thoughts
A few reflections
I saw ¨What the Bleep do we know" again a few days ago and while I was not terribly impressed with the scope of speakers nor how glossy and awkward the presentation was, it made one strong impression on me, we create our lives through intention, but also through conditioning. It makes the point that every time we do an action our brain's neural net forms connections correspondingly and that our most deeply ingrained habits(of mind, of body) are just the same. It rings true with my approach to changing things about myself, for example, nail biting. More than a dozen times in my life I've said to myself, "I'm done with it, simple as that" and resolve to never more. But after not too long I find my fingers back in my mouth. It seems to me, that determination is not enough, its takes to a degree, conditioning as my mind is not yet fully conscious nor focused. After a while of not being able to do something, you find yourself not needing to. So while determination sets the course, you need to take some measures to protect yourself from yourself. So I'm wearing gloves now and hopefully I'll ween myself off the fingers.
Also nervous habits, my shoulders tense up instinctively in many situations and I have to consciously lower them, but the point here is 'consciously'. The unconscious seems a pool of conditioned habits and karma-conditioned action. From the conscious mind we can rewire the unconscious to act more in accord with our conscious values. The highest form of this, of course, is the taming of the mind, learning to stay in the possible present and not be constantly whisked away by stray thoughts.
Yesterday's world was simpler, it was certainly very noble to want to work hard and have a piece of land to raise a family on, to want more and better, but with today's population, some sacrifices have to be made. Just 100 years ago the world was inhabited by only half as many humans and even try as we did to harm the environment we simply had not the technology nor the mass of people to do irreparable harm, but we were developing the mechanisms of capitalism and technology that once we had the proper scale we could implement to overtax and make our environment uninhabitable for humans. In this age of humanity, in order to advert climate COLLAPSE and even to simply find the greatest satisfaction, spiritual enlightenment, it requires a resisting and mastering of our human desires. For the first time in history the masses in the industrialized countries, and chiefly the US, must learn to want less, must learn restraint. But make no mistake, much of the world must want more, the over %50 of the population living on less than $2 a day NEEDS to consume more, but the average American is making $27000 a year and we would need the resources of 5 Earth's to allow the entire population of the planet to live at the American standard of living. The system won't allow it unless we continue to oppress and keep other peoples down. But we still have leaders(though not for much longer) who say things like 'The American way of life is non-negotiable'(Cheney). These leaders are stubborn relics that we must do away with or we will perish. Make no mistake, we WILL change, the planet can't support our way of life much longer, but as Annie Leonard said, we can either be at the steering wheel or get hit by the truck. One day the trucks will stop shipping in food because the oil has run dry and the abrupt change in our way of life WILL happen, or we can slowly and less painfully ease out of the situation.
I saw ¨What the Bleep do we know" again a few days ago and while I was not terribly impressed with the scope of speakers nor how glossy and awkward the presentation was, it made one strong impression on me, we create our lives through intention, but also through conditioning. It makes the point that every time we do an action our brain's neural net forms connections correspondingly and that our most deeply ingrained habits(of mind, of body) are just the same. It rings true with my approach to changing things about myself, for example, nail biting. More than a dozen times in my life I've said to myself, "I'm done with it, simple as that" and resolve to never more. But after not too long I find my fingers back in my mouth. It seems to me, that determination is not enough, its takes to a degree, conditioning as my mind is not yet fully conscious nor focused. After a while of not being able to do something, you find yourself not needing to. So while determination sets the course, you need to take some measures to protect yourself from yourself. So I'm wearing gloves now and hopefully I'll ween myself off the fingers.
Also nervous habits, my shoulders tense up instinctively in many situations and I have to consciously lower them, but the point here is 'consciously'. The unconscious seems a pool of conditioned habits and karma-conditioned action. From the conscious mind we can rewire the unconscious to act more in accord with our conscious values. The highest form of this, of course, is the taming of the mind, learning to stay in the possible present and not be constantly whisked away by stray thoughts.
Yesterday's world was simpler, it was certainly very noble to want to work hard and have a piece of land to raise a family on, to want more and better, but with today's population, some sacrifices have to be made. Just 100 years ago the world was inhabited by only half as many humans and even try as we did to harm the environment we simply had not the technology nor the mass of people to do irreparable harm, but we were developing the mechanisms of capitalism and technology that once we had the proper scale we could implement to overtax and make our environment uninhabitable for humans. In this age of humanity, in order to advert climate COLLAPSE and even to simply find the greatest satisfaction, spiritual enlightenment, it requires a resisting and mastering of our human desires. For the first time in history the masses in the industrialized countries, and chiefly the US, must learn to want less, must learn restraint. But make no mistake, much of the world must want more, the over %50 of the population living on less than $2 a day NEEDS to consume more, but the average American is making $27000 a year and we would need the resources of 5 Earth's to allow the entire population of the planet to live at the American standard of living. The system won't allow it unless we continue to oppress and keep other peoples down. But we still have leaders(though not for much longer) who say things like 'The American way of life is non-negotiable'(Cheney). These leaders are stubborn relics that we must do away with or we will perish. Make no mistake, we WILL change, the planet can't support our way of life much longer, but as Annie Leonard said, we can either be at the steering wheel or get hit by the truck. One day the trucks will stop shipping in food because the oil has run dry and the abrupt change in our way of life WILL happen, or we can slowly and less painfully ease out of the situation.