really appreciate that time ?

Or was I not happy because I didn't have ....the promotion I thought I deserved, ....or because X was nasty to me .... or because .... I had been insulted/unappreciated/taken for granted etc.... etc... ?

Hm... 

the moment that  I will look back on is NOW, is the NOW as I write this. 

Do I accept this moment ? or do I reject it ? 

I eat some some sweets, I wolf them down. Do I honour them by appreciting them, or do I want more, as I shovel them in ? 

                                    ---o(O)o--- 

I wrote this the other day:

We like to punish ourselves, we need to pay a price...

if we don't let ourselves pay then our body pays, in illness.

better to pay consciously...

There seems to be some way in which I (& we=humans)  need to pay a price. If I have it too easy or if deep down I feel the things I have now are not fully paid for, I don't deserve them, then I will make myself pay. 

I don't think I have to convince myself that I deserve them, that does not work for me, I need to feel I have earned them, in honour and in truth, I have earned them. 

Do I reach that feeling ? Rarely. Not as often as I would like. 

But when I do, it feels like nothing else on earth. Then I KNOW in every cell of my body that I am in the right place and time and doing the thing I was born to do. 

But as I said, it happened all too rarely. 

But from those thoughts above, over the years, I realized I need to FEEL that I truly deserve what I am being given, what I have. 

If only my mind convinces itself then it does not work, I have to also truly FEEL it and KNOW it - then it works. 

--> Something else  that got me thinking along those lines: 
When I type on a computer I often cross my legs in such a way that one leg feels real pain, or falls asleep. I somehow balance the action of typing with inflicting pain on myself. 
(Ok, granted, this is not a dramatic example, but the idea is there.)

What makes me do that ?  I don't think about it, I just do it, in fact I have to consciously force myself NOT to do it. 
I guess it might be to balance the weight of whatever I'm doing, the typing, the irritation I feel ? It could be, I don't know. 
Or it might be the equivalent of huffing and puffing on another level ? 
Who knows. 
But it is interesting to note that we all do things to ourselves that cause pain, discomfort. We don't really ONLY go for pleasure. 


And again to myself it seems that we have some balance mechanism inside us.  If I don't EARN my bliss honestly, that is if I don't believe I truly deserve it, I will have to pay for it somehow. 
Too much niceness, and I can't handle it. I have to be able to stand the intensity of beauty, the brightness of the glory and joy, if I can't I'll dull things down to a level of brightness which I CAN stand and at which I am comfortable.
My mind might not like that level, but some deeper part of me does. 


As an excercise: would I feel comfortable having a large house in a posh subburb driving a car worth more than a years gross salary, with Phillipino maids and a gardner ? Well my mind thinks I would be ok with that, but my gut tells me no way Hose.

All this brings me to another topic: why is 'niceness' portayed so boringly and why is 'naughtyness' portayed so adventurously ? Pirates, spies, crime, etc... seem alluring in popular culture. Why ? What makes them so ?

References:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anguissette

In Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy novels, an anguissette is one of Kushiel's chosen mortals, picked to "balance the scales" against those who impart suffering without compassion. Anguisettes feel pain and pleasure as one. Additionally, the wounds of those who bear Kushiel's Dart always heal clean.

Those who have been chosen by Kushiel have a scarlet mote in the iris of one eye, referred to poetically as Kushiel's Dart.

Mighty Kushiel of rod and weal
Late of the brazen Portals
With blood-tipp'd dart a wound unhealed
Pricks the eyen of chosen mortals.

and more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algolagnia

In the book "Kushiel's Dart" p 291 by Jacqueline Carey,

Phedre deliberately takes a brutal assignation she needs that, it suits her mood. It is something we all do.

" Know thyself" - Hunting for my body - life without the physical

Often when I've gone to sleep and then wake up, there is a moment when I am conscious of myself, I know I'm still sleeping but I'm not sure WHERE I am. To put is more accurately: I'm not sure where I'll be when I wake up, I don't know where my body is.

in those few moments I wonder: WHERE will I wake up ?
- Will I wake up in a bus going somewhere ?
- In a plane ?
- Having a nap at lunchtime and need to get back to work NOW !
- At home in bed and its a Saturday morning - bliss ?
....and so on.

then suddenly I'm more awake and I emerge from where ever one's consciousness goes during sleep.
Voila ! Tadah!!!
I'm ....... in a bus going to the Thai border.
There's a momentary surprise then I'm fully into where I am and planning the rest of the trip.... .

But for those few moments I'm hunting my body, chasing around in whatever levels before I emerge.
I know I'll emerge.

These things happen more when I'm tired, and stressed and have a quick power nap during the day (love power naps).


19Jan09 Monday: brief nap, 10mins using Chi-plates.
In my dream I looked at something which came at, into my face.
I moved away in my dream but my physical body also moved, jerked back a little in sleep. This brought me back a little more to normal awake consciousnes, and giving me back more of my normal thoughts, thoughts that I could remember.

What I remembered wondering was: The dream world I had inhabited was real while I was asleep.
I wonder, is life without a body like that ? All soft and unlimited and yet also NOT soft and NOT UNlimited either ? It's not limited because of the 'real ME' (see earlier blog: 'the real me')

I sensed a different world, which was at 'right angles' to the normal world we live in.
In this different world there are no sharp edges. I that I mean: there is no lack of food or money, or time.... things that are limited and restricted are not limited and restricted there, and Vice Versa.

In this different world without a body, dream world, whatever you want to call it, there is a different need and different hunger for something else ... and that need and hunger comes from the core of me, of who I AM ('the real me').
It is a need to achieve something within myself, by doing it 'out there in the objective world' - it is more of an inner urge.

In normal physical life these urges are more like
- the urge to go off and help the poor
- achieve something you just KNOW you want to do. You don't know how you know, but you know you always wanted to

• be a healer, nurse, doctor
• ballet dancer
• author
• musician
• inventor of new XYZ...
• have kids, be a mother, father....
  

These urges in normal life can also be much simpler: - "I got to get a new job, this is somehow not 'doing it' for me anymore" - I will do that hiking trip and explore the outdoors like I've always wanted to - I'll start writing (articles like this, which I've been mentally rehearsing and writing for decades)

I'm talking about deep inner urges, the whispering of the 'still small voice within' not the more obvious solid things such as fear, greed, ambition, need for control, etc.... That still small voice will not force me to listen to it, it will not wrestle with me and shout or scream. I can easily avoid it and drown it out and push it aside, it is after all 'still', 'small' and deep inside. But after a few years of quietly ignoring it two things might happen to me:

1) life gets more and more dull and monotone and has no flavour and no taste ... - or

2) I just HAVE to do a particular task, or it will drive me nuts. That feeling of having to do something is for me, similar to the feeling of having spent a whole day in a stuffy office and I just NEED to get out and breathe fresh air and feel REAL sunshine in my face again.
Only instead of fresh air and sunshine I need to - face things I've run from - or - deal with s*** I've put off - or - see that person.... - or - do that course - or - write that letter - or - appologize to Mary - or - ....whatever it is, it will feel good when I do it. Like dislocated joint put back in.

How does all this relate to waking up from a power nap ?

Well, the above stuff went through my mind (a notoriously short journey ha ha) in the process of waking. It seems to me that if I lived in that different world, where the most solid reality was the core of ME, then I might want to actually find a world where I can measure myself against, where I can work on myself with hard sharp edges. Where I can achieve things where I need to deal with limited time, limited resources, where I HAVE to decided my priorities and focus on them... where the deeply hidden things in ME come out.... in short: I might really want to be alive in the world and the job, and situation I am in right NOW! And there I was thinking I just wanted enough of everything, never lack for anything, no limits and no constraints.... - but the core of ME has a shape, and a limit, and a 'flavour' - what we call a 'character'.

It reminded me of a quote I once read:

"Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame."

"Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere."

"Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel." all above quotes by G. K. Chesterton,

Actually DO want the limits, I need them, as a way of bracing myself against what I am, who I AM. It brings out what and who I AM. Physical life is made up of limits. There is a limit to its length of time, to how much I can work in one day, how much I can eat, and how long I can go without eating.... there is a limit to how much I can enjoy pleasure before getting sick of it. I can only be in one place at any one moment. I have a gender I can't change (well not easily), DNA I can't change, and I have a character that I AM (more or less).

When I choose ONE direction I choose against all others, - I can't have it ALL. That seems banal and obvious. But what hit me is that I actually WANT those limits, because when I imagine that world where there are not physical limits, and the only real limits are in ME, then physical limits serve as a good mirror, as a foil against which to 'know myself'.

Considering all these limitations, I'm incredibly lucky, I have a great job, even though I have remind myself of that occasionally. Living in a nice country is South-East Asia, working as an academic, teaching, writing, researching, I have a many things that most of the world only dreams of.... I should be deliriously happy. I'll make a special point of that from now on.. ! :-)

Yet it does not matter where we are, who we are, there are limits in every situation, different limits in different levels, but limits are what physical life is in its essence. Looking up to higher levels it seems there are no limits, but always there are constraints. Ask anyone who is really rich, are they free ? Sure they are free of one kind of worry/constraint but chained to other kinds :-P

White is the fullness of ALL colours, yet in any picture, the colours are what make it what it IS. The parts missing from the fullness of the white ARE the colours. Without those limits all would be white, upon white, on a white background, white foreground and there would be no shapes no boundaries...no picture.... (I won't carry this analogy any further).

Welcome to Earth.
Glad I'm here.

Tengra Ngiam

Mind over matter - will the real ‘Me’ please stand up ?

The idea brings to my mind a variety of popular images from my childhood or rather - from my geekhood!
One of them is the image of the crazy scientist:
Scientist stares at a ball with a crazy demented look, strange eerie sounds surround him and the balls lifts into the air by itself.


Another more domestic image is from popular culture:
“Another cup of tea, dear ?” From the other side of the table, I point at the teapot with my finger and the pot lifts up and floats through the air without anyone touching it. I curl my finger a little, the pot dips and pours and then I bring it back to where it came from. All by the power of my mind.


Mind over matter, pure will and volition causing objects to move, things to happen.
This is the stuff of science fiction and fantasy.

But when I think of it I’ve experienced similar things.

I remember the wonder of first playing with a computer: I would give a command and it did it. The power of it was thrilling, but even more I felt that there was an intelligence in the machine, it ‘knew’ what to do, and it could read the text commands in my program. Wow! (Guess this reveals me as a true Geek).

A similar thrill first grabbed me driving a car. I bought a car fairly late in life and was used to cycling or walking everywhere by my own efforts. Driving my first car, I felt the strange sensation of control and power. I would simply push the accelerator and this great heavy metal machine moved, it did all the hard work, it carried me UP the hills and did all the tough work for me. I just had to give the commands (push the accelerator) and off it went.

As a very young child I remember being fascinated with being alive. I simply had to think ‘walk’ and I would walk. I just had to think ‘lift hand’ and my hand would lift.
Amazing.
Actually it wasn’t even ‘thinking’, there was no need for words. If I wanted to get up and turn on the kettle I only had have the intent to do so, and then decide to move my body and to actually do it.
When I thought about this whole process a bit more I realized there was more to it.
Sure, there was the intent, but I still had to decide and then, having made the decision, I had to DO it. What had looked like simple intent, or simple action unraveled as three stages of the one process.
And behind all those three stages there must be someone, a person, someone I called ‘I’ who did all those things, who did the ‘intending, deciding, doing’.

That got me thinking about who was the real ‘I’ ? If I could talk about myself like an object, “I did this and I did that”, then that meant, the it was not the real ‘me’. Because the real ‘me’ must be the one doing the talking, doing the thinking, the one standing behind the whole process and looking at it.

As soon as I can step back and label that process, the real ‘me’ must be deeper in. An ever retreating ever deeper well ?

At this point I usually gave up. I’ve really not gotten much further in 49 years.

---o(O)o---

- science is observation AND experience. Experience, feeling and observation by all possible means of perception. Only then comes theory and abstraction. – However, at times, theory and abstraction clouds experience and observation - Hyco

---o(O)o---

I started out with mind over matter:
What is really surprising is that we live and use mind over matter every day, with every breath we take. Thoughts, feelings, ideas, and the world changes, our bodies move.

My legs move, my fingers type. All I need to do is ‘intend’ and decide, and act… and those things are all one fluid movement, I do it automatically and forget the wonder of it.

Every man made object was once just an idea, without physical form.

Mind over matter.

Every movement of my body - mind over matter.

The thoughts of mind, the words I type here, were once just a pre-verbal urge, an idea, without words, just a shape and a ‘something’.
Then I tried to capture it in words, to give it a shape and a form.
As I wrote this article I compared the wordless image of it with the words on the computer. Was it really what I wanted to say ?
Yes, some of it was, other bits were not. So I go back over it and try or a better fit. Cut a bit here, trim a few words there. Move this paragraph up there, yes, that’s more what I have in mind. But I won’t know what that is until I give it form, until I act. [note to self: elaborate on the pre-verbal form of language, see your language learning writings, a future article!]

And so it is with the purpose of my life, I act, I move, I compare my inner compass, the wordless, something where I KNOW deep within myself, with the things my life is writing on the world out there…. Hm…. A bit of a cut here, a bit of trim there…. That’s better, getting there now. Oooops that part was a bit too far from the blueprint….Better not do that again.

Mind over matter research research here.

---o(O)o---

Recently I’ve come to think of another step, going deeper into the question who is the real ‘me’ ?
I think it is beyond thought.
I has to be beyond thinking, because thinking simply gives ever deeper more nested loops, wheels within ever smaller wheels in a fractal like pattern [add reference to fractals here even show a picture or spiral-like fractal patterns].

But there IS something I cannot step back from, something I cannot escape from, or abstract myself from: It is ‘Feeling’. I mean core feelings, not shallow whims of the moment.
On the mind levels, I can always distance myself, always step back, ever deeper but I feel like I’m not going anywhere other than into an eternal loop.

But when I truly FEEL something I just feel it. In fact it feels like this IS ‘me’. I feel therefore I AM.
There are feelings INSIDE ME, which I cannot escape from, they stay there no matter what I do. I might mentally decide to ignore them, but they remain. I can run from them, using drugs, alcohol, and a hundred other distractions, but deep inside myself I KNOW I’m running, and I know what I feel.
I might be afraid to face what is there inside me, to face those feelings.
But the feeling remains.
I cannot erase it with a thought alone.

Yes I can change the feeling, but I cannot change it without facing it, fully and squarely and most importantly I cannot change those feelings without FEELING them. Once I feel them, once I become who they are, who in fact I truly am, then they change, in THEIR own way, in their own time.

Let me give an example: @@@ add example from own life here.

……………………………………….

There are examples in history, of people who felt they simply had to do and be what they did. It didn’t always work out the best way for them, some of them died, others suffered greatly, but they still had to do it.
Not doing it was would have been worse for them.
Romeo and Juliet, St Joan of Arc, …@@@ add more examples here.
There is no simple pattern
……………………………………….

……………………………………….

……………………………………….


I’m starting to think that maybe, just maybe, many of our modern illnesses come from the conflict between the real core feelings of who we are, what we want to be and do, and what we make OURSELVES do [add reference: Dr Sarno and Co. on mind body illnesses, how he has treated them, how people came to him].

There is a temptation to blame the outside world, society, parents, life, god, whatever… for not letting us be who we are.
But we are dealing here with intelligence, deep core intelligent feelings. That deepest, most honourable part of me knows what I am able to do, and he will see whether I’m really trying.
In my core I KNOW the truth.
I KNOW.
No if’s, no but’s I KNOW.
What is more, really trying and doing my best, in the most honourable way is all that deepest part of me asks. The deepest part of me is not some impersonal demented tyrant, it is the most human part of me.
He/she will not be fooled by stupid or weak excuses, nor will she be harsh when in all faith I have done my best.
In the end the Universe is personal, loving.
In the end we only see and experience what we allow ourselves, what we believe.

I still remember the surprise I got one day, when I found out that I could not simply decide, erase and re-draw my life to be whatever I wanted in my mind. The surprise was that no matter what I told myself or what reason told me, there were certain things I REALLY wanted, they were part of ME.
I could not chop them out and erase them like code from a computer program. They were hardwired into ME, they were part of ME. Oh sure, I had pushed the aside, and buried them, and kept them out of directly conscious awareness and all the usual tricks of denial – but in the end, I had to admit: this is what I wanted. All my rational arguments fell way like leaves in the wind. I knew what I wanted, this was ME.
Please understand I’m not talking about things that were totally beyond my control (such as being a ballet dancer, or a world heavy weight boxer/ruby player or whatever), I’m talking about things within my life which I could decide and DO. Things such as: having a family, having a girlfriend at all (as much as that is ever within any man’s control ha ha ha :-P ), being in a relationship, accepting responsibility for my talents and gifts in life etc….

In fact I had run into something really solid: I had run smack bang into my purpose for being born, for being in a physical body. This surprised me, I had assumed my real deeper ME, was just a nebulous something, I could mold at will. I don't know why is surprised me, after all, my physical body is tall and skinny and suited to academic, artistic pursuits. My physical body has a certain shape character style and is suited for some things and not others. So it makes sense that the core of me, the invisible non-physical part also has a shape and character and is suited to some things more than others. Hm... kind of obvious once I see, but not at the time it wasn't.

I know that there are a million beliefs about life and death and the purpose of life, so here I’ll just add my little bit and make it a million and one.
Actually it’s very simple: at the very deepest level of who the real ‘me’ is, there is the purpose and the things I came here to do. I have a choice, more or less. Nothing is simplistically and stupidly simple, but things are ‘right’ and fair deep down.

I see it a bit like the example of getting up to make a cup of tea. The basic idea is to make a cup of tea. HOW I make it, when I make it, with what ingredients, what type of pot, - all those things are up to me, and outside the basic idea of “make a cuppa tea love!” (pardon the Australian slang). I might even change my mind, or friends might drop in and I make three cups of tea. Whatever.

Similarly, I have the basic purpose of my life. How and when and what I do about it, is like the cup of tea, very much up to me.


I’ve wasted a lot of time, wasted it working for things I didn’t really want, or other people told me had to want and get. I’ve wasted a lot of time running away from myself and not wanting to know, because it was all ‘too hard’. And I’ve wasted a lot of energy on regretting decisions I made, and then found out that was even more of a total waste of time and energy.
And I’ve actually done a little bit of what I came here for.
Writing this article is one of those things… 

Tengra Ngiam.

PS: “Omnia Mutantur, nihil interit” – everything changes, nothing is wasted.

Research site here.

PPS: later thoughts: 19Jan09 Monday Melbourne: the idea that the deep core of ME has a shape comes to me in other ways as well:

I had learned fairly early in life that I could argue whatever side I wanted and that to any choice there were as many arguments one way as the other way, - thus reason and logic didn't provide the answers, something much deeper had to [refer to the Sophists of ancient Greece as a good example].

Something much deeper made me listen to and accept one side against another, and that 'something' was deeper than reason and logic. These deeper things were such things as: fear, courage, desire, dislike, honour, guilt, anger, spite, love, joy....and in the final analysis: it was the core of WHO I AM. Simple.

We don't argue whether Vanilla is better than strawberry flavour, it's a matter of taste ! Well I found that much of life in it's final analysis was a matter of taste. Why this job, this field of study, this country to immigrate to ? Because of what I like and what I like and want are in a strange way connected to who I AM, and the shape and nature of ME.

For example, I've argued all my life that being single was a really a 'better' way, and that NOT having kids was what I really wanted. But deep inside it wasn't really true. There has always been a deep desire to share my life with another. I've always known that too. But I also know that anything can be underpinned with reasons, and logic and arguments, and seem "justified".

But in the end, it was a simply a matter of taste, Vanilla or Strawberry. Take your pick.

This is not to say it does NOT matter, it is simply to say: it matters, but the reasons are not reasonable reasons, they are in the end CORE reasons.


Disclaimer: To understand the above, you will need to use your sympathetic intuition, because if you are not sympathetic nor using your intuition, then none of this will really make any sense. In other words if your deeper intent is to nitpick, you'll always find a good reason to do so.

I'm here talking about subtle matters, questions of whether to get a job to feed yourself and your family are a different order or magnitude.

- commonsense, that's all.