Gentle Unpacking

How do you tolerate intolerance? One of the idea-tools I find useful from Yogic philosophy is Ishwara. It roughly translates as “God understood as a person” in contrast to an impersonal, impossible to reduce to words, transcendent “explanation”. Your Ishwara then becomes the closest you can possibly come to an explanation. Your Ishwara and mine can co-exist because they are imperfect and thus compatible. 

Unless of course you insist that mine can’t exist, and your way is the correct way, and I am not willing to accept the binary you are imposing. If me not saying you are wrong or I am wrong, is seen by you as saying you are wrong! I am not allowed to have a “believe what you want as long as it doesn’t impose on me” view. 

There are some impositions we can’t avoid. Some joint decisions we must make. Sometimes you have to come up with pragmatic hacks. “I am going to be as tolerant as possible, but I am going to have boundaries”. 

I like the idea of unconditional love, for example. But what can happen if you gift someone that love, is they come at you hard to test those boundaries. Holding space for someone still needs to include the paradoxic condition of them being loved but no longer involved. 

That is hard when you have a story you tell about yourself. Reality seldom permits completely consistent stories. Real life is a messy combination of learning and unlearning. Everything that happens challenges our story. We have to hold and release to create. We look for answers, while needing to make peace with constantly improving our questions. 

Gently unpacking issues that may never reach resolution.

Diving to Understand

Merit is only one factor in wealth creation. Like risk and return, it is also not something you can simply reduce to a number for comparison and ranking. Like risk and return, it should come with the standard regulatory disclosure, “past performance is no guarantee of future success”. To “see Merit”, you need to look. What we see, unfortunately, depends on what we have seen. We understand by deep soaking. Through repetition, context, and recognition. Through networks of connecting dots that build a picture we can make sense of. To see Merit, you need to do more than just superficial due diligence. You need to repeatedly ask questions about people, process, performance, philosophy, and what it means for you. Merit means nothing without a win-win relationship between the one that has merit, and those they interact with. To see merit, you need to do a deep dive due diligence, and we only have limited capacity to do that. Which means what we see is path dependent, and we often see what we want to see. Looking to confirm that we are on the right path. What we see is not all there is.

"My Octopus Teacher"

Diving to Understand

Making Space

Yoga is the stilling of the mind. There are various ways to do that. Vedantic Philosophy talks of four paths. Through knowledge, devotion, action or a direct focus on the mind. When our thoughts are calm, and conscious, we are in a position to look more clearly at reality. Without that calm, life tends to live us rather than us living life. The path a specific person needs depends on their personality, desire, emotions, and situation. I tend to try think through things. To read. To discuss. To argue. I can get stuck in my head. Making space for other ways reduces how hard you are trying. Making space reduces the force being applied. At the moment, that is my focus. It seems like the opposite of productive. Do less. Ironically, things exist through, and are often discovered in, their opposites.

yogas chitti vritti nirodha

Yoga is the stilling of the mind

Feeling First

'We very often reason from, rather than to, our convictions' (Hume). This is why we need to think twice about our intent when arguing. If it is simply to demonstrate what we believe like a Peacock looking for a mate, then crack on. If we want to see and understand, then we need to start with understanding people's feelings. Hume didn't believe that all feelings were equal. He also didn't believe in 'finding yourself' or a personal identity. We are just a bundle of ways of seeing things. A bundle that changes rapidly, and is deeply affected by our passions. We can see, recognise, support, and train those in each other. 'People have to learn to be more benevolent, more patient, more at ease with themselves and less afraid of others.'

With Ropes

I have approached approaches in one of two ways. Growing up, I was deeply involved in the Church.  I believed deeply that there was only one way, and it was the way I was learning. I didn't understand it fully, but I had guides (who also didn't understand it fully) and was very committed to going deeper with them. The truth was clear. It was me who needed to do the work. To iron out the inconsistencies. I could attack holes because it was my understanding that was at fault. The holes were holy.

This led to the first - a combative approach. I wanted to give myself fully. There was a period where people were 'Drunk in the spirit'. They had fully given themselves over and this had had physical manifestations. 

'Do not get drunk with wine, which will only ruin you; instead, be filled with the spirit'

Ephesians 5 : 18

The holy spirit had entered some of my fellow church-goers. Some would shake, some would tick, some would just glow with joy. Often it would be part of a service where we had been singing or listening to a sermon. We would then be asked to come to the front to give ourselves over to God if we had been moved by the spirit. To be born again. I desperately wanted this to happen to me.

I did go up on occasion. I always had a niggle I was faking, but the desire was genuine, the intent was good, and the love was there. I could shhh the niggle. I felt the '11th Commandment' (to love one another, as I have loved you) resonated deeply and I wanted to connect to that. But still. The holes. So behind the church tent, I would launch into my doubts with whichever poor guide had to be subjected to a very heady approach to a very hearty experience.

What about my friends who are really good people, but don't believe?

What about these truly awful things that have happened to people who don't deserve it?

My eventual moving away from the Church came from my head, and (more painfully) my heart. I dived into books and conversations trying to iron out those inconsistencies, and find that one truth. I couldn't. From the heart, life dealt me and those I loved too many blows to not get viscerally angry with the version of God I had grown up desperately trying to connect with. I couldn't connect to the 11th commandment with all the other pain that had built up. Like a relationship where you love someone, but have to create boundaries and walk away. I have never fallen out of love with anyone. I have had to walk away.

This led to the second - an exploratory approach. I stopped trying to iron out the holes in any philosophy I came across - IF the consequences were positive. If the story was constructive in helping me deal resiliently with life.

I was able to get involved in a fairly conservative form of Yoga - with Swami's wearing orange and Sanskrit chanting, by seeing the holy rather than the holey.

I think I will always be too attached to consistency to ever let go completely (without deeply trusting someone to come with me, and bring me back). I think of this as the difference between those who love rock climbing, and those who love rock climbing without ropes. I will never do extreme rock climbing without ropes. I value life too much to take that risk. I value the people I love too much. I will also not remain on the ground, if I am confident that I will be caught if I fall. 

Ropes snap, so there can never be certainty. Life is confusing, ambiguous, and uncertain. I can be very conscious about the risks I take. The consequences. The advantages. The costs. Then act. 'First with the head, then with the heart'.

First with the head

then with the heart

I love exploring. It comes from a position of constructive curiosity rather than destruction. To find the truth in something, not the truth of something.

But I will do it with ropes.

With Ropes

Not Two

Advaita means 'Not Two'. Advaita Vedanta is a philosophical form of Hinduism. The Sanskrit word for the soul is Atman, and for God is Brahman. A = Not. Dvaita = Two. The philosopher Shankara believed that "Atman is Brahman". They are not separate. I am not religious, but I find this idea very powerful. A lot of our stress is tied into the creation of, or stress over our own identity. Our idea of who we are. Our essence. Our soul. The idea that we are not separate, and that nothing we can do changes who we are, takes a lot of that angst away. Like a child doing a school oral, the moment they forget that they are being judged and get passionate about the content, is the moment their voice stops wobbling. It is the meaning we create that matters. We create that together. Not as two.

Advaita - Not Two

Soul

I love stories. They breath life into objects, facts and things by creating a way for us to relate to them. Through comparison and contrast, they tease out meaning. They create meaning. I believe we have one soul in the same way as we have one story. Our separate stories are an illusion created to allow us to focus. Vedantic philosophy calls this illusion Maya. The same dots connected in different ways by different people to come up with infinite ways of seeing. We identify with the separate stories, but one day that identity will fade to dust and all that will be left is the story. Through the lingering connections to the other stories we helped build. Through the lingering connection to our shared story. Our shared soul.

From dust to dust

Acceptance

Things change from where they are. Having a vision of where we want things to be is a key part of being human. We dream. We can close our eyes and imagine other worlds. It is one of my coping tools. When things don't go the way I want, I imagine a parallel universe where another Trev is dealing with that world. A world I can visit when my eyelids meet. My responsibility is this world. This Trev. With these eyes, ears, and touch open. To gather the flavour of those dreams, I need to nudge this world by learning about it. Wu wei is the Tao concept of non-action. Acting in a wholly natural, uncontrived way. Taking things as they are. The irony being that by not striving, you can actually achieve more.

Wu Wei

Half the Picture

It is deeply empowering to accept that the world owes you nothing. Stoically assuming the very worst. Face, and accept, anything that could possibly happen. Expect nothing. Then everything that happens will be positive. What sounds like an incredibly negative world view, can result in being permanently either content, or happy. If happiness is the relationship between expectation, and reality. The heart of this idea is that you are on your own. Your strength comes from within. But in weakness, and in vulnerability, there is a world of beauty that opens to those who are prepared to be disappointed. The beauty that comes from owing, and being owed, everything. Content or happy is half the picture.

Self-Expression – The Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu (Tim)

It’s a sad truth of life that when we grow older, we tend to become less spontaneous and less creative as we acquire more social anxiety. A lot of times, we’re so worried about what others think of us that we have no idea how to relax and be ourselves. The generally agreed principle in psychology is that social anxiety has to do with the ego. While the ego is something that we tend to protect and cherish (See Donald Trump), the good news is that long-term meditation works to strip away the ego. And if you want proof of the joy and spontaneity that a lifetime of meditation can bring, just watch these clips of the Dalai Lama goofing around with his chum, Desmond Tutu.

Tim Casteling

Conclusion of a 7 part series on Self-Awareness

(1) Doubt (2) Criticism (3) Discovery (4) Awareness (5) Discipline (6) Compassion

Self-Compassion – Hakuin (Tim)

There are many forms of anxiety, but paradoxical anxiety is my favourite. This is the (highly ironic) anxiety that results from fear of being too anxious. And so it is with the over-eager meditator, who expends a great deal of mental energy on not thinking too much, and thereby…well, you get the picture. In fact, the Zen patriarch, Hakuin seems to have suffered a nervous breakdown on the way to enlightenment. The answer to this paradoxical malady? Go easy on yourself. For example, when you are mediating, and you find your mind wandering, be gentle about re-focusing your thoughts and avoid the temptation to scold yourself. Stupid jerk that I am, I’m not very good at this, either.

Tim Casteling

Part 6 of a 7 part series on Self-Awareness

(1) Doubt (2) Criticism (3) Discovery (4) Awareness (5) Discipline

Hakuin Ekaku

Self-Discipline - Mo Farah (Tim)

The old cliché of meditation is that it’s a blissful state of relaxation. Unfortunately, meditation is not always blissful. It’s a lot more like running the 10,000m; great when you have the fitness, but it takes discipline to get there. To begin with, it’s generally recommended that you start with some form of mindfulness meditation like mindfulness of breathing. All you have to do is pay attention to your breath. When your mind wanders, just bring it back to your breath, again and again. As you do this, you slowly get in the habit of catching your errant mind. Eventually, you find yourself catching negative thoughts all the time. By the principle of neuroplasticity, your brain slowly but surely changes for the better. Or so I’ve read.

Tim Casteling

Part 5 of a 7 part series on Self-Awareness

(1) Doubt (2) Criticism (3) Discovery (4) Awareness

Mo Farah

Self-Awareness – Matthieu Ricard (Tim)

Matthieu Ricard

While self-help and psychedelics may be dismissed as snake oil, the benefits of meditation are increasing well documented by science. Matthieu Ricard is a Tibetan Buddhist monk who has the distinction of being both the “happiest person in the world” and one of the most studied individuals in the history of neuropsychology. Studies on the brains of Ricard and other skilled meditators showed that they were significantly more active in areas related to compassion, conscious attention and happiness, but significantly reduced in their capacity for negative thinking. This is down to the capacity of even the adult brain for growth and change – neuroplasticity. And, as you would have guessed by now, the engine for change in this case is meditation.

Tim Casteling
Part 4 of a 7-part series on Self-Awareness
(1) Self-Doubt (2) Self-Criticism (3) Self-Discovery

Self-Discovery – Syd Barrett (Tim)

Ayahuasca

In moments of weakness, many of us have sneaked a peak at the self-help section in the bookshop. But, while these books might make you feel warm and fuzzy, they are unlikely to challenge any aspect of your being, other than your wallet. On the other extreme, psychotropic substances including peyote, LSD and ayahuasca have been used for spiritual purposes for most of human history. The idea is that these substances can provide a short cut to self-knowledge by breaking down the barriers that protect our false, ego-centred, sense of self. Unfortunately, they can also provide a short cut to psychosis, and the alleged benefits have never been objectively measured anyway.

Syd Barrett

Founder member of the band Pink Floyd

Tim Casteling

Part 3 of a 7-part series on Self-Awareness

(1) Self-Doubt, (2) Self-Criticism

Self-Criticism - Donald Trump (Tim)

Before we start our trip down the trail of self-discovery, a word from the skeptics. There are so many problems in this world, they say. How can we justify the time and effort spent on selfish navel-gazing when we could be doing something constructive? Well, the short answer is that a lack of self-awareness tends to make you a bit of an arsehole. Without a healthy sense of humility and self-criticism, you tend to overstate your own needs and downgrade those of others. You tend to ignore or become defensive about your own flaws while exaggerating those of others. If you’re getting a mental image of Donald Trump, then you’ve got the idea.

Tim Casteling

Part 2 of a 7 part series on self-awareness

(1) Self-Doubt

Self-Doubt - Socrates (Tim)

Socrates

To paraphrase a few online dictionaries, ‘self-awareness’ means that you are conscious of your own independent existence, including your personality and your feelings. Seems simple enough at first glance. In fact, genuine self-awareness is so difficult that true insight into the nature of the self could be said to be the ultimate goal of spiritual practice. And to make matters worse, Buddhism argues that the self has no independent existence anyway. It’s all very confusing, but don’t blame Eastern mysticism. Socrates was famous for saying, “The only thing I know is that I don’t know.” To cut a long story short, radical self-doubt is the only valid starting point for a journey of self-awareness.

Tim Casteling

Part of a 7 part series on Self-Awareness

Personal Story (with Rich) - Part 3

Rich Erasmus and I have had a series of guest conversations (Part 1; Part 2) of a more personal nature than I normally deal with. This can probably be seen by the tentative nature of us teasing our way to the nitty gritty. In this third part, my childhood youth pastor finally tells me to stop beating around the bush and explain my world view...

Rich: from Last part of Part 2 

Many of my convictions (the ones we used to celebrate) are not yours anymore (I suspect) ... we still connect, love and enjoy each other's company, that hasn't changed ... but some cherished moments cannot be shared anymore. 

---

Trev: 

I think they can be shared. The important bits. I did go through a stage where I was convinced by the idea that it was important to explicitly acknowledge the fact that 'I was an Atheist'. More recently, I have been trying to reconcile and re-engage. If the differences lie in the realm of faith, we have no problem. We can sit still together while you pray, and I just sit. We can sing songs we used to sing. We can celebrate relationships and community. The convictions both of us would work to set aside would be the ones that are unkind. The ones that make the world a worse place. I certainly let go of parts of my early faith with a lot of pain. As we continue this discussion, I will share some of that with you. Hopefully your agitation will still. 

Rich: 

Fundamentally, I guess we are asking can we still "hang together" ... like in the good ol days? This isn't a small issue. (Community, fellowship, dialogue, learning are all keys to living a whole and healthy life). I would say certainly, I will always love a connection with you. Will it be like the old days ... not a chance. The years have changed us, you and I have grown ... facial hair, stomach line and most importantly, in terms of our perspectives on life. I guess the obvious truth is that faith issues do divide ... we can sing together, but I don't think we can worship together. I would love to agree that on the "important bits" we can share together ... but I would suggest, only to a certain point ... beyond that we become strangers to e. o. This mustn't compromise love in anyway ... but the divide exists, doesn't it? 

Trev: 
There is a struggle between 'melting-pot' worlds, 'patchwork-quilt' worlds and 'single malt' worlds. I can see the advantages of being in a community where everyone has very similar ideas on the core issues. Where the rules are clear. Where the rules are respected. I do believe there are core principals that will translate across those different worlds. Some people (like me) will look to slowly nibble away at my identity by 'absorbing what is useful, discarding what is not, adding what is uniquely my own' (Bruce Lee). Some people will want to keep their identity but live close to others. Some people want the consistency of a conservative life. The challenge is to build a world where there is some movement between those groups. Where we recognise the good in choices different to our own. 

Rich: 
I guess I fit into the "keep their identity and live close to others category". I am happy with changing my identity ... but not simply out of a respect for the truth that "change is healthy". I guess my basic stance is that I don't think truth is necessarily "over the next hill". Although I cannot claim to have the truth in it's entirety, I don't think a constant fluidity in these things is healthy either. So I guess it boils down to the specifics ... what would you suggest are the core issues on which we can agree? I believe there would be some core issues on which we disagree ... but possibly, that is a later discussion. 

Trev: 
The question of 'the' truth v. 'a' truth that works is important. Megan wrote a wonderful guest post on the art of not choosing. There are definitely benefits to living in a world where an established community is humming along and feels it doesn't want to bump anything. Cumulative wisdom means we might not know why things work, they just do. I don't think people 'have to' look over the hill. I do know that over the hill from the bubble I lived in growing up were townships where people were living in poverty. I don't think that was okay. If Jesus were deciding on the core issues, I think that he would choose love and helping people in poverty. I think he would be far less interested in divisive issues that fall into the 'my truth'/' your truth' category. 

Rich: 
Yeah ... fully (though always room for improvement) engaged with the "over the hill people" nowadays (I'm sure you'll be happy to know). Possibly a link to Megan's post would help ... would hate to be grappling with something she didn't say ... though I have to say, the idea of not choosing leaves me baffled. It's the old circular issue of saying something like that ... and then finding out that that is a choice in and of itself. But ... allow me to read her post first. Choices, imo, are a part of the journey ... in many instances, they add to the beauty of life. You're an artist, when last did you take one of your paintings and slide the frame a little so that it tilted with a decided left (or right) inclination? Nah ... chances are, they have stayed (mercifully) in the same position for a long while now ... that is how it was designed. Fully agree with your picture of Jesus ... loving and helping people in poverty / abused etc ... rather than the bitty issues that tend to divide. It's tricky (though) isn't it? Who gets to decide what "the core" issues are (i.e. those core issues that you just labelled)? 

Meg wrote a guest post in response to Iyengar's book called  - The Art of Non-Choosing 

Trev:

Everything has a framework as I am regularly reminded by Gem (my partner) who is an Anthropologist. She constantly asks difficult questions intended to make you go right back to the basis of why you think what you think. To unravel. To move forward, to ravel, there are always choices that will make it difficult to understand other people as we move further along. I think the bar for the base assumptions we have to agree on should be quite high. John Cleese did an interesting clip on offence. Trying to control other people's behaviour is often an indication of our own inability to understand or control our own emotional responses. I think what we should be working on is the communication channels. How do we attempt as best we can to understand people who think very differently from ourselves? How do we protect minority views? How do we live together harmoniously. I believe this is analogous to what you would call 'God's plan'. What Muslim's would believe is a world Muhammad was trying to build. I don't think divisions need to occur every time there is a new choice. Jew. Christian. Muslim. Protestant. Catholic. Shia. Sunni. We should be able to build communities that care about more than people that agree with them. 

Rich: 
I fully agree that base assumptions need to be few and far between. I suspect (however) that if the right choices are made in that regard; that your list of issues that you mention (living harmoniously, protection of minority views etc) would necessarily find their rightful place. Thing is ... all of us end up choosing our first principles ... whether we like the idea of choice / exclusion or not. All of us have chosen a framework ... the worth of which will be determined by the fruit that follows. When the fruit / results of that choice aligns with someone else ... bliss, harmony etc. When it doesn't ... are we not then called to re-access our first principles? I'm not rushing out to disagree with Muslims (fill in whatever worldview you want) Trev. But on some pretty fundamental "first principles" we differ. More often than not, our actions will align ... but when they don't you and I need to make a choice about the first principles / world view / religion. Bottom line ... we do make choices in that regard ... they are not untouchable ... but they are necessarily in the background of every movement in our daily living. My first principle is found in the person of Jesus. I will revisit the length and breadth of that principle often ... but not much has ever come to me (in my limited life experience) that could add significantly to a life that is based on His view and ministry. "Here i stand ... I can do no other". 

Trev: 

That is awesome. You have always struck me as a guy who listens, but finds deep comfort in the philosophy and belief you use as a support for whatever struggles life throws. I don't find many fundamental differences from Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus in the areas I think are the true core beliefs. They (and you?) may argue with that. I think we are doing the hard discussion/compromise required to hammer out those limited agreed behaviours that help us function as a society. I think that is part of why they world is increasingly more peaceful (see 'the better angels of our nature'). For me, I struggled to reconcile the world I saw with the framework I inherited. By reading wider, meeting people and lots of internal struggles, I now find deep comfort in the philosophy and belief I use as a support for whatever life throws at me. 

Rich: 
Trev ... we started this conversation a while back. Maybe it's because we hadn't seen each other for a while (so we've been kindly dancing around each other a little) but I believe we need to get to a few more "nitty gritty" differences between our respective world views. My world view is not alien to you ... you used to share it with me. In many senses that has changed (though ... as we have said a number of times already ... much has not ... mutual affection, respect etc). Your atheistic perspective and my theistic perspective are in many ways miles apart ... this implies quite a journey (for both of us ... though you in particular). Let's spend a few words exploring the differences ... how about it?

--- this is an ongoing discussion to be continued ---

Know What I Mean?

I am trying to understand some of the anger flying around in world politics. I don't think we make a lot of effort to genuinely articulate the view of those who we disagree with it. Most of the summaries I see of the anyone's opposition are not what that person would say. Daniel Dennett suggests one of the first stages of listening is being able to express the other person's view in a way that they say, 'Yes... I believe that'. Most attempts I see seem closer to parodies or insults. The opposition is evil, a clown, idiots, racist, or any other number of things that make them worth ignoring.

 

It is interesting that one of the insults thrown is directed at 'The Establishment'. There are few people who openly say that they are Neoliberal or Market Fundamentalists, who believe in the Washington Consensus. What ends up happening is a huge disconnect between the way people see themselves, and the way they are seen. I think both sides lose out here. If the true Establishment/Consensus isn't actually delivering for people in a way they are happy with, that is a problem. If politicians don't represent the interests of people, that is a problem. I think the real problem lies in our inability to talk to each other.

When I read about the big, evil, Neoliberalism, there are many things that I agree with. It is often associated with de-regulation, reductions in government spending, fiscal austerity, and privatisation. All of these are incredibly divisive issues, but I don't think most people think about or understand them very well. We understand our own world's incredibly well. Most of us vote or argue based purely on how things affect our world. We outsource the big picture to representatives who are supposed to then pull things together. We don't think about the trade offs and costs. We think about our own lot. We react to horrible stories we hear. The representatives can think about the bigger community. It is interesting that some of the big names in Neoliberalism who are criticised for encouraging individualism over community argue directly against that. Two of the philosophers/economists associated with Neo-liberalism, a third way between socialist planning and classical liberalism, were Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.

'Hayek's ideal is a legal “medium” of society, liberal enough to permit creativity, stable enough to reward creativity, and constraining enough in ways that steer creativity away from zero-sum and negative-sum games and toward positive-sum games: that is, wealth creation, not wealth capture.'

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/friedrich-hayek/

Hayek (1899-1992)

Rather than government as a group that takes all the information and makes a decision, Hayek's vision is a world where the understanding individuals have of their own world drives the decisions. It is a world of empowerment. Government sets the rules of the game and acts as referee, but the players play the game.

Most of the parties I see in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa don't make sense to me (These are the places that get most of my head space). They come from a world where we thought there was a dominant ideology that was right, and the others were wrong. A world where we need opposition and proposition. In the UK, there is clearly a disconnect between voters and politicians. All the major parties in the recent Brexit referendum were on the opposite side to the vote. The Labour Party members and those they voted into power may want different things. The leader is popular with the party, but not the party representatives. The Conservative Party didn't take the risk of finding that out.

I don't take the view that things are a complete mess. I think the general trajectory of the world is very positive. We are getting wealthier and less prejudiced. I do think we need to tweak the rules, and one of those first tweaks should be to listen to each other.

Beyond Comparison

We think in focused contrast. Vedanta, the yogic philosophy, argues that we are only able to have one thought in mind at a time. The issue is that we hop around. Worry becomes a spin cycle of concerns. The main concern is the contrast. What the thought is, and what we wish it was. How the world is, and how we wish it was. Spin. Chew. Spin. Chew. Spin. As humans, our thoughts are limited by our biology. Our senses. Our surroundings. Our understanding. The way we piece together the information we have received. The conversations we have had in order to put that information together. The emotions on which the information sits.

The way we have seen the world determines the way we see the world.

The whole method of yoga is 'chitta vritti nirodhah'. The stilling of these thought impulses. Thought fluctuations. Wobbles. Waves. Between expectations and our observed reality. Worry, dreams, desires and goals can be strong motivators. A little dissatisfaction keeping us moving. 

These all work rather well while we are getting to the point of 'enough'. While we are on a path that has a fixed end point. Getting a roof over our heads. Food in our bellies. A place to clean our bodies. A sense of safety. This dissatisfaction becomes an obstacle once we get beyond what we need. Then comparison fails us. Then the impulse that says - hungry, cold, scared - becomes a negative. The impulses become holes.

Enough is far less than we think it is. Not in a 'holier than thou' way that people should be self-sacrificial heroes. I don't believe in heroes. I believe in examples. I believe in relationships. One of the key tricks to stopping those mind-wobbles is stopping those comparisons when they are heroes rather than examples. Relative thinking is very human. We can train ourselves out of it in the same way as we can train our muscles to get stronger and faster. Where our muscles become tools we control, rather than them controlling us. A key to that mental fitness is gaining a strong sense of comfort in what enough is. What enough looks like. What it feels like. 

We are very resilient. We can cope with a lot. We can handle suffering and get back up. The extra should be a bonus we celebrate. Strengthening that resilience doesn't come from reaching up, it comes from looking inside. From learning about others. Not from stories of outliers to aspire to, but stories of real people doing real things. Talking to each other. Seeing each other. Walking with each other.

Comparison is often very focused. We don't look at someone's entire life. We look at their job, their skill, their art, or something where they edge ahead of us. I have often benchmarked myself against people. A friend who runs about the same speed. One who gets similar marks in a subject. A buddy at the same age. A colleague in a similar role. That then becomes a measure of whether I have 'done well'. This is dangerous, because in the lost perspective of all the things you aren't comparing, you lose the things that are most important. 

There are lots of things that can't be compared, but can be lost. Relationships. Stories. Meaning. These all exist beyond the measurable. Beyond the measurable is the stuff that really matters. Beyond Comparison.

Inhibiting by Prioritising

In saying 'I think, therefore I am', Descartes lifted our identity into the world of our heads. If you cut off your hand, are you still you? If you lose both legs? What makes you you? Is it our thoughts? Do we lose someone when their thoughts start to fade? A division in Eastern and Western philosophy is the role of the body in philosophy. There isn't a separation between the mental and physical. In Vedanta, the philosophical arm of Yoga, everything from exercise, breath, and food to relaxation is fair game. Existence wraps all the connection and relationships. Our identity is all inclusive.

By elevating thought, we can inhibit it. If we prioritise it to the neglect of other things. The broader practice of Yoga also focuses on thought. The stilling of the mind ('Yoga chitta vritti nirodha'). It all starts with being able to sit comfortably. To sit comfortably starts with having control of the body. Having control of the body starts with what you eat, how you move, and learning to relax.

The irony of only focusing on 'the most important thing',  is that you may never reach it. The simple things, the basic competencies of life, are the first step on the journey.

Starting with the Basics