by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 12, 2017 | Blog
Man, this has been one of those weeks where nothing wants to
work right.
Word went all weird as I was finishing the blog this
morning, and when it opened back up everything except the first two sentences
were gone. So much for auto-save.
So, today just became a quote dump, focusing on books I’ve
enjoyed lately.
You should’ve seen the blog though, one of the best ever.
Truly, truly, truly life changing. Nobel Prize winning maybe. Major shame. Just
tragic. Trust me.
“We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a
decision and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if a decision
itself were voluntary every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to
decide – An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough,
if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide”
Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen
Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent
thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius
Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose
of life, and not something you do in your spare time.
Marian Wright Edelman
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that
space is our power to choose our response.
Victor Frankl
“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is
made up of light and shadow.”
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (I have this one hanging in
my waiting room)
“Live quietly in the moment and see the beauty of all before
you. The future will take care of itself……”
Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi
“The only reason people die, is because EVERYONE does it.
You all just go along with it.
It’s RUBBISH, death. It’s STUPID. I don’t want nothing to do
with it.”
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 2: The Doll’s House
Have a great Saturday.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 11, 2017 | Blog
They have this elaborate house of horrors type thing here
that is open for a few months near Halloween.
I don’t go near it, but people tell me it is legitimately
scary. The workers are allowed to scare people in any way they can, within
guidelines and boundaries. From what I hear, they are even allowed to touch
people and bump them a little bit. It sounds terrible and I cannot understand
why anyone would subject themselves to it.
Our thoughts are very similar to this.
They are allowed to terrorize us and torment us, but their
power and reach is limited. They can suggest and imply, but they cannot
actually do anything to us. The only power they have lies in our perception of
their realness.
I often encourage people to label whatever
floats through their head as a thought.
You don’t label them as “good thought” or “bad thought” or
“happy thought”. No sad thought, mean thought, ugly thought, true thought or
false thought. Just “thought”.
This is akin to going through the house of horrors and
simply labeling everything that comes near you as “costume”.
Not “chainsaw killer costume” or “clown with bloody teeth
costume” or “little girl with white eyes costume”, just “costume”. Before long,
you would be able to walk through the house of horrors without being scared or
bothered and just enjoy the show.
I’m still not going.
This is even more effective with our thoughts.
When we see that everything that goes on in our head, from
memories to plans for the future to judgments about what we said in that one
conversation to our assessment of another person or situation are just
thoughts, it becomes easier to avoid believing in them.
It also starts to help us separate the things that are
intentional and worthwhile and helpful from the noise and garbage. It is
unfortunate that everything that runs through our head addresses itself as “I”
because that makes it a lot harder to sort it all out, but as we simply name
thoughts for what they are it gets easier and easier.
Today is going to be a tough day.
Thought.
There is no way this turns out well.
Thought.
They don’t really like me.
Thought.
Things are really getting crazy in this world.
Thought.
I deserve better than that.
Thought.
Thought.
Thought.
Thought.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 10, 2017 | Blog
Emotions are a lot like undedicated people.
They may come on strong at first, but without constant
support and encouragement, they give up and fade out.
Even more like undedicated people, another one will come
along almost immediately.
According to various studies, emotions don’t last that long
at all.
When one initially hits, we have a window to decide how we
are going to handle it. We can accept that it is there and let it run its course.
Or, we can invest in it, feed it, and hold on to it. We talked about stories
yesterday, and this is exactly where they kick in.
We don’t often even consider this to be a choice. We think
we “are” our emotions or that they have a right to be there or that we have a
right to feel them. I suppose we certainly have the right to experience our
emotions, and I would encourage everyone to do so. But feeding them and talking
them up bigger and bigger often just brings suffering. This even applies to
happiness. By talking it up and trying to hang on to it we give the whole thing
this air of desperation, killing the happiness.
The question is really why we aren’t allowed to
experience our emotions without the thoughts that accompany them. Why do we
have to think about everything we are experiencing?
I get that this is part of the price of our level of
consciousness, but it also binds us up in a great number of ways. We feel what
we feel, and that makes sense, but then our thoughts rush in and mess with
things.
Sometimes it makes sense that we feel terrible.
The loss of a loved one, treating someone poorly, the loss
of a relationship we cared about, disappointment. It makes sense to feel anger
over someone doing something to our child, to seeing injustice and harm to
others, to being attacked or manipulated. We should be sad over some things,
fearful about others. The issue lies in our thoughts seeking to have a say in
the rightness or wrongness of what we are experiencing. This is where it all
gets messy.
Why judge or feed something that is a natural result of what
is going on around us?
Why cling to or reject something that we have no control
over?
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 9, 2017 | Blog
Anger is just an emotion. It comes it, it goes, it doesn’t
really have to have any impact at all.
The thing that makes anger so dangerous is how good it is at
telling us stories to keep itself alive and growing. It tricks us into feeding
the fire in our living room.
Casey is rushing to work.
She hits a red light near her home.
Anger arises.
At this point, nothing has really happened. A light changed,
this is what they are programmed to do. By this light turning red, someone
else’s turned green, this made them happy.
This is a neutral situation, but not helpful to Casey as she
rushing to work. She is afraid she will be late, this turns into anger. This
could be the end of it, but let’s look at the stories that arise as she sits
there for what feels like forever.
Why can’t the city time the lights properly? It’s simple
thing and helps with traffic flow and gas mileage. What are our taxes for? This
is basic.
The light finally turns green (it’s been about 40 seconds).
The person in front of Casey is on their phone.
This cascades into a series of broad assertions (stories)
about the people around her.
The person on their phone is a vapid moron who just has to
check their Facebook every few seconds because they are so important.
The drivers around her are useless assholes who don’t know
how to drive. They are going the speed limit just to piss her off.
The people at her workplace are inconsiderate jerkoffs for
taking all the parking spaces.
The first client she sees infuriates her because she is sure
she caught a look of disapproval as she walked in a few minutes late.
Stories pile up on stories until you have a house of cards
made of broken glass and rusty razor blades that will mangle everything you
love when it collapses.
We do this all the time if we are not mindful of the
difference between the emotion that arises and the stories our mind tells us
about it.
This isn’t such a big deal with strangers around us on the
way to work, unless we decide to run them off the road or ram them when they
don’t go the second the light turns green.
But think about these stories when it comes to the people we
love. To the people who mean the most to us, but who also provide us with the
most fodder for the stories because of the length of time we’ve spent with
them, and because we are all human.
The mind can grind away on these relationships constantly if
we are not careful, especially when it begins telling us global stories about
the people we love.
She never cleans the kitchen.
He’s always late.
That kid never does their homework.
He’s always disrespectful.
Things are going to make us angry.
This isn’t a problem unless we let it be.
Unless we listen to the stories.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 8, 2017 | Blog
There’s this debate about whether or not anger is a primary
or secondary emotion.
I am not sure why it matters. Whether it stems from other
emotions or is its very own emotion, it never helps us solve our human
problems. Anger is dangerous precisely because of how we experience it. It
makes us feel powerful, it makes us feel like we are in control. It makes us
feel right.
The thing is, anger is rarely as justified as we like to
think it is.
A vast majority of the time, when I am talking to someone
about anger, we are really talking about fear and sadness and rejection and
insecurity. We are often talking about a sense of entitlement born of
selfishness. Many times we are talking about an encapsulated worldview that
leaves no room for change or discussion, so anything that pushes against that
is an automatic threat. It’s a difficult way to go through life.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that our anger is
righteous and pure.
Let’s say we are Jesus in the temple, correcting an affront
against God and the cosmic order. We are perfect and our rage is meant to
purify the world. Sounds awesome, right?
The problem here is that these things do not make
anger useful. I cannot think of a situation in which anger is more
effective than a rational approach, or of a situation that cannot be solved
without anger.
In fact, I cannot think of a situation that can be solved
with anger.
I do not understand why I cannot stand against injustice
without being angry at those perpetrating it.
I do not understand why I am not allowed to address
something someone is doing to me without feeling rage toward them.
Of course, anger will arise, but why should I be expected to
feed it with my thoughts?
Why should I pour gasoline on a fire in my living room?
For many of us, we wait until we are angry about something
before addressing it because it makes us feel more powerful and capable, and
then we wonder why it went poorly. We wait until our faculties of rationality,
compassion and seeing where the other person is coming from are burned out, and
then try to deal with things. How often does this work?
So, primary or secondary or tertiary or dead last, it
doesn’t matter. Anger is rarely productive. Very, very rarely.
In what situation is anger better than a rational
compassion?
What keeps us from addressing and confronting things with
the best of our nature?
What has anger ever really solved for you?
Recent Comments