Time Also Changes Over Time

     "... the past is now barely present in my thoughts. I believe the main reason for that is children, since life with them in the here and now occupies all the space. They even squeeze out the most recent past: ask me what I did three days ago and I can't remember. Ask me what Vanja was like two years ago, Heidi two months ago, John two weeks ago, and I can't remember. A lot happens in our little everyday life, but it always happens within the same routine, and more than anything else it has changed my perspective of time."

       Karl Ove Knausgaard "A Death in the Family - My Struggle: Book 1" Vintage Books, London, 2014, p32.

Eyes & Hearts Crusted Over

     We only become aware of the hard layers of armor over our eyes & heart AFTER some of it has been shed. Before that, it was simply how the world was seen, felt, experienced. This causes so much cynicism, hostility, anger, bitterness and other types of hell. 
     Each of us is absolutely certain of our own perceptions, self-concepts, worldviews. Yet, we see everything as WE are - we're mainly seeing our own rusting armor.

     The more we let go of our own baggage (armor, cross, neuroses, "shit"), the more lovable everyone - including ourselves, and everything becomes. Reality doesn't bite after all!

 

Openness to Inner Experience

     “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”      Anais Nin

     Is this an obscure mystical fantasy or the literal truth? Does the quality of our inner life determine how we experience the world outside the borders of our own skin? How do you perceive life immediately after feeling betrayed by a loved one or immediately after a cherished project went down in flames? How does that compare with waking up after a great restorative sleep when you feel thoroughly refreshed, alert & crisply aware?

     Despite the fact that the quality of our inner state of being is all-important, most of us tend to shy away from our own inner world & focus almost all our efforts externally, relying entirely on the external world to provide us with a good (or at least OK) quality of life. Reliance on externals including all the distractions & pharmaceuticals (prescribed & under-the-counter), to sustain our inner world, is short-term gain for long-term pain.
     The intelligent, mature approach is to deal directly with the issue - to investigate, with curiosity, our inner state, which is after all the ultimate biofeedback of our life. Our mood, how we feel, has causes AND consequences. How we think also has causes AND consequences.
     We can & must - if we're interested in living a free evolved human life - observe all of this directly & consciously make all necessary adjustments. This is mindfulness practice! Mindfulness-based therapies are making a huge impact, for a reason.

Am I Strong or Weak, a Success or a Failure?

     Don't we feel that our family, friends, and society in general expect us to work very hard, be very busy, very successful, wealthy, famous (at the very least locally), and acquire as soon as possible, most but preferably all the signs of success: million+ dollar MacMansion home, prestige cars, designer clothes, prestigious club memberships, private schools for the kids, prestigious summer home, large sail boat, fine wine cellar, regular exotic vacations, etc? The need to be seen as knowledgeable, to be seen as competent are very much part of our personalities - to be seen as successful is almost certainly also part of our makeup.
     And if we never acquire most of the (above) obvious external trappings of wealth, will we be perceived - by others & even ourselves - as weak, lazy and perhaps even a bit dull - a failure? How do we deal with this? Can we allow it?
     Not long ago, showing off one's wealth was considered to be in bad taste, uncouth, crass, "nouveau riche."
     What proportion of health-care professionals can - from practicing good medicine - earn the money required to pay for all that "bling" above? And of the tiny proportion who do, how hard do they have to work to do so? What must they give up in the process?

     If one's top priority is to be seen as "very successful" by material standards, many things can, and do go wrong.
     Constant dissatisfaction with our possessions, is a nightmare created intentionally by big business through advertising. One would hope that health-care professionals are wise enough to realize that "the one who dies with the most toys wins" is a joke, not our true calling.

     See also: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/12/250-presents-presence.html
     and: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/11/220-hows-work-working-for.html

 

Photo: UncleFai   www.dpreview.com