Better at Nothing… Something

I was just reviewing something I had written a few months ago when I was having one of my profound moments (well I reckon they are profound – in hindsight sometimes they are just me getting something I didn’t get before – this is particularly hard to accept, especially when everyone else got it before you!).  It is about mindfulness and I suppose the best way to describe it is to just transcribe it:

“I have been writing for a long time now (I am guessing 2 years…) to be a better man.  When I say 2 years I am talking about when I discovered mindfulness and realised, that understanding this was how I would understand me.

It takes a long time to understand that mindfulness is about everything and nothing; changes nothing and changes everything.  It all has to do with nothing in your life and everything in your life.

But, even when you understand and accept that, you have to live your life everyday and everyday is full of noise;  the noise of life that takes your concentration and blurs each day, year and moment into the next.

So what does this revelation do for me?

Nothing, everything…… it makes me notice my life.”

Better than 10%

I read somewhere that 90% of all information on the internet is just a rehash of the 10% of truly original materiel.  It might be like a lot of things on the internet, that is, complete rubbish!  However, I realised that we are influenced so much by the stuff that is going on around us.  How much of what we think is really original thought and how much is us just thinking what someone else told us, or in the worse case scenario, told us to think!

People who know me may think that I spend far too much time thinking about statistics and odds (just to let you know I suspect Texas-Holde’m Poker is possibly the best game in the world as well as the best psychological experiment in human interaction).  I do think that thinking about, I mean truly thinking about the chances of something happening can be a worthwhile exercise in making decisions – although it is obvious that a vast majority of the population do no do this…… you WILL NOT win xlotto, stop buying tickets – it is 76,000,000 to 1, that is three times the entire population of Australia – looking at it that way, NONE of us will win!!!!

So, the percentages and odds are interesting in looking at the world and life.  I once gave a lecture which was attended my a neighbourhood group of concerned citizens about things that were happening in their area.  Before I went to the lecture I did a bit of statistical analysis.  I told them at the lecture that things were in fact very dangerous.  Statistically it became clear that they were in more danger of being KILLED in a car accident coming to, or going home from, the lecture than they were EVER (for the rest of their lives!) being involved in the ‘concerning trend and dangers’ in their neighbourhood.  I don’t think they really believed me, but, they were the facts….  I never checked to see if they all made it home?

I have to write this, although there is no basis in anything scientific I have bothered to research; but, all of us at one time or another have thought (or probably been told, we just thought we thought it) that at the exact moment you were doing something someone else in the world was doing exactly the same thing (how weird is that, in that when I was writing the above I was thinking of someone, somewhere is the world, sitting at their computer, writing their blog, about exactly the same thing that I am writing about now… and they suddenly realised that somewhere in the world, someone was sitting…… you get my drift).

Which brings me to the point of this post.

It might have a bit to do with the idea that you, and me, might already think that there is not a whole lot of ‘new’ going on in any case.  This is of course other than the ‘new’ idea we are all going to come up with one day that will make us overnight millionaires (although even nowadays you have to be a billionaire as millionaires are everywhere – or so we are led to believe…).

In writing my blog entries I am often just rebadging, rewording or recounting the thoughts, ideas, and/or theories of others.  So… I was just sitting here thinking could I actually write a truly original blog entry.  It is pretty hard to imagine writing anything that is not influenced by things you have read, seen or been told.

As I keep thinking, is being a better man being a different man.  Will I be a new original man, obviously better, or will I just be the same man, but doing things differently.

This reminded me of a story I once read about paradoxes.  If you are restoring a boat and have to replace a few planks in the hull, how many planks do you have to actually replace before you are not actually restoring the boat but building a new one…?

Maybe the magic 10% is the answer; but that seems far to small amount to be considered changing something so far from the original that it is not the original anymore. Although I suspect just about everyone at one stage or another will say if you replace 50% of something then it isn’t the original something anymore… or is it?  I also heard that in using someone else’s material if you change 10% of it then it is considered new material. Just for information I have no basis for what I just wrote other than the vague recollection that I might have read it somewhere, or heard it, or been told it.  There is a great example of this in a movie called ‘Flash of Genius’.  I can’t give you the punch line which relates this movie to this post, but it is in the final couple of scenes when he describes what is truly inventing something and what is really original thought.  It is based on a true story which always helps stretch our gullibility that it is good for us to watch and believe, and that it may really, actually be true.

So here I am, in my ‘better man project’ writing about original thought and I have spent most of the post writing about what others have said, or written, or even made into a movie.  Maybe original thought can only exist in the realms of the mind that we haven’t begun to understand yet, or, maybe original thought is for the geniuses that are discovering the universe with mathematics (I can never quite get my head around that – just like I can’t ever quite get my head around a mathematical problem that they have been trying to solve for years – isn’t 1 + 1 always going to be 2 – so just work it out; we have calculators to help – stop using the blackboards and squiggly lines!!!)

Maybe original thought is not about new ideas at all. Perhaps it is about understanding.

I don’t know if this post has contributed to making me a better man, but it made me think about the odds of something happening, if you do it long enough, they usually improve…. Unless you’re insane (click here to see Einstein’s insanity quote).

I refuse to believe that there is nothing new to be discovered, my religion does not allow this!! I also believe that perhaps discovery and understanding are the same thing but we perceive them so differently and find that sometime neither are enough. But, then when is enough, enough in a world where enough is never enough!

10% may not be very much! but at least someone, somewhere is being new and probably writing about it right now, sitting at a computer on the other side of the world…

Also, remind me to write another post about six-percenters, that is one of my favourite statistical anomalies.

 

Better as a Dancer

I have just returned from my daughters school dance concert….

If you are a parent this may bring moans of oh, no, how many of them have I sat through.  Well I have sat through a lot.  My girls did ballet from when they were in kindy; those were the concerts that you sat through for a couple of hours to see your daughter on stage for about, oh, let me think… 30 seconds!

They were also the concerts that afterwards I would also say to the girls “Why do you walk around on tippy toes, why don’t they just get taller girls!”… which was always greeted by moans that you can only hear the tone of after doing a really good ‘Dad Joke’ for the 400th time.

These where the concerts that made the thought of drip torture as a viable alternative.  I do recall that I used to go to the pub before I went, which made them a little better, but unfortunately made me a bad parent.

I also could not tolerate the self important photographer who made it as difficult as possible to order photographs of the girls before the concert.  He had devised a system that required not only an ordering area insufficient for one parent, let alone the 200 that were trying to order, but was time consuming, questionably reliable (I often chased for weeks after the actual photographs I had ordered of my girls as opposed to the photographs of what appeared to be random members of the ballet school which had been sent to me!) and involved you doing everything so he could reject your initial form due to error which the form had been designed to create.  I would go through this process each year (for about 10 years I might add) as my Mum cherished the photographs dearly… and in addition each year I would ask the photographer to lend me his ‘good pen’ and always fail to return it.  Sometimes it is the little things!

Well tonight, and fortunately over the last couple of years, the girls have gotten older and thankfully much better.

But, lets face it, it was never about the dancing.  It was about the parenting and the moment. Before my Mum went to the nursing home I used to take her to the concerts.  It was a moment where we wondered at these little people that came from us.

It was a moment to be proud.  Tonight I wasn’t just proud, I was grateful; grateful that I had all those previous concerts and all the concerts to come.  Grateful that, just maybe, over the years the girls have become better dancers and I have grown with them and become a better parent.

Better Tempered

Apologies for the heading of this post but it is not about the angry type of tempered, although maybe it is.

I like (love actually) to write in my Journal.  some of the ‘greatest’ entries are late at night in a fit of fatigue, or returning home after a few – nothing like the actual musings of a drunk who thinks he’s being profound.

I have stopped drinking and texting, and most definitely drinking and Facebooking (the last time I did that I woke up the next morning with only 25 of my 200+ friends still on the list – embarrassing recollecting them… what reason do you give… I dropped you when I was drunk and I had a moment of clarity – great!)

I love to get on a roll when I am writing.  Sometimes if flows and sometimes it just stalls on page one – even line one….

Its like the metal sometimes cools before I get to shape it…  the moment is there and then it fades away.

Letting the metal cool…
Things remain the same when this happens
Even when the metal is hot, unless force is applied, nothing changes
It just remains the same
Apply heat, or cold and there may be the expansion or contraction
But when the heat or cold is gone, it is just the same as before
You have to keep on the heat, or keep on the cold,
Or, apply that force, for the change to remain the same
You have to decide if the change is what will become normal
Is it the temperature, or the force
And in the end is it just a change, is it just a bend
Are you stronger than before, or just different
Is the metal tempered

I wrote the above in one of those ‘profound’ moments late at night and resurrected it today.  Sometimes I am not sure if I am writing a poem, a verse or a muse – and I am not too sure if I actually know the difference (No, I am pretty sure I don’t.)

Maybe the changes we go through have to be a combination of the hot and cold and the bends in our lives.  I think that we also get a few dents along the way that it doesn’t hurt to repair when we get the opportunity – maybe in one of those hot or cold moments.

Maybe the tempering in the metal of our lives is really not about the end result, but about the way in which we change and how we deal with that change….. of course, that is for those who even notice.

I suppose being a better man is sometimes about being a different man, or is it about being the same man better.

 

Better Write a Note

I was having a ‘discussion’ with my wife the other day and we started to stray into the zone of recrimination, accusation and allegation (plus a few good ones from the past).

We actually caught ourselves and stopped.

My wife actually presents a course called ‘Say it Safely’ and I was using my invented behavioural modification method (self taught of course) called ‘A Dangerous Dialogue” which is my anti ‘Say it Safely’ strategy.

I realised that I had a lot of tools I could have used (including ‘Say it Safely’) but they just don’t seem handy enough…. They weren’t around.

The funny part about this story is that after thinking about keeping my tools handy I wrote a note to myself which said “Note to Self – have a note to self”

There is no use having tools, ideas, plans, sayings, quotes etc etc unless they are where you can get at them, when you need them.  I have my Journal, but only after I write pages of ramblings as a madman and occasionally read back over the months, do I find the gem that is worth either keeping or thinking about more.

Yes, I know My Religion is just waiting to present me with the ‘heads up display’ of the right answer at the right time…. but, just in case, I think it pays to sometimes write a few things down.

I have my journal, but now days it can be Facebook, Twitter, whatever. You can even start a blog, like me!

I just think it pays to work on the fact that on some days your heads up display is more like be heads up your arse and there are no answers handy and no index to all the good shit you’ve been learning.

Note to Self – Write note to self….. And keep it handy.

 

Better Insanity

I love the directness of ‘Fear is not Real” and have thought about it a lot.

I think that the ultimate position of mindfulness, is living in the now, it is to live without fear, without regret.

You have to keep asking that question “am I in danger right now” and if the answer is no, then there is no action needed, there can be no fear, as there is no danger and not even a reason for you to imagine things that cause fear.

Children live without fear,
Children live without regret (until we teach them),
Children live without worry for the future,
Children live now.

So I ask myself is experience really the best teacher?

Do we learn from experience.  Am I happier, that I now react to the world because of the experiences I have had, or am I like most and living in a fantasy that I am doing things differently and in actual fact I am doing them the same.

My favourite quote from Einstein: “Insanity: doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.”

Doing the same things and expecting a different results – is insane
Fear of things that are not happening now and may never happen – is insane
Regret and worry – are insane

I will not be insane anymore.

Better Homes – Make Yourself a Memory

I was sitting at the computer, which is in our family room, and I could hear my wife in kitchen which is basically part of the same room.  She was cooking and filling the house with those warm smells of baking.  I am the luckiest man in the world as my wife cooks to relax (she also enjoys grocery shopping! – and alone!!!!).

It was raining outside and the gas central heating that we had saved for (no really, we didn’t buy it on credit and froze for 4 winters!) made the house a warm cocoon.

All I can advise is remember all the rainy Sundays that you spend at home with the one(s) you love.  It may be watching a movie, or doing your own thing.

Talking to each other or not talking to each other.

Remember these days, because they are special; they are the days that linger longest in your heart; if you let yourself they are easy to remember – to feel.

Remember the home that was there – not the house, but the home.

If you are sitting there right now, you have to be there right now.  Take a moment and make yourself a memory and a feeling for a lifetime.

I just did.

Better Stop Smoking

What a fitting heading for my big plunge into actually recording that I am giving up smoking.  Well in fact I have been giving up now for 8 weeks and 2 days and about 20 hours and have been doing a really bad job of it.

I want to stop.  I read Allen Carr’s “Easy Way to Stop Smoking”, then I took Zyban, then Champix (like I am taking now) and I have done all these things several times.  The most important thing is that it is stopping, not giving up.  I am not giving up anything.  I suppose that is why I have not used patches because then I would not be giving up anything, I would just be replacing the induction method.  However, Allen Carr has said the thing that I can’t get out of my head….

“Smoking is like beating your head up against a wall so that when you stop it feels good”

I wrote in my journal on 14/6/2013 (which interestingly enough has an entry that says I’ve just smoked the last one!!) the reasons why I was STOPPING:

  • I hate smelling like cigarettes
  • I can’t get fit
  • I cough as the last thing every night when I get into bed
  • It is costing a fortune
  • It will make me an invalid
  • It socially isolates me
  • It will make me happier
  • It will make my wife and my kids happy
  • I wont feel sick from smoking
  • I will stop doing something which doesn’t add to my life

This is a good list that I should read each day.  I really want to STOP SMOKING.

It comes down to something else I wrote in my journal and it applies to a lot of the things that I write:  “Stop doing things that do not add to your life.”

I will not give up giving up…

 

Better at Work – Life

I was getting pretty sick of hearing about work life balance a few years ago, mainly by people who were afraid to work and their balance was how much life I can fit into all the time I was supposed to be working.

I also thought the saying “I work to live, not live to work” was degrading to whatever work that person was attempting to avoid that day – they always appeared to me to be the people in my work who were striving for mediocrity.

So I thought about it and decided that work life balance is actually bullshit – it’s just called LIFE.

Apparently work is not a new thing!  The only difference is that historically work was what gave you life – you didn’t work in planting your crops and harvesting them, you didn’t eat and then you died.  Work then was not about ‘my leisure time’ but about my survival.

The reason that I am writing this today is I was in the car today listening to the radio and I suddenly hear some professor talking about “Work Life Integration”.  Apparently our executives of today are finding that they are becoming disconnected with their families and that a balance doesn’t exist because work and life take up too much time.  Apparently they need to be integrated so they get the right amount of attention.

This may not be the answer but maybe it clarifies the idea that you don’t have to work to live but you have to live to work.

 

Mindfulness

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Well I suppose I had to get to this.

This is really where things started for me… or is it better to say this is where I suddenly realised where I was, when I was.  I didn’t get a profound meaning of life revelation, or suddenly have some awakening.

One day I just understood.  I think it actually snuck up on me.

I tell a story, that eventually we all end up sitting in a chair, watching days of our lives, pissing our pants and waiting for the fortnightly (sometimes) reluctant visits from your family.  But that is the future and this is now.

So I’ve started to build my mindfulness pages and hope I can actually write with some sense of order and explanation… and dare I say it insight….