I’m not a genius, just a normal guy like everyone else more or less. I don’t really think too highly of anyone, people just kinda play the cards they’ve been dealt and some might appear to be stars and others look like losers based on what those cards were.
But if there’s anything I’ve learned over the years that has elevated my approach to life it is this simple idea: life is not really what happens to you, it’s how you react and what you pay attention to in response. I’m not the first person to say that, and it’s a fundamental aspect of stoic philosophy (which I don’t always necessarily agree with), but it’s a very important part of how I like to live.
For example, you can see how this plays out in politics by observing people deeply entrenched in being a liberal or a democrat or whatever other label they’ve given themselves. Someone in the news might do something, and their first reaction is to respond accordingly with their specific filter they use to look at life. Two people stuck in opposing political ideologies might look at the same instance in the news and react in two completely different ways. For these people, whatever happens is always going to be fuel for their belief system.
I don’t understand how people can take guys like Trump so seriously when it’s obvious what he’s doing is just manipulating the average person’s ability to get sucked into the reality another person creates for them. It’s like he’s a practical joker and the hidden camera is never revealed because people get so angry all the time. The correct response should just be to be a blank slate emotionally to the best of one’s ability. What a person like Trump says or does in Washington has no immediate effect on my life here, other than the fact that someone in my social circle might bring it up. If nobody talked about Trump he’d probably have less power over the public.
Picture an animal for a second. A cat, a dog, a wolf, whatever. We don’t like to think that we are close to them, but we are. And in some ways they are smarter: they live completely in the moment and are not driven by dumb emotions, just whatever feels right in life. They aren’t angry about something happening in another country they can’t control. There is no Dog President to be upset about. If you flip an animal off they don’t even know what you’ve done, they just go about their day, eat food and go back to sleep. Try it right now if you have a cat or a dog: give em the middle finger and they don’t even know what you just did.
People take things way too seriously and personally in life, and they fail to remember that life is just a narrative we give ourselves and you can choose any single story at any given moment. I think metacognition is very important and thinking about how your own machine operates should be at the forefront of our minds, but nobody ever teaches you that in school. Sometimes I catch my own brain falling into the trap of offering me memories I no longer want to be apart of, and I have to remember I am capable of shaking them off. I might be in the kitchen making a cup of tea for myself, and at that moment my brain will be like, “Hey remember that time that girl broke your heart.” Or, “Remember the time you got into that car accident?” Or, “Remember the times people called you awful names in high school?” All of those negative thoughts while I’m brewing a bag of tea in the span of like 30 seconds: sometimes you have to be aware when your brain is not being your friend. It’s like a nagging child being a dick on purpose to get your attention. You just have to be cognizant of it and choose levelheadedness and happiness instead.
Here’s another example. The other day I had family over (a decision that was out of my control: I prefer to live in peace and silence, but I live with my parents, and have no choice who visits whether or not I want that to happen), and my home was packed. During an epidemic, the place was filled with people. Whenever more people are around, the likelihood that I get annoyed by them is always increased: it’s a natural part of life. At one point I was eating and someone was trying to take my picture. I kindly asked them to please not do so during such an unflattering time, and regardless of my request they still went on to do so. I was very upset with this person in the moment for being so selfish and stupid (I have found most people in the 21st century to be complete idiots when it comes to using their phones: they all lack discipline and think you have to take photos of everything), but I quickly felt my energy being depleted dwelling on it. So I just walked back to my room and got some work done on my third novel for a bit. It’s that simple.
You can choose whatever you want. If you tell yourself you’re awesome: congrats, you officially are. If you beat yourself up over something that was out of your control: that’s the path you are taking, congrats on wasting your time for that day. Personally, I have chosen to believe I am a great writer and artist even though I’m not, and it helps me to cope in life. My life isn’t going the way I’d like or thought it would, I want a giant house I can write in and have Scandinavian call girls frequent whenever I want, but by pretending I’m a brilliant writer who is working towards that goal it makes it seem like I am doing something productive with my time. Literally every second of the day is productive, because I’m always telling myself it’s adding up to something bigger in the end. Even though my dreams will most likely never come true, as adults we all forget that we’re literally allowed to think whatever we want.
If you think about it, the human brain isn’t really even that good. I mean, it is, but it’s also very problematic. The way we react to the stories of our lives is filtered through our own idiocy. If the human brain were a smartphone, it might not be your first choice. Humans are shitty, and the brain is the faulty thing we’ve been born with to depend on. So of course, naturally, there are side effects that come with the human brain. E.g, Negative thought loops, and tunnel vision for all the wrong things, etc.
It’s like guys who are stuck in depression and misery: anything bad that happens to them is immediately used as proof that they are right and life is all bad. This guy might say something like, “See. I told you. It’s all doom and gloom, my life sucks,” etc etc. And if anything good happens, they might be so far gone they don’t even take a moment to appreciate how awesome it was they won the lottery or whatever.
If I were to pick one image representative of the actual reality of life, to me it would probably be waves on a beach: good and bad shit comes and goes, life is indifferent to us all, we all die eventually, and that’s it. As humans we need to remember that all our problems here on earth are just short-term conflicts we should not engage with too much. If you allocate your energy to the right things your life will feel better.
