I found myself getting frustrated and a little angry at times. I’ve been working much more than usual (I will write about this in future articles). ![]() Meditation and mindfulness has helped me see this clearly. The external games we play are superfluous and largely unnecessary. Our internal state can change dramatically without changing anything external. It causes them happiness (or maybe decreased suffering). When people do things to make you happy, it is actually a desire within them that drives this. No one really cares about your happiness except you. There is no one that can share in your happiness it is all alone and in your mind. The bigger issue though is happiness and contentment is single player. Unfortunately this is a feature, not a bug. Our brain needs something to do, so it does what it knows how to do. We invent competitive games where they need not exist, simply because this is our default programing. Our mind is simply out of control most of the time. The problem is we let this survival program run rampant and unchecked. There are exceptions to this rule of course, but I’m assuming if you are reading this right now you have the basic tools for survival. ![]() In modern society it is pretty easy for an average person to survive and replicate. Actually never mind, they did what they did for entirely selfish reasons. I’ll wait patiently while you text them and tell them how grateful you are. In fact, the only reason you are here today is because some other bags of mostly water with a few scattered more complex molecules (your parents) out-competed others for the right to pass their genes on. Without it we would still be wandering around the grasslands, without tools, foraging for nuts, berries and shitty tasting root vegetables. Society creates a vast array of multi-player competitive games for us school, sports, earning money, the corporate ladder, status, mating and it constantly reinforces the idea that these are the important games to play. It should not surprise us that all of our education, both formal and informal, teaches us to compete against others. This is the essence of our subconscious mind. Our genes only care about their survival and replication. Educationįrom birth we are thrown into a world of competition and comparison. The illusion is an incredible dance that evolution has created for us, but the side effect is we forget what really matters. Our brain convinces us we can experience each other’s thoughts and emotions. In order to deal with the world our mind creates useful things like ego, personality and the illusion of a separate self. We invent stories that are not really true.Our mind fills in details that didn’t actually happen and creates a seamless appearance of reality from a smattering of sensory input. So the mind does what it always does when it is bothered it changes reality. Thus we all have some degree of existential loneliness. Acknowledging and accepting this on a conscious level, and learning how to live our lives with some degree of grace and satisfaction is the human condition. We travel through life alone and ultimately we die alone. Each of us comes into the world and eventually realizes that we are a separate person, alone. On the surface it sounds depressing and lonely, but it is a bit different. It is an interesting way to frame the world, and one I want to explore further. I stumbled upon this bit of brilliance in a recent podcast I was listening to. You’re gone in three generations and no one cares.
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