I am continuing the “fire in the belly” concept from the previous article
I am what you would call a “quickstart”…
If I want to be truthful, grrr, all that jumping in with both feet is the result of wanting to reduce the discomfort. It’s a release of the tension, and a dampening of the fire.
I am noticing that I want to play Freecell to get a little pleasure to take away my discomfort, from whatever I did right before…
It is not comfortable to have committed to increase the fire in my belly. Just the opposite.
It is not comfortable, it is literally painful to observe the many (countless) ways I reduce the tension, and make my life comfortable.
So I jump to Freecell… and, of course play Freecell as a typical Quickstart: jump without looking.
I have been training myself to look before I start to play…
for 3-4-5 years… I can’t remember. But if the amount of attention, humility, and effort I have needed to control my quickstart tendencies, at least some of the time, if the amount of effort is any indication, this increasing the fire in your belly is a lot of work.
Is it worth it? You get to say.
I say yes. You’ll probably say: Hell no.
Or will say “yes” but only to release the discomfort of looking at all the ways you are a no or a ‘no way’.
Suspect yourself to return to “infantile will to power” at each and every opportunity. It’s reasonable. You can survive, maybe even make a living that way. But you are not a person when you do that. Not really… Politicians will love you, your PTA will love you, your church will love you, because those institutions depend on you not becoming, not being a person.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
It is not comfortable to be an unreasonable man.
You also stand out like a sore thumb. Ouch.
It is not reasonable, it doesn’t make sense to endure pain for something as elusive as the next evolutionary level of your self and of humanity.
You see, 200,000 years ago the humanoids left the forest: as a group. There was no individual action, no need for individual courage there.
The 100th monkey fable is a fable… It was created to reduce the tension you feel at being comfortable at doing things in the same old same old way. (All myths, all fables, all religions were created to reduce your inner tension. To lure you into feeling that all is well, you know everything, you have all the answers, and there is nothing for you to do. All designed to kill the fire in your belly.)
The evolutionary jumps were all accidents… some unreasonable or insane member of the “tribe” went his own way, and maybe some others followed him, but it was insanity for the fish to leave the water for dry land…
And it’s insane for a human today to want to venture to “human being” territory… Insane.
Even, I’d say, it is quite insane to pay attention to feelings, instead of watching the thoughts… But of course the shared illusion that the thoughts have anything to do with it, anything to do with anything is very comfortable. And very misleading. Because it is simply put, inaccurate. Wholly and totally.
Thoughts have nothing to do with anything. They are commentary
The thoughts are the foam on the river… not the river.
Are you insane enough? It’s OK if you aren’t… but now you know what is the price you have to pay.
Denying the need of meeting your own expectation is one. Very painful. As painful as hunger. As unfulfilled sexual need. As the pain of a life wasted.
As the pain of dying as if you haven’t existed.
Use this pain to guide you.
