You and I – 4

I: I am thinking about the cycle of life. Imagine a mammoth tree; it starts from a seed planted on earth; then it grows to be a small plant; it gets taller, bigger and wider; it branches out, takes more space, becomes the nest of some birds, provides the shadows to the passersby; but one day after many years it die; it can no longer maintain its life.

You: So is the life of most animals and the human too. Is it not?

I: Yeah. I just realized that a full cycle of life has its peak and its valley. Let’s say when you were born you were in a valley, then you walked, walked, walked all the way up to the peak of a mountain, then you must have to come back to the valley in the other side. What is striking me the most is that it’s not a choice to stay either on the peak or the valley of the landscape. Time is forcing you to move and there is no constancy.

You: We are just experiencers experiencing life.

I: Then why do we attach ourselves too much to anything at all? Like our parents, our house, our babies, our career, our achievements, our this, our that.

You: Because at many moment in life, you have things or relationships which are replaceable and things or relationships which are irreplaceable. You are right that we delude ourselves with many of our assumptions and false expectations. But at the same time we require a certain purpose for us to live and move on the path from the valley to the peak, to the valley again. Many actually never reach the peak, many die on the way to the valley. There is probably no one exact peak either.

I: Life is confusing to me often times. I drive myself to achieve things, to go to places, to desire. I do things to make myself happy. But there are many things that make me unhappy. There are many desires that will never be fulfilled. But if I don’t chase, I will never achieve, right? But the process of chasing is tiring and makes me unhappy. Every rejections, failures break my heart, but when I stand up again, I become stronger. But there is probably no end of this cycle. Just like the day ends with a night and a night ends with a day. Or, a night starts with the end of a day and a day starts with the end of a night. But ultimately I will die one day. So is it that ultimately I just want to remain as happy as possible most of the times. That’s the goal?

You: Well, not a bad goal. Is it?

I: There is so much imperfection in this world. Don’t you think? So much unfairness, so much dirt.

You: Yeah. I guess we are in this mess because everyone is confused. Everyone knows for a fact that he or she is alive, feels pain, doesn’t want to feel pain, wants to be happy, wants to have things, can’t have things because of others, then wants to hurt others. A whole dynamics of give and take in unfair ways. And it’s good that our society is still progressing.

I: Are we really progressing towards a better world? I was reading this book. She is a writer from the past century. But her imagination, her wording, her observation just mesmerized me. I probably have never talked with a woman in the world of today where I live who is as convincing, creative like the author I was reading. But you see.. I guess most people these days don’t read or even write. Even I waste most of my time watching rubbish movies and videos than to explore my mind through reading or writing. It seems to me that all the advent of science and technology are making ourselves duller and duller, less of a human of some sort. We are losing more than we are supposed to gain as a human being. We are experiencing way less than our mind can truly conceive.

You: May be you are right.

I: I was also thinking that the society that we live in today doesn’t really have an incentive system for doing good deeds. We have clear incentive to be successful, to be dominant, but do we really have incentive to be just good persons? I guess it’s hard to establish such. Even though I have bad relationship with religion, I guess religion tried to exactly that- forcing people to do good with the fear of hell and God- that apparently doesn’t work. But in a world of today, does anyone want to be a good person anymore? What does it even mean by goodness?

You: These are hard questions. I wish I had answers. May be nobody has.

 

You and I – 1 : https://experienceandembrace.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/you-and-i/

You and I – 2 : https://experienceandembrace.wordpress.com/2019/01/27/you-and-i-2/ 

You and I – 3: https://experienceandembrace.wordpress.com/2019/01/29/you-and-i-3/ 

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You and I – 3

You and I – 1 : https://experienceandembrace.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/you-and-i/

You and I – 2 : https://experienceandembrace.wordpress.com/2019/01/27/you-and-i-2/ 

I: Have you ever lied to me?

You: I think so. But I think some lies might have been necessary.

I: Maybe. But when I know I was lied to, I feel differently towards those words I were told.

You: Well, feelings are weird creatures within. Aren’t they? How much do you think you understand how you feel. Rationale, on the other hand, gives you a way of reviewing them. If you see the utility of those lies, you might forgive me. Not that I care.

I: So, you are saying I needed to be in the delusion that very moment. Because you presupposed that I can’t handle the truth. That’s too much of an arrogance I would say.

You: You caught the asshole. But again I did it for what I felt right to do at that moment.

I: Well, acknowledge that you may have done a big mistake with your rational thoughts, your bag of ill-conceived ideas of me and my abilities.

You: I will have to think. Just calm down.

I: Okay. How do you stop craving something?

You: Depends on what you crave I guess. What do you crave?

I: I crave to recreate one memory. It’s this one time – I was with the girl I loved. It was in her apartment. She just came on top of me. I undressed her on the top and I kissed her breasts and she was holding my head. She was full of pleasure but she was calm like she was wanting it more and more. I have been with other girls after that, even probably tried to recreate with my feelings of guilt. But I no longer could, I never could feel the same way. I felt like I need her to recreate it, but I know it’s not possible. Maybe even with her. It’s probably will never be possible again. But I can’t stop craving. And every time I fail to recreate, I feel miserable.

You: It’s a memory you hold very dear to yourself. You know that you can’t recreate it so you will have to compartmentalize it. Somehow.. you will have to do it. Cravings are good. Just don’t let them kill you. You have seen the movie inception, right? Leonardo De Caprio’s wife Mal haunts him in his dreams. She is in his subconscious and he gets back to her through the elevator where she resides. Maybe because he can’t forgive himself. Nor is he willing to let the memories evaporate. He confines her, thus he gets himself confined even more ruthlessly. Do you think you might be doing the same?

I: Not intentionally as far as I can say. I started to realize that my desires are my enemies.

You: Because you can’t befriend them for some reasons. But that’s dreadful. You will have to be friends with them.

I: I see the futility in the harmony that you are asking me to have. Maybe I love chaos. Maybe that’s where I thrive.

You: It’s a choice ultimately. That’s just what I want you to know.

(to be continued ..)

You and I – 2

You and I – 1 : https://experienceandembrace.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/you-and-i/

I: It’s snowing outside.

You: Yeah, it’s beautiful how everything is covered.

I: What do you think about “Deja Vu”?

You: Like you feel that it happened before?

I: Yeah, it’s been happening to me quite a lot. And it makes me feel bored.

You: But, does that matter though? What’s wrong with experiencing it again? Is the desire to constantly be in a new situation the best for our psyche?

I: I don’t know. That’s what everybody is up to. Isn’t it? New is exciting- they say.

You: That’s the problem I think. If you can’t perceive every moment as new, rather always perceive it as a reincarnated old, then you are just living inside your mind too much, circling and ultimately destined to diminish into a point of meaninglessness.

I: You are right. Every moment is a new one. It’s a perception issue, but the issue is real. The boredom is inevitably there to drown.

You: Well, then you recognized it.

I: But it doesn’t help though.

You: Maybe it will. Hope is necessary.

I: You want to play with snow?

You: Sure. As you know, you will really be playing with yourself.

I: I have seen some beautiful pictures of places. I really want to go visit them when I can.

You: Nice. What kind?

I: Mostly beautiful natural places. Most of the time there are some beautiful people waving or walking or doing something. It’s just refreshing to see. I guess it will be great to be there for real breathing the air near the ocean, over the mountain, through the valley, highways.

You: Yeah, escaping creates the euphoria. Maybe for good.

I: I know.

You: You remember that you wanted to know about love?

I: Yes. What about it?

You: Do you think there’s an ocean of love or a sky of love?

I: I will choose air over water. Just a preference. I don’t know how to swim.

You: You don’t know how to fly either. At least you can learn to swim.

I: You see, you are too pragmatic. In my imagination, I want to fly. I don’t crave to dive into the water.

You: Right you are! You want things that you can not have. Just saying..

I: Good. Now I am pissed.

You: Haha. Like you always are.

(to be continued ..)

You and I

I: I like that you like to live in the moment.

You: We are always living in a moment. What do you mean? You think you are not living in the moment?

I: True. But what I mean is that if I am doing things now for something that I expect to happen in a future moment, am I living in the moment? I am bit confused.

You: Of course you are still living in the moment. But you probably don’t feel like living in the moment.

I: But if I am not feeling to be living in the moment, am I truly living in the moment? Isn’t there a distinction between fact and fiction? Or is it that everything is fiction?

You: It can be that everything is a fiction.

I: No, our reality, the world outside us might not be a fiction. Pain might not be a fiction. Death might not be a fiction. I am not sure about pleasure though. Pleasures can be fictitious. I don’t know.. You seem to be living in the moment whereas I can’t really claim it like that. Or I should say I don’t feel to claim it like that. I tend to feel that I know what is ahead of me. At least I can have a good prediction of that based on my prior experience. But I am relying on my thinking mind and my collected knowledge and my instinct.

You: But don’t you ever wonder to start your day like you are a newborn baby?

I: I actually do.

You: Have you asked yourself why you have that desire to be reborn? Is it because you are burdened with your past?

I: It can be. But I’d say it’s not as simple as that.

You: I saw an episode of Black Mirror the other day. One thing kind of struck me. They were saying that memory is a way to trigger you to get back to your past to change your path. I have never thought it that way?

I: In a way it’s true. Especially if you are taking an action based on your memory. Isn’t it?

(to be continued ..)

All you need is to just live

Every waking moment, we are experiencing. It is so obvious but it still takes a little stepping back to recognize. When I am conscious, my consciousness is filled with thoughts of various colors. We are all so colorful inside if we can assign a different color to each of the different emotion that we experience. We don’t feel the same way and that’s what makes the difference; because each of us had different experiences through our senses in a unique path in the environment. It’s like different colored, different sized bubbles in an open shared space. Each of us is like a bubble that expands, that pops. Bubbles collide with each other, merge, crash. It’s constantly changing. As long as the mind is active, it continues to interpret in its own way. In the physical world, we need a few requirements to survive. But on top of our physical reality, we created the emotional reality that we don’t really understand properly. All the accumulated genetic, environmental memories imprinted in our bodies and minds may be a little too much to grasp all at once. But ultimately all of it make who I am, who you are, who they are. It doesn’t require to understand every single thing to live, just like it doesn’t require to notice every single object on a road to navigate through the road. There are no ends of knowing. So, the quest of knowing ultimately becomes narrow based on what you are seeking for.

I just realize every day how integral love is to our existence. This intense emotion that we receive the moment we are born from our mother, we never stop seeking it. Of course in our own way, we have our own understanding of what love means to us. You probably have all heard about Freud. Basically, all he is saying is that the portion of our conscious mind that we are in control of or we think we control is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a huge hidden body under the surface of the water that is invisible. The unconscious mind is that huge hidden body that constructs the emotional network inside us, that in turn make us feel in a certain way in a certain moment and make us do actions. Because it is quite unfathomable, we remain a mystery to our own selves. And I guess we would probably not enjoy knowing everything either. But the seeking to dig deeper, get wetter with our emotional fuel should be welcomed.

Desire. The desire to be loved, desire to be seen, desire to be respected, desire to be visible, the constant changes in our desires. Where do all these desires come from? Sometimes I ask whether I can live without desires. Maybe I could if I didn’t have a physical body which wants food, sex, cravings to be touched, longings to be exhibited in a preferential way. Who am I talking to right now? Is there a listener within me that I am talking to, is there a reader within me I am writing to? I recognize all these entities need not be isolated. Maybe they are all one constructing the self that I can recognize and call “me”. Or maybe not as I can’t really explain all the unconscious processes inside me.

My problems are very simple to understand. I need food, I need sex, I need love. And that’s why I work. But I am uncomfortable when I don’t get them the way I want. But it’s so easy to see why I can never get them the way I want. And when I realize that my problems vanish. But sometimes I am just blind, and sometimes I am just stubborn and try not to see.

About 30 years. So many days I have lived. Why does it need to be so complex to live the next day? It’s not that different after all. It is just not complex at all. All you need is to just live.

In search of meaning or not?

Birth was not a choice, but living life should be and is a choice. There is no inherent one meaning for life, just because there is no one way of living life. Your meaning of life should adhere to your way of living life. However, the space where our lives are contained is a shared space. Therefore, we create some rules to abide by so that our distinct subjectivities don’t collide up to the point that we crush (which unfortunately is happening). The ordinary monkey way of living has evolved in such a way that we let these rules rule our inner selves so much that we can’t find our inner selves anymore and everything feels like a burden. Life feels meaningless. Think about it.. when you were a child, you were mindlessly roaming everywhere, probably was not giving a damn about the meaning of life. Then why do you give so much damn about meaning now? Because we are just bored, everything feels the same, we can’t change things, we feel helpless, we can’t create, we don’t know where we are heading, it all looks like a fog. But I can argue that if you can start thinking like a baby again, you will see you would feel differently. But I know it’s not easy. Time is a forward-moving trajectory. So, if you choose to live, it’s probably better to live the way your mind and body is in a union which then generate joy and fulfillment. There are some known facts from past experiences, scientific discoveries through neuroscience, yogic science, what can lead to the betterment of health and mind that we can follow to live longer and happier. Even though your body shares a lot of genetic memory, your mind already inherited a lot of baggage from the past, it’s probably always better to believe in the fluid nature of mind that can change and strive towards bringing good for you and others. And if you definitely need a meaning for yourself to move forward, just create one. I believe in taking the full responsibility for this life I am carrying.

Meaningless or meaningful?

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Guess what !! Nietzsche is almost always right. And Westworld is blowing me again and again. Just watched the recent episodes. Had to dig some explanations to really understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9kwaPFKcEs

Nietzsche writes that man’s problem “was not suffering itself, but that there was no answer to the crying question, ‘why do I suffer’ … The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far—”

Natural selection is optimized for survival, not enjoyment. Once you understand that, an awful lot of stuff makes sense.

No wonder we behave in ways that make us miserable — so long as we pass our genes on, our misery is of no account.

Nietzsche’s implication is that you cannot survive meaningless suffering unless you can find meaning. Finding meaning means the creation of values that structure life and make it possible to live in spite of “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. That’s how religion, desire, goals, accomplishment, sense of enlightenment – everything has originated ultimately.

(Some cut paste from agnostic and youtube.)

But profound. Isn’t it?

Breathing in an agnostic life

We love to hang out with other people. We love to feel safe. If we don’t have friends, if we feel rejected, if we feel unsafe, unimportant, we feel to die and in the extreme level, some take the decision to suicide. It doesn’t always need to have a religious origin as both religious and non-religious people suicide. For example, the suicide rate in Japan or Sweden (highly non-religious) is very high. But it’s easily understandable why a non-religious person can feel secluded, feel rejected, feel unsafe, feel unimportant in a religious community. So, for a non-religious person, just being non-religious, being knowledgeable about science and facts are not enough, they need to develop self-love, need to develop high interpersonal skills which go beyond anybody’s religiosity, may be need to try to be less argumentative and understandable about irrational human mind and psychology. It doesn’t matter what other people are determined of doing if you know very well about your own determination. But that requires a strong will power that takes time to develop and I know a lot of people, even myself very often don’t or can’t have it. But I strongly stand by these existentialistic/nihilistic/stoicist approach towards life that I learnt from Sartre, Neitzsche, Kahlil Gibran and other philoshophers. And I hope to continue to learn and grow and live amidst differences of all kinds with a smile in my face. So, it’s not sin at all to trust and value your own strength.

If you are not always thinking about God or Agnosticism/Atheism all the time, if you are the person who will not be bothered by every single religious bullshit you hear and can just lightly ignore the shallow talks to focus on good interpersonal relationship based on momentary smiles and joys, if you are involved with some of the plenty of fun activities like sports, dance, dining, kayaking, hiking, biking, running, video games, book reading, blogging, vlogging, cooking, yoga, arts, music and are willing to know passionate people who are involved with these activities and can share their passion, I don’t see why you won’t be able to subside the religiosity or religious conversation. And I don’t know how even a religious people can avoid such an interesting person like you. So, be interesting, be fun, be friendly, talk important things with those who may understand the importance, you will never be out of friends. But still you will often feel lonely like I am feeling in this morning coz I am far away from my family and haven’t met them for over 4 years and lots of other personal issues and insecurities. But I know I will move my ass to make my day as fun as possible. I make my day and I try hardest not to allow anyone to ruin my moments and my peace of mind even if they try hard. And I can tell you that most of my religious friends don’t dislike me, if not love me. Only one life we got. Enjoy with everyone ! And those can’t appreciate who you are after all these, why will we even waste a single bit of seconds thinking about them? We do because we are human, but may be we should not sometimes and let those feelings leave.

Oddness of existence

Pessimism alert! Bad trip alert!

However, I am optimistic.

I’ve been thinking about life and miseries and roaming on YouTube and watching some documentaries. It seems to me where ever you are, what relative condition a life is ticking, every living being seems like struggling and feeling pain and suffocation and longing for getting out of the cage. Each seems to desire to live in a better condition, has a goal where each wants to reach, but then it can not, and then it is frustrated and unhappy. Each seems to feel confined in its living condition. And it’s easy to die and the fear is real. It is like neverending unhappiness and struggle to live. All an individual animal and human think about are all that it don’t have, can’t have. Each has the survival instincts and the ability to feel joy and pain. Some are not naturally selected well. Some are trying to climb the ladder, some are falling, some are rising, some are winning, some are being extinguished. Some are not better equipped for existence, some are endowed with good social and physical environment, some are not. Some are lucky, but they feel unlucky. Some are unlucky, but are unaware of the way to bring a good fortune. For human, education and information acquisition seems necessary, but then even with education, with information you can feel trapped. It seems like in life feeling trapped is inevitable.

It was a wild trip for me through internet. Normally you call or recognize that you were in the dark side of internet or youtube after such trip, as if you try to kick yourself into the good reality from a bad one, as if you feel the desire that bad things don’t exist, at least not for you, you only want to watch the good stuff, feel the good feeling, as if you want to believe that your problems and miseries are the biggest problems on earth. But it’s not. But it’s also true that you are only stuck with yourself. The first and foremost thing is your wellbeing but it’s asy to be tricked if your world view is small nd not wide enough to have a global view of existence on our pale blue planet. All may be illusion, it’s hard to figure what’s real and what’s not, as most things are beyond your reach and beyond your subjective world.

Life should be easy to live. But the baggage from evolution, from culture are too hard and the trap seems to be too tight for any individual to break through.
I am on a peak of my personal realizations.
Nothing is weird.

My mind is mashed with conflicting thoughts. But it’s all good.

May be whatever you are, where ever you are, accepting and embracing it is the first step, and then the continuation. Being a human is probably lucky that you are uniquely positioned to think through all these. But then a human mind is so tricky, if it’s not filled with the positive stuff, if it’s not directed towards a good path, it can make a living hell out of itself even in the best livable condition. So, life is a blessing and a curse at the same time; it’s ultimately how it’s perceived. You can know the light, when you experienced darkness.. and vice versa.

If you want to have the same trip like mine…it will be a bad trip for you if you watch these videos sequentially.. . in total I probably watched 50 videos over a long time. Haha.

There’s also almost infinite good stuff and videos too on YouTube. You can always cherry pick and demand to see the good instead of the bad.

A struggling penguin..

Survival of a bear vs a seal

Tribal limitedness

A brothel in the south east

Unhappy women seeking for marriage

Crazy girlfriends

Unhappy rich people

Purpose

Sometimes I forget what I myself wrote.. And then when I read and realize again, I feel to slap myself for not remembering everything I told to myself. And I wake up.

“You don’t find purpose, because there is no purpose pre-ordained. You make your own purpose of your life. There is no ultimate purpose. I know, that feels like a huge slap on the face like most truths. Every morning you wake up, you will have to reinvigorate your purpose. You are free to change your purpose, you are free to not have any purpose. You are responsible for every thing your brain produces even though you have no control over most of them. You are mostly responsible for every action you make with your conscious, unconscious or subconscious mind. Yes.. Life is scary. But it’s better not to live delusionally but to face it. You were not alive on this mother earth for billions of years.. you won’t be alive on this universe filled with joy and distress for more than trillions of years.. So, the less than 100 years you got, don’t waste.. enjoy and live.. if you can have a purpose and propagate that in human culture, that’s a plus.. Even though there’s only one earth physically, but actually the number of perceived earth and the number of human brains are equal. If the purpose you think about is dictated by someone else, you are doomed. So.. You need to open your heart and reach other people who have purpose in their lives to learn and live and probably get a reference. And then.. you probably make your very own purpose. And be happy that you are alive. Pinch yourself to verify. You can either feel scared how little and insignificant you are amidst of the billions of exploding stars or you can think that you yourself are a stardust meaning you are part of everything. Every urge you have to eat, sleep, fuck are evolutionarily designed into you. Learn how to deal with it with good examples from others who lived meaningfully.. But eventually you will have to live on your own. Miserably if you choose wrong, meaningfully if you can make a purpose of your own and strive to be happy and productive. Existentialism at its core, but not ridiculing nihilists too. Hail to Sartre and Nietzsche. And blue is the warmest color.”

My other quora posts:

https://www.quora.com/profile/Zehady-Abdullah-Khan