Complicating vs. Simplifying: Getting Out of the Is-ness of Things

[Ryuzaki]

In our talks on the forum about motivation and happiness and peace, I've been seeing a trend in most responses that's the opposite of what I do.

I guess you could chalk it up to the difference between Western and Eastern philosophy, where they tend to involve "Adding on to" versus "Taking away from," respectively. Or, as I look at it, complicating versus simplifying.

The key difference is between quality and quantity. Bandaids versus healing. Taking medicine instead of removing poison. Filling the void instead of feeding the void.

A great example would be our relationship with food. Take these two approaches for example:

• Dieting
• Eating less cruddy food and more healthy food

You might say that they're the same and I'd agree, on the surface. But the difference is in our psychological perception of it. In the 2nd option, we're simply trimming the fat, making way for less quantity and more quality. It's a very passive approach. Just stop doing dumb shit and all that's left is the good.

But with dieting, that's a psychologically active approach. As far as our minds go, we're adding onto our lives. We're exerting energy, self-control, restriction, discipline, all in the name of removing something. But you don't really have to remove anything, you just have to let it go. When you let something go, it's gone. It's not a part of you any more. With dieting, we're all still very caught up in food. We may not be eating the bad food, but we're thinking about it and constantly have to make choices about it. We're still very caught up in the essence of foodness.

And that's the key difference. Remaining in the is-ness of a thing, versus letting the bad fall away and not having to think about it at all.

If we're having to add diets, add scheduling, add social activity, add exercise, actively remove video games and movie watching... the problem is we keep trying to patch a problem instead of returning to the core code and fixing it.

I saw someone talking about their consumption levels of entertainment being problematic. All you have to do is be more selective. Choose higher quality entertainment and you'll get satiated and won't need more and more lower quality entertainment. If you have to schedule time for friends because you have little time due to your workload, then you need to let some of that fall away and into the hands of freelancers.

I'm not saying that I'm not guilty of all these things, because I am. But my fixes aren't excruciating. I can't accept another layer of mind games in order to fix the previous one. You simply can't solve a problem on the same tier of problem-ness. You have to ascend to another level mentally, and that always includes a refinement of your approach, versus more of the same approach that got you where you are in the first place.

There are people who have full time day jobs who work overtime and deal with their kids sporting events, homework, dinner, bed time, and have every moment of their weekend scheduled too. And yet they remain happy. Then you have a bunch of us who sit at home for work, make decent to baller money, living the dream, can do whatever we want whenever we want as long as we maintain our web properties... and yet we're not happy.

I propose that that's because of the open-endedness of our void. Theirs is scheduled to the brim and all spontaneity is removed. They have security in that structure. But for us, we have to design every moment of our lives. And that's a bigger burden than people realize. And I propose that the solution is less... less of low-quality everything. More of higher quality doses of work, eating, exercise, socializing, entertainment, leisureliness.

And the net difference ends up equaling less time and suffering overall, but a positive gain in quality and being satiated by life.

 

[Samwise89]

I'm guilty of this. Instead of choosing better food and less of it, I add exercise on. But then that becomes a problem with scheduling and my time. And when I start to get anxious about not having enough time, I do this stupid thing of adding more to my schedule in order to compound the problem. I don't understand what that's about but I've done that my whole life. Thanks for this post, it's given me something to mull over the next few days. Maybe I can get to the bottom of this and focus on the core problem instead of fixes added on top.

 

[chanilla]

This is a good post, surprised it hasn't gotten more action.

Currently going through something similar as you described above... Kind of ridiculous actually. I have more freedom now than I ever have, yet things are not in alignment, and I'm starting to feel it.

The points you touch on hit home precisely too, like not being able to go out with friends because I have to work. This is self imposed, but I see how I got there. Self discipline and motivation was required to achieve the current position in life, and I don't want to lose it. I was more than willing to forgo weekends, nights out, hell just about damn near everything, but it's taking it's toll after a while.

I'm stuck in grind mode, when I should start transitioning into Don mode. But I can't help it, it's who I've trained myself to be, to get where I am.

Decline in physical health, emotionally not 100%, stressed for no reason, anxiety, etc... are all side effects me thinks. These screens are fucking killing us, yet give us the world.

It's funny, going out for a few beers is a challenging decision. LOL srs. Potentially having too good of a time, and feeling like shit the next couple of days, is a pass I don't like to give.

What gives? I really don't know...

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'm stuck in grind mode, when I should start transitioning into Don mode. But I can't help it, it's who I've trained myself to be, to get where I am.

I'm the exact same way, and I conquer it over and over again, only to find myself in a new project where I struggle to let go of the reigns again.

Right now, the way I'm cracking that for my main project that I'm being too precious with, is to scale my activities like we did when we first really got into industrialization. Instead of me writing a post, creating images, adding links, and then publishing it before starting another, I'm turning my operation into a conveyer belt as much as possible.

So now I'm writing all of the titles for a large batch of articles. Then I'm writing the intros. Then I'm adding the outlines (which are all the exact same template), and so forth. It's become a lot faster and it removes me from being "inside the post" too much and is forcing me to take a more bird's eye approach. Once I have this method "felt out" good enough, I'm going to cook up another batch just like it but outsource it while I start on another smaller batch myself.

While all the posts can't be grouped and templated and conveyer belted like this, many can and can be offloaded.

stressed for no reason, anxiety

Yep. It's not just us. Several players here have mentioned the exact same sentiments. This type of generalized anxiety about our projects, always trying to get further ahead... it's all stacked on top of the normal worries of life too. It's not crisis mode levels of anxiety, but just a free floating annoyance that takes it's toll eventually.

I know for me that the issue is that I don't clock in and out. There's no clearly defined stop point where I go home and it's over. I work from home, then I spend my free time in the exact same chair on the same computer. There's always the knowledge that in my vertical there's new competitors daily and there's old ones still making forward movement. So I have to keep moving to raise the barrier against the new guys and also try to make headway against the old guys too.

But really the only way to get that done is to outsource as much as possible, like we talked about above.

Sometimes I'm, stupidly, content to let the months and years go by while I grind with almost no social life, because I keep thinking about the liquidation event and being done. But will people like us be able to be done or will we start the next bigger project? At least at that point we'll be sitting on a relatively larger chunk of cash, which should remove some pressure and anxiety.

I said all of that to say "I hear you, me too." We have to outsource, and eventually we have to have managers to deal with the outsourcing. We need an entire corporate structure.

 

[Andrey]

In reality we are naturally empty. But we have to have courage to face the emptiness, to acknowledge it. We are an immaculate awareness, aware of the most subtle objects of perception such as feelings and thoughts and things that we have no words for, yet we take ourselves to be the thinker and get stuck in the mind. You are the Is-ness. Out of this emptiness everything manifests. Emptiness is the infinity and because it is formless and it contains in itself potentiality for anything that can be imagined.

This emptiness is not stuck in any dualistic concept: to take away nutrients or to add nutrients. Often the truth is neither this nor that. We might be deficient in nutrients, but to truly address this deficiency, we need to cleanse our all the crap first, for our bodies to be able to absorb the nutrients that we miss. But if you get stuck in either extreme, you become a fundamentalist, unbalanced and it has to fail to bring about balance again.

Can God be anything other than immaculately empty mind? If it is not empty than it is not infinite, bound by qualities. So face the void, be the void, be empty as much as possible, become comfortable with it, start taking it to be yourself instead of the anxious mind that keeps on blabbering.

For most of us, we take ourselves to be some point in the middle of our heads. From my experience a really good practice is to put attention on the heart center (not physical heart, not emotional heart, but emptiness in the heart center). At first it feels as if you are the mind trying to be the heart. After awhile, you see that you are the heart and the mind is upstairs. It is up to you to listen to the mind or just ignore. It is a great freedom.

In fact science has shown that there are more nerve signals going from the heart to the brain, than there are from the brain to the heart. If you are in the mind, you are effectively a few mili-seconds too late. If you are in the heart you are the awareness itself, a place where what needs to be known is known by itself.

If you look at the energetic centers of the body (chakras), the heart is the 4th center out of 7. So it is the middle point of the body, the center point. So for our system to be in balance we have to abide in the heart. Unless we want to be top-heavy and topple over.

Dive deeper brothers, there is hope. In order to really open that third eye, you need to open your heart first. There is no illumination without surrender, so surrender to emptiness, be okay with boredom, and first get content with yourself. Out of that peace will grow. Peace that transcends all knowledge. Out of peace real love and joy can grow.

 

[GMerov]

Live from the inside out not from the outside in.