Tiny post on happiness and habits

 Still doing good. I've thought back over the past month to things I've changed recently that might account for my positive changes in mood/affect. I think friends are still the primary thing: I've been going out twice a week to events, which is good. My food is consistent, I don't keep many sweets at home, I sleep when I am tired and eat when I'm hungry. I have no debts. I take cold showers. I walk every day. I read lots of books-- sometimes this adds up to like 6 hours a day or more. If a book doesn't hook me, I drop it and get another.(the digital lending program of the local library is a wonderful thing) Being online for only one hour a day recently has really pushed my average book reading time to the moon.

There you go: my recipe for happiness in a nutshell. Friends are key. Happiness is nothing if not shared.

Thoughts Spiraling in Many Directions...

Reading today: Contemplative Prayer by Merton, and Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. Have I mentioned that I love Taleb's writing? Very entertaining and he covers the subject of unknown unknowns to a degree that I've not seen done anywhere else.

I think cold showers are perhaps the best thing I've done for myself in a long time. The ability to withstand small systemic shocks (such as the discomfort of a splash of cold water) is perhaps one of the most useful skills to have in life. Am I afraid of being cold for a minute? Do I hesitate? Can I push through it? Is it as bad as I think it will be? The whole lesson is within the activity itself which brings me to another case of that.

Buddhism. Yes, those of you that know me, we've tread this ground before, but now I see it with new eyes. First we'll have to look at the four noble truths:

1. there is suffering(dukkha.: stain/pain/suffering)

2. there is origin of suffering. (our own actions, mental and physical)

3. there is cessation of suffering (all suffering that has an origin has an end)

4. there is a path to the cessation of suffering (see the problem, see the origin, see the end-- the path is the linkage between these, and also the conclusion of truths 1 to 3.)

The thing that feels completely obvious to me now, that was not before is that the system of Buddhism only addresses suffering that can be changed by actions. This lines up with something I read elsewhere, which is that in terms of life satisfaction 50% is genetics, 10% is environment, and 40% is our own actions. Buddhism's methods care primarily about that 40%. Is it not said: do good, don't do evil, train the mind?

I do not think that the buddhist path can be fully attended to by someone who has many things on their mind, or many possessions (see: strings of sensuality) that tie them to the world. If objects lead to identity formation, then fewer objects, and fewer variations between objects, should lead to a firmer sense of identity right? And yes, I'm referring to self-construct here, or the construction of self. (I know, I know, all the stuff about 'no-self.' That's useful in some cases, and being able to fabricate a sturdy identity is useful in others: which is where I'm at right now. Trying to deconstruct and reconstruct my own life.)

Do note that I said: 'fully attended.' Buddhism is still for anyone who wants it, to the degree that they choose to embrace it. In my current thought, I view Buddhism mainly as an extensive form of Dialectics in the sense of discourse, the dialectic method: except that instead of debating with external people, it's about what I tell myself about things, especially past or future events.

Do I think something coming up will be really good? Well, maybe it will be terrible. How can I know? Predictions are very useless the further away the date of an event is from my current point in time. I can make ok predictions about myself, today, tomorrow maybe. But past this it all starts crumbling: the world has far too many parts. It is inconstant, constantly shifting and whirling. This basic idea of thought-counter-thought-- anything can be a good idea or a bad idea, right? So thoughts of the past and future end up being... only very marginally useful.

I can't go forward, or back-- and I can't stay still. So what is there to do? Forget about movement, about where I'm going. I can be here now, or thinking of the future or past. There is a relevant bit in Ecclesiasties, about 'whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might.' and 'eat, drink and be merry. This is nothing, and we're all going to die.' At this time, I can think these thoughts and strangely, unlike in the past, the idea doesn't make me depressed.

Unfortunately, I'm out of typing time. Or perhaps fortunately, as I've gone all over the place this time. >.<

How much journaling can I do in a half hour? This much!

 The second day of one hour of internet time only. Yesterday, I finished reading 'Goodbye Things' by Fumio Sasaki. It's a good read, though I skimmed the character bios at the front and the bits of the book that read like product/apple advertising overall. The most important takeaway for me, I think, is the idea that whatever I own becomes part of my identity: the implication being that by saying goodbye to many things, maybe I can craft my own more internal identity, that is not tied to things. Or it'll trigger some sort of existential crisis but... well. Doin' it anyway.

I did sort through lots of my things that were hidden out of reach or in drawers. This was something I had already been meaning to do for a long time, but without constant distraction yesterday, I just started in on one area, and then kind of zoned in and spent five hours cleaning. Very necessary. Now I have many things in bags-- I'll let them sit for a while, in case I feel the need to tear into them to rescue something I decide is special... but when I'm ready I expect I'll say goodbye to most of it.

I have also been diving into 'Searching for Sunday' by Rachel Held Evans. Which is good, and well, more relatable than expected. I grew up Mormon, until I one day just stopped going. I wish at that time someone had pulled me aside and had explained to me that there are many ways to interpret the bible, instead of what had happened: I was too smart for my own good, and the literal interpretation was the only way I'd known. Peter Enns and Rob Bell's books discuss a variety of ways to view the bible, if you want to dig more into that sort of thing. I've greatly enjoyed most things I've read or heard by Enns, but that is perhaps because his views align pretty closely already with my own current thoughts, though are backgrounds are very different.

But Searching for Sunday is more about searching for community, dealing with doubt, and what the Church/community IS in the modern day. And maybe why it's dying. And what it could be going forward. It's a long bit of musing and my own doubts and worries overlap somewhat with Held's own, which is perhaps why the book was so popular among so many people. (Or at least, I assume it was? I haven't looked up sales stats or other's reviews, so I don't really know.)

I need to get back to Contemplative Prayer by Merton before my time on the library loan is up...

I am still thinking about Moab. And all the other times I've been to strange places. I think the key to my unhappiness that I've felt during travel has nothing to do with where I'm at physically-- except for being alone. I think it is feeling alone that is the killer of happiness when I travel. Yet I was surrounded by people. So many spoke to me-- all interactions were pleasant.

I know that I want to go back to Moab one day. I would first like to resolve my income issues and actually 'earn' the trip by saving up money. Instead of burning current savings to go, basically. I think that will feel much better as well: to save up, to go with a set budget, acknowledge that it may not be a 'forever move' and be open to what happens, but ready to return to WA if things don't pan out after a few weeks. (basically what I did last time I went. Got injured, slept in hostel, returned to a more familiar place)

On minimalism: I would now actually call myself a minimalist, where in the past I've argued against ascribing this label to my self. So what has changed? I am now intentionally reducing my possessions, and doing so with an eye to keeping their numbers low. But there is a secret. Just because my material possessions are small, does not mean my online presence, my bank balance, my saved pictures, library of kindle books, and etc are going goodbye. I plan to keep a lot of these more intangible things, that do not take up space to 'own', but do require some time to maintain and make use of. Keeping that from consuming me is both challenging and easy: because there is only one portal through which I can benefit or be harmed my the iceberg that is my digital 'stuff.' That is the computer, and the internet.

But I do want to be able to pack up and leave easily if I want to. I don't want to leave lots of things behind that others have to deal with-- or that might tempt me to change how I evaluate situations: to come back to a subpar situation just because 'well I left all this valuable stuff there!'. For me, that is the danger of possessions. I want to be able to settle down as I please, but take lightly to the wind in the event of changes of heart or catastrophic events. Just a feather on the breeze, a bit of vapor on the wind-- after all, I'm only passing through life right?

Thoughts on limited internet use

 I am going to try, going forward, to just have one hour of internet use a day. That's laptop and phone data, primarily. My one hour today includes writing this post directly into blogger's text editor. Why do this? Because I can remember the happiest days of my life. They were days where I had no internet and what felt like unlimited free time. Of course, I am older now with a few more things I have to take care of-- but I can strive to recreate that time. Or to bring that time in the past forward in time to the now.

What prompted me to do this? Partly memory, partly my own realization of just how much time I spend wrapped up in a dopamine drip youtube bubble, and partly some things that Nassim Taleb talks about in Black Swan about how adding more information to a person tends to add more 'noise' in the 'signal to noise ratio' sense. So in some things more information is actually toxic to a person's well being and decision making.

I am not sure how it will go. If I were certain of benefits, I'd already be doing it, right? So it's an experiment for me. Which also doesn't mean it will be 'good for everyone'. Or good for me all the time. It's important to view this sort of experiment as play, not as work.

So how can limited internet time lead me to more play and maybe more joy in my life? That's the big one. :D

Should Should Should

 I should do this. I shouldn't do that. I should be more consistent. I should tackle x, y and z even though I don't want to.

SHOULD: Verb.
1. used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone's actions.

Feeling like I should do something should be a clue: ding ding, your bullshit detector is going off. Why do I even feel like I should do this? What happens if I just-- don't?

Non-essential personhood

Immortality begins at 40 is something I just read recently, and it prompted the following thoughts. It also led to an old blog post about 'gun collectors' in the once popular game Borderlands 1. Yes, that one. The good one.

Something that has only just sunk in for me recently as a person who has turned 31, and has barely a career to speak of, and no children, and barely any extended family to keep up with is that I am non-essential to the world at large. This is because my stake in the usual games of life is minimal, thus, my care for those games when others are involved is minimal, and their care of me also trends toward minimal, unless they have a prior attachment for some reason. Hello old friends.

The good news is, I'm a bit closer to free on the sliding scale. The bad news is well, I'm not anyone's problem. I do not anticipate anyone taking care of me, but me, as life goes on. I am, in terms of the human race as a whole, a non-essential person. Please don't take this to mean that I'm depressed. Compared to previous years, I actually feel abundantly better about myself and my situation than I ever have before.

I've started playing Diablo 2 again. The old version, 1.14d with Plugy added on. Chasing that limited universe where things aren't so chaotic. Also chasing some Unique type items I never got around to getting when I was younger.

Personhood - mask and container...

 To be a person is an activity: like wearing a mask, or, to stretch further, like being water in a container. But 'a person' is just that, a covering or container for something else. A daemon, a whirlwind of impermanent urges and desires-- a screaming mess.

Personhood can decay, revealing the 'ugly' beneath. This is basically what happens to anyone who ends up living in isolation from others. It's a rot by degrees-- a darkening and flattening of affect via lack of use, and lack of consequence over that lack of use. Every drug user and homeless person you can see was once 'a person' and quite sane. They appear insane because their behavior lacks the rational and/or social framework that you, as the observer, use to evaluate their behavior.

A fragment of thought I had while reading this:

https://meltingasphalt.com/personhood-a-game-for-two-or-more-players/

There is a range of broken personhood where one is considered an eccentric. Interesting and entertaining, endearing, like a cat missing a leg. But it's far too easy to miss the mark. On one side you're just normal, on the other side, well, if people are calling you crazy, remember that they have reasons to think so.

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"One of the most dramatic breakdowns of personhood occurs merely by labeling someone as "mentally ill." This starts a downward spiral in which people stop treating the patient as a full person, and as a result she becomes less incentivized to act as one. They may or may not subject her to various indignities (like restricting her freedom), but what's equally corrosive is when they stop holding her to the same standards as everyone else. As a result, she becomes less incentivized to hold up her end of the personhood bargain, further justifying the treatment others are subjecting her to. In this way, the virtuous feedback loop that normally upholds and reinforces personhood — the feedback that coaxes behavior toward ever more integrity, consistency, and good manners — breaks down, and a vicious feedback loop takes its place. When back-ward psychiatric patients start smearing their feces on the walls, it's because they're at the bottom of this vicious cycle, and resort to forms of attention-grabbing and manipulation that lie outside the personhood contract.

Not all labels of mental illness degrade one's personhood, of course. It depends on how severe the illness is. It also depends, crucially, on how frequently other persons (and the patient herself) explain her actions as arising from the illness, instead of arising from everyday reasons and motives. If she breaks a promise and her friends chalk it up to depression, then she's in more trouble than if they simply shrugged and said, "Pffft, what a flake." This accounts for some of our reluctance to share mental-health diagnoses with our broader network of acquaintances and coworkers." ~ from the above article.

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That about sums it up, eh?

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/02/18/a-dent-in-the-universe/

This is also a good read. Leaving it here for now as a reminder to maybe write more on it later.