Ant or Elephant

You can build towards a point where you have the capacity to relax deeply. When you have gotten over the struggles between the ins and outs, and you have a deep sense that you, and what matters to you, can handle whatever life throws your way. That is about developing a philosophy that works for you. 

If you look at the “Om” symbol used in Yoga, there are three connected semi-circles separated from a dot by a fourth semi-circle. The dot is our individualized version of ourselves, separated by an illusion/ interpretation/ experience of everything else. Our real self is the whole, but we can get cornered, battered, constrained, and held back by the way we box, package, describe, and present ourselves. 

Our reality becomes a controlled hallucination where we interpret the information we receive through various sources. We process that information, and “make sense” of it. Sometimes our hallucination is shared with others, and sometimes it is ours alone. 

Like an ant, or an elephant, the scale at which we see is different and relative. When you grow up, chairs are huge. You may just peer over the table. When you return to visit your pre-school, it will be much tinier than in your memory. 

You need a process/practice to unpack the shadows and echoes of the pulsing hallucination when you realise your philosophy is an evolving tool to operate in the world. A philosophy with a pinch of salt, so that as you learn, you can see the world differently. Our perception becomes conversational.

Reframing

Reframing my internal conversation by “thinking in paths” opened things up for me, and allowed me to participate in the chanting in yoga. In yoga, the chants aren’t about the literal meaning of the words/sounds. The sounds themselves are intended to connect you to the world. 

In a non-yogic sense, this made sense to me. One of my favourite TED talks is by Jill Bolte Taylor, where she (as a brain scientist) describes her first hand experience of a stroke. She describes the bit of the brain that allows you to realise that you are separate from everything else. She describes how her stroke stilled that part, and how she had a magical moment where she felt deeply connected to everything and everyone. Which is basically what yoga is about. Our interpretation of reality is both the way we connect to people, and what separates us from people. 

I had fond memories of all the songs and singing at church even though I didn’t believe the words. I like the sound of the Sanskrit chants and I was able to use the music rather than thinking about it. That allowed me to go deeper into my yoga rather than feeling like a spectator because of a niggle. I was working long hours. I would get home from work just before the yoga class started at 8pm. After the 90 minute class, I would finish the day with some yogi soup.

Frame Makers

Interpreting the Chaos

Sometimes it feels like a decision is the defining moment of my life. I work hard at letting go of the idea of defining moments. I try build more faith in the collectivity of moments and how they connect. Part of fearlessness comes from confidence in the ability to repair, recover, and unwind. To nudge into the unknown. 

Derren Brown’s book “Tricks of the Mind” had a big influence on the way I try interpret the chaos. He talks about the big events we experience where we all KNOW for certain where we were... like 911, or when Princess Diana died, or when Nelson Mandela was released. There were studies done where they track the stories people tell, and we are often, very confidently, wrong. 

We change even memories that we are super confident about, as part of our healing process. The human capacity to create stories about the world to make sense of it. Comforting ourselves with an illusion of cause and effect, that suggests we can understand and control the chaos. 

“Tricks of the Mind” also talks about hallucination and hypnosis. Our ability to relax into versions of reality that help us make decisions. Hypnosis is simply relaxing into giving someone else control of decisions. You are not faking. It is not that someone else has control. You are letting them instruct you. Those who are super sensitive to this being “acting” would have barriers to this working. Myself included. Someone telling you to relax often has the opposite effect. 

I saw a show where they removed the middle chair, with someone’s head and feet on the others. They stayed stiff as a plank. It’s not that they were doing something impossible, instead they were not imposing their vision on the world of what was and wasn’t possible. They were relaxing into it, and then physics was setting the boundaries rather than them. 

Going deeper into yoga stretches is similar. It is more about relaxing than about trying. You allow your body to stretch by releasing control. You go deeper by breathing.

Not Two

Yoga means union. The idea that everything is connected, and that in “reality” there is only one of us - "Not two". Only the permanent is worth identifying with. There is, however, also the concept of Dharma. You will experience separateness and be on a path that is different from everyone else. 

Your actions matter. Actions have consequences. Maya is the experience we have that separates us from everything and everyone else. An illusion of reality, that is temporary and so not worth identifying with, and yet beautiful and still worth engaging with. In all shapes and forms. 

Part of detachment comes with awareness of how things have manifested/appeared/demonstrated. Noticing the emotion you are passing through but not being angry. 

You can view your mind as a controlled hallucination. Inputs come in – we feel, touch, smell, hear, and see. Then inside we ignore, accept, twist, contextualise, forget, project, and connect dots to create an impression of the world. We try make sense of the outside by finding patterns, and then acting. 

Acting in a way where we think we have a degree of control over the way our actions matter. If you want to still the waves of anxiety, and see beyond what is there... you have to deal with what is there. 

Realise what works where you are. Be aware of your story. Have a purpose... then create your meaning.

Not Separate

Multiple Canvases

Life is random, ambiguous, and complex. Sometimes things can be interpreted in multiple different ways. That’s okay. 

We interpret the world through our own controlled hallucinations. We take in information. We process it. We create a picture of what is happening. 

We ignore a whole bunch of stuff that we don’t think is relevant, don’t understand, or just don’t have the capacity to absorb. If something happens in an order that we recognize, then we expect the thing that normally follows. Sometimes even if that event doesn’t happen, we will still experience it because our created reality fills the gaps. When we don’t pay attention because we have “seen it all before”. 

This is helpful. The power of biodiversity is we can try different things. Respond in different ways. Fail creatively. 

The “Curse of Knowledge” is that once you understand something, it is hard to imagine not understanding it. If you can read music, you can’t look at a page of music and not imagine the sounds. 

If you can understand Hebrew, Arabic, or Russian... you will unavoidably experience looking at a page where I see squiggles differently to me. Once you understand a language, you no longer hear just a string of sound. It is no longer just noise with no emotional connection. 

Our collective ability to experience differently creates multiple canvases for understanding.

Working to See

We can live very different lives, and have such varied values, that massively competing worldviews can lead us to conversations where it becomes clear we are struggling to see what the other person is seeing. If the two sets of decision-making framework have little in common. The two people might even be very close. They may even be in love. Yet they do not see the same thing even when it is in front of them. 

Hello in isiZulu is Sawubona. Directly translated, it is “I see you”. Seeing someone means you are sufficiently interested in them to do the work of understanding the building blocks of how they construct their world. Through curiosity and care, deep relationships gently unpack what words, sentences, tone, chunks of meaning, triggers and backstories, create the exchanges each person has with a shared reality interpreted differently. 

Money is a blunt tool for this. You don’t have to do the work if you measure your respect for someone by how much they charge, get paid, or own. Instead of relationships where people see each other, they can become job descriptions and conspicuous expectations. Mapping life through things you can count. Success as a life CV of achieved milestones... houses, schools, job titles. 

In truth, a really well-lived life might be difficult to express except to the person who walked with you. Except to the person who saw you.

Armenia's Symphony of Stones

Big Kids

We live in a controlled hallucination. As things are repeated, patterns start making sense. We ignore almost everything, but gradually the stuff that means something to us sticks. It sticks as we add, meaning. Which makes unlearning as important, if not more important, than learning. When new information comes in that challenges embodied knowledge. The kind of stuff that requires proper, messy, patient, unpacking. Impacting your own hallucination requires constantly reevaluating your path. With breaks. Unpacking can be draining, so you need capacity to do the work. I call the “adult view” taking another look at what and how you were thinking when you were younger, and being your own mentor. Mentorship works in both directions. We have this idea that adults are higher up the chain, but we are all just big kids. By listening, questioning, and articulating their framework of thinking, the mentor will be refining and developing the story of their own path. Their own way of seeing. Being a good mentor to yourself will help you see more clearly. Listening to younger versions of yourself will help you make better decisions now. 

 

Happy 27th Birthday South Africa

Democratic South Africa turned 27 today. 

We experience life as a controlled hallucination. We interpret our experiences and the information we gather through the stories we have soaked in. It takes about 25 years to settle into our own adult perspective. 

I think you get a few more years, maybe a decade, where you have some grace to work through all the baggage that entails. Sins of the father leaking into the next generation. Stories colouring stories that are not our own. If you do the work. If you unpack all the obstacles that obscured your way of seeing. If you want to release burdens to look with fresh eyes. Relooking. Relearning. Reworking. Reinvesting. 

A 27-year-old is verging on being able to claim their story. Claim their community. Claim what it is that matters to them. But Freedom is not the ability to impose yourself on others. It is not the ability to do whatever you want. Freedom includes the messy work of caring what others think, and respecting that freedom. No adult is unconstrained by the past if they want a future that matters. A future linked to the freedom of others.  

Happy 27th Birthday Democratic South Africa. The messy work of building Freedom continues.  

How do you see?