Work in Progress

Death

Death is life’s greatest invention. It keeps our moments numbered in our love finite.

You never know when you’ll be doing some thing for the last time. But everything that you do will be done for the last time. This can be a very powerful realization. Every bad moment or negative thought is fleeting. No matter how many times can you enter that state there will eventually be a last time. The goal, of course, is to have a few of the bad moments while maximizing the good. And while there are always trade-offs between pleasure now, or later, the goal is not to be the richest person in the cemetary.

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Life is something that happens in a flash.
We just have a brief moment here,
and then we're gone.

Satisfaction

This is a constant battle; being satsified with what we have.

It is why life changes so drastically as we grow up. Why our childhood is different from our early adulthood (20-40), middle age (40-60), and later life. What we need to feel satisfied changes, and society does a bad job of teaching us how to speak up. How to diagnose and discuss disatisfaction is terribly tricky. Thankfully, listening to others can help!

65 reflect on 35.
Desires -> bain of budhism
- Financial freedom, having a family, having a life partner, having good sex, having good health, the list goes on.
Listening to others to helps to focus our priority in this long list of desires.
It also serves a purpose. Without desires, and the feeling of wanting more, we’d not progress. So be careful not to eliminate desires all together.

Western Democracy

This needs fixing. Fuck gerymandoring. Fix the first past the pole. Incentivize voter turnout for more representation. Educate to limit ignorant voting. Remove lobbying for financial gain -> but keep lobbying for positive change.

The Luck of Lemons in Life

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Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.” 

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.

This story of a Chinese farmer, presented by Alan Watts in a collection of lectures titled “Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life”, highlights the uncertainty of life wonderfully. Never knowing the consequence of (mis)fortune, is a lesson not often taught. Instead, young adults often learn only half this story through their own experience, to the detriment of their moral. That is, good fortune in one’s adolescence doesn’t necessarily lead to good fortune elsewhere. This is an obvious statement, and a massive generalization, but the idea here has massive consequences on our moral.

Take for instance…

great childhood -> good first job, post-secondary school, love, or whatever is important to you
overtime, the job stagnates, school sucks, the relationship becomes less fulfilling, or whatever maybe the slow down without a clear cause
without a clear cause, the negative thoughts which resulted from a “positive situation” can grow; sometimes too large to be dealt with alone. But without a clear cause, it can seem easier to live in poorly designed moments that suppress the thoughts/feelings/situation, than work through the lemons on our head.
But these lemons have power. This is the misfourtune that leads to fortune.
Although it is impossible to know how long we have between the cycles, it is guaranteed that our brains bounce back. Mother nature is sneaky, she hardwired adaptive architure into the mainframe, so our software is never done updating.
It is impossible to know how the hard times will change us, or which doors will open because of it. But it is certain that your situation will improve.
In the meantime, talk about bad times, for they are real and need addressing. But keep your moral up too - for without it, you are harder to help, and slower to see the positive change happening around you.