In thinking of a response, I am reminded of a memorable exchange from the The Matrix movie:
Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. Neo: What truth? Boy: There is no spoon. Neo: There is no spoon? Boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
Sometimes, when things feel or seem impossible, it is likely that an attitude or perspective exists which resolves the impossibility. IT IS always in front of our eyes, all you have to do is bend.
Let's reflect on turbulence. Turbulence is change, the fluctuation of the emotions. So often, we do not make peace with change and instead seek to fight it, to demonize it. Anxiety is fear, and fear is often associated with preventing change.
The Taoists are right to try and make peace with turbulence. Be like water, they say, that most turbulent fluid. Go with the flow, fill the hallow spaces, and rush lightly over the hard places.
Nature teaches us about the importance of change. Most everything that is alive is turbulent. There is always a time for building up and a time for breaking down. Even though we are conscious beings, who are we to deny nature and try to fight change? What is intrinsically wrong with being turbulent beings when everything about our lives is constantly fluctuating? The external world constantly changes as does our inner world.
No, turbulence is not the enemy. The solution to anxiety is not to seek to contradict change. The key is understanding that turbulence is inevitable. It is impossible to avoid anxiety, and accepting this fact makes disempowering anxiety, a possibility.
One will never find health if she searches for it as an idol lost in some dark tomb. Health is in us all. Wired deep down into our DNA. Do not pursue health as something foreign, but seek to bring out the health you already have.
A healthy heart dances lightly above individual thoughts and feelings. Depression, anxiety, fear, happiness, elation, joy...none are held onto longer than is needed, but each is welcomed as an old friend. Each feeling serves a purpose, is a teacher, telling us something important about our lives. Do not judge the feelings for doing their jobs even if we have been taught that the roles of so-called "negative" feelings are bad and should be avoided.
The body signals pain when it is time to heal. Pain teaches us to pay special attention precisely, so we may take the proper action to heal. But, if we fight the pain, we risk keeping wounds open longer then they are welcome.
We are sensitive beings. We are meant to be wounded, but we also may heal. Trust that your curse is likely your salvation. Living through and learning from my darkest hours, as a pupil learns from a wise master, is the only reason I am a healthier person today.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Being an INFP Male
This was originally published on reddit.com/r/infp in response to
I've experienced some of the same issues. It doesn't seem fair, but INFP males have to do more work to "prove" they are masculine to others. Now, obviously we can challenge gender stereotypes, what does "being a man mean" etc, and relieve the pressure that way, but that doesn't change the feeling of being different or feeling like you have to justify your gender with others who are more judgmental about gender identity.
Now, every challenge has its silver lining. In feeling challenged on masculinity, you have the opportunity to carefully and thoughtfully construct your own unique version of masculinity, and be more secure in it. I say opportunity, because the opposite and destructive response is to remain extremely insecure about it and then put yourself in an even worse position by feeling insufficient and ingenuine trying to live up to some invisible standard.
Anyways, for me, I just kind of accept many things about being an INFP male and then make my own way where that is not enough. All of my good friends are either gay men or women. I get along with straight men, but don't keep LT active friendships with them. In a way, this sets me up for a more stable feeling about myself because gay men and most women tend to have higher emotion intelligence and this satisfies my own need to relate on that level, whereas if I forced myself to only interact with straight men, then I would constantly feel different due to my rare INFP male identity type. I'm big into exploring what masculinity means and understanding we all individually have the power to define that. I definitely feel men with "feminine" strengths actually have the opportunity to be more complete or stronger men.
Finally, its important to remember as an INFP that our feelings are not the same as reality. I never forget that without opening my mouth, most other people extend the assumption to me that I am a man. So, I can't forget too that my appearance affords me a base level of masculinity due to other people's assumptions. With those more compliant to gender socialization, I am afforded greater respect, technical knowledge, physical strength, given the last word in social decisions, etc, without it even mattering what is on the inside. So I'd say its ok to kind of step back from your feelings of being pathetic and wimpy and question whether this is just emotional insecurity or actually what others think about you, for instance. Nobody knows you are an INFP just by looking at you.
Anyways, I experience similar issues sometimes but I go at it from several angles to diminish its impact on me. The biggest for me are just straight up accepting and being proud of my predispositions and character strengths and accepting facts about my relationship cricles etc. And then always remembering I am always a man to "society," while understanding feeling insecurity is a separate and deeper emotional-psychological issue that needs work outside of the "truth" of your masculinity.
Finally, INFPs are awesome! I wish our type had more cheerleaders. Like with many things for the INFPs, I guess we will have to be our own cheerleaders sometime! Being an INFP is just who I am, I can't change that so I'll focus on being proud of it! We have the opportunity to be really cool whatever-gender-we-present-as!
I've experienced some of the same issues. It doesn't seem fair, but INFP males have to do more work to "prove" they are masculine to others. Now, obviously we can challenge gender stereotypes, what does "being a man mean" etc, and relieve the pressure that way, but that doesn't change the feeling of being different or feeling like you have to justify your gender with others who are more judgmental about gender identity.
Now, every challenge has its silver lining. In feeling challenged on masculinity, you have the opportunity to carefully and thoughtfully construct your own unique version of masculinity, and be more secure in it. I say opportunity, because the opposite and destructive response is to remain extremely insecure about it and then put yourself in an even worse position by feeling insufficient and ingenuine trying to live up to some invisible standard.
Anyways, for me, I just kind of accept many things about being an INFP male and then make my own way where that is not enough. All of my good friends are either gay men or women. I get along with straight men, but don't keep LT active friendships with them. In a way, this sets me up for a more stable feeling about myself because gay men and most women tend to have higher emotion intelligence and this satisfies my own need to relate on that level, whereas if I forced myself to only interact with straight men, then I would constantly feel different due to my rare INFP male identity type. I'm big into exploring what masculinity means and understanding we all individually have the power to define that. I definitely feel men with "feminine" strengths actually have the opportunity to be more complete or stronger men.
Finally, its important to remember as an INFP that our feelings are not the same as reality. I never forget that without opening my mouth, most other people extend the assumption to me that I am a man. So, I can't forget too that my appearance affords me a base level of masculinity due to other people's assumptions. With those more compliant to gender socialization, I am afforded greater respect, technical knowledge, physical strength, given the last word in social decisions, etc, without it even mattering what is on the inside. So I'd say its ok to kind of step back from your feelings of being pathetic and wimpy and question whether this is just emotional insecurity or actually what others think about you, for instance. Nobody knows you are an INFP just by looking at you.
Anyways, I experience similar issues sometimes but I go at it from several angles to diminish its impact on me. The biggest for me are just straight up accepting and being proud of my predispositions and character strengths and accepting facts about my relationship cricles etc. And then always remembering I am always a man to "society," while understanding feeling insecurity is a separate and deeper emotional-psychological issue that needs work outside of the "truth" of your masculinity.
Finally, INFPs are awesome! I wish our type had more cheerleaders. Like with many things for the INFPs, I guess we will have to be our own cheerleaders sometime! Being an INFP is just who I am, I can't change that so I'll focus on being proud of it! We have the opportunity to be really cool whatever-gender-we-present-as!
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Identity, Death Anxiety, Religion, and the Meaning of Life
I am a regular contributor on Reddit, especially the /r/infp page due to my INFP Myers-Briggs identity type. Here, I repost an answer I gave to someone's questions about dealing with death anxiety and what different people's spiritual beliefs are. It conveys a bit of my current spiritual philosophy, especially as concerns life and death. Enjoy!:
I consider myself an atheist and I am nonreligious. Also, I am a naturalist, humanist, and find value in the non-supernatural portions of buddhist and taoist philosophy.
Anyways, I know they say logically you should call yourself agnostic if you do not believe in deities because you leave yourself open for the tiny chance they might exist and you cannot definitively prove either way. But, I actually prefer the stronger claim that no supernatural beings are overseeing our lives. Similar to the idea that it is freeing to be nonreligious, I think it is empowering for humans to commit the idea that all their activity is on their own shoulders involving the natural mechanisms of a biochemical organism and the conscious intentions of the intelligent mind- a useful little commitment.
Its completely normal to have death anxiety. It is one of the great unknowns in our lives, and considering it signals the finality of our own conscious existence it seems like something us conscious beings should particularly pay attention to. There have been times when it is more salient for me, but for the most part it doesn't bother me so much. It seems coming to peace with death is one of the quintessential tasks of being a human being. Something we should figure out when we are young because it is inevitably around the corner if not for us than for those we care about. For me, just meditating on its inevitability has helped me let go of any anxiety I have of it. I just assume its going to happen, a lot of it, all around me, and one day to me. Just as natural as birth...
Also, I remember that death means complete loss of consciousness i.e. no one to experience any pain or thoughts of loss of life or to sit there and determine if my life really mattered. I didn't worry about being born before I was conceived, I don't remember most of what happens when I sleep, and as the details in my memories fade, many things in my life have already just disappeared. When I die, I won't be around to worry about it, so what's there to be worried about? You literally will not care either way. Its fair to be worried about the moments before death which may involve pain as your body shuts down, but again what does that really all mean when once you are dead there is no longer any feeling or sense of time. No you to worry or feel the pain of death. That's a pretty fair deal. A few moments of pain relative to an eternity of nothing.
Many supernatural tales are useful stories to help us cope with our inadequate knowledge. The afterlife is an easy way to pave over the existential problems of death. Can't know what death is, then here's a nice story that turns death into something you can understand, an extended sort of life. Its no coincidence that many depictions of heaven and hell involve very human arrangements and activities (torture, playing golf, doing things you loved on earth with family members etc) There's literally no reason why an afterlife would have to be that way. Anyways, its all a construct to help us deal with the problem of death. It became an even more powerful tool when morality was infused in it all. Make the afterlife even more interesting, let's add the piece where what you do on earth determines where you go- lifted right out of primitive ideals of justice and punishment. Its super powerful stuff. Tell people they will be held accountable by a supernatural experience brought upon by an event they cannot control. Its very clever. And its been super useful for ordering society and convincing people to act a certain way for thousands of years.
Anyways, you mentioned you are experiencing existential crisis which suggests you may be more concerned about what is the meaning of life in the face of inevitable death. That's another issue more about living, since its more about what you are doing when you are alive, not when death actually occurs. What is the meaning of life without an afterlife? Well, as a naturalist, it has little to do with what our consciousness tries to think it is. Remember, we are literally the interaction of billions of atoms arranged in a precise way. Just matter put into an extremely complex form. I'm a bundle of chemicals fulfilling duties in really beautiful and complex arrangements. Some of those arrangements gives me the ability think about those very same arrangements. But, consciousness is just more of the same complex electrochemical interaction. How can you really know what is you as an individual and you the biochemical machine, for better words? The idea, and remember its just an idea created by other biochemical machines, that we have souls and a discrete identity, its all just perspective. From the perspective of time and physics though, we are just little bundles of energy constantly changing. Our mind likes us to obsess about our discreteness and individual identity, but can you really trust these thoughts? They are after all very useful programming to get us to work with other biochemical machines, to live long enough and to cooperate enough to reproduce.
You may think that its silly to reduce humanity in this way, but I think my bigger point is more how unreliable our commitments are to certain notions of what we are fundamentally. I think this screws with our thoughts, creating anxiety, because we trick ourselves into the reality of our own existence and identity, when they are all constructs. What really bakes my noodle is that this death anxiety and existential crisis, again, might just be manifestations to improve and carry out my chemical programming according to my current chemical arrangement and the laws of physics acting on them.
It actually reminds me of the afterlife idea. Just stories, little lies, to keep us alive and to compel us to carry out our basic functions. I have no problem with having very little connection to real truth in the world. Humans are incredibly stymied in knowledge acquisition. I have no problem with just living a constant lie. It gets me by, and it just how it is within the limits of my biochemical logic. Everyone does it.
I consider myself an atheist and I am nonreligious. Also, I am a naturalist, humanist, and find value in the non-supernatural portions of buddhist and taoist philosophy.
Anyways, I know they say logically you should call yourself agnostic if you do not believe in deities because you leave yourself open for the tiny chance they might exist and you cannot definitively prove either way. But, I actually prefer the stronger claim that no supernatural beings are overseeing our lives. Similar to the idea that it is freeing to be nonreligious, I think it is empowering for humans to commit the idea that all their activity is on their own shoulders involving the natural mechanisms of a biochemical organism and the conscious intentions of the intelligent mind- a useful little commitment.
Its completely normal to have death anxiety. It is one of the great unknowns in our lives, and considering it signals the finality of our own conscious existence it seems like something us conscious beings should particularly pay attention to. There have been times when it is more salient for me, but for the most part it doesn't bother me so much. It seems coming to peace with death is one of the quintessential tasks of being a human being. Something we should figure out when we are young because it is inevitably around the corner if not for us than for those we care about. For me, just meditating on its inevitability has helped me let go of any anxiety I have of it. I just assume its going to happen, a lot of it, all around me, and one day to me. Just as natural as birth...
Also, I remember that death means complete loss of consciousness i.e. no one to experience any pain or thoughts of loss of life or to sit there and determine if my life really mattered. I didn't worry about being born before I was conceived, I don't remember most of what happens when I sleep, and as the details in my memories fade, many things in my life have already just disappeared. When I die, I won't be around to worry about it, so what's there to be worried about? You literally will not care either way. Its fair to be worried about the moments before death which may involve pain as your body shuts down, but again what does that really all mean when once you are dead there is no longer any feeling or sense of time. No you to worry or feel the pain of death. That's a pretty fair deal. A few moments of pain relative to an eternity of nothing.
Many supernatural tales are useful stories to help us cope with our inadequate knowledge. The afterlife is an easy way to pave over the existential problems of death. Can't know what death is, then here's a nice story that turns death into something you can understand, an extended sort of life. Its no coincidence that many depictions of heaven and hell involve very human arrangements and activities (torture, playing golf, doing things you loved on earth with family members etc) There's literally no reason why an afterlife would have to be that way. Anyways, its all a construct to help us deal with the problem of death. It became an even more powerful tool when morality was infused in it all. Make the afterlife even more interesting, let's add the piece where what you do on earth determines where you go- lifted right out of primitive ideals of justice and punishment. Its super powerful stuff. Tell people they will be held accountable by a supernatural experience brought upon by an event they cannot control. Its very clever. And its been super useful for ordering society and convincing people to act a certain way for thousands of years.
Anyways, you mentioned you are experiencing existential crisis which suggests you may be more concerned about what is the meaning of life in the face of inevitable death. That's another issue more about living, since its more about what you are doing when you are alive, not when death actually occurs. What is the meaning of life without an afterlife? Well, as a naturalist, it has little to do with what our consciousness tries to think it is. Remember, we are literally the interaction of billions of atoms arranged in a precise way. Just matter put into an extremely complex form. I'm a bundle of chemicals fulfilling duties in really beautiful and complex arrangements. Some of those arrangements gives me the ability think about those very same arrangements. But, consciousness is just more of the same complex electrochemical interaction. How can you really know what is you as an individual and you the biochemical machine, for better words? The idea, and remember its just an idea created by other biochemical machines, that we have souls and a discrete identity, its all just perspective. From the perspective of time and physics though, we are just little bundles of energy constantly changing. Our mind likes us to obsess about our discreteness and individual identity, but can you really trust these thoughts? They are after all very useful programming to get us to work with other biochemical machines, to live long enough and to cooperate enough to reproduce.
You may think that its silly to reduce humanity in this way, but I think my bigger point is more how unreliable our commitments are to certain notions of what we are fundamentally. I think this screws with our thoughts, creating anxiety, because we trick ourselves into the reality of our own existence and identity, when they are all constructs. What really bakes my noodle is that this death anxiety and existential crisis, again, might just be manifestations to improve and carry out my chemical programming according to my current chemical arrangement and the laws of physics acting on them.
It actually reminds me of the afterlife idea. Just stories, little lies, to keep us alive and to compel us to carry out our basic functions. I have no problem with having very little connection to real truth in the world. Humans are incredibly stymied in knowledge acquisition. I have no problem with just living a constant lie. It gets me by, and it just how it is within the limits of my biochemical logic. Everyone does it.
Now, you may think this makes me some kind of nihilistic relativist. However, my version of a meaningful life simply acknowledges all these shortcomings. I think, ok, there are all these basic facts and rules we know from observing nature. Most of them are probably missing a lot of the story anyways, but I know there are all these processes going on outside my control. Given these processes that cause certain tendencies for human behavior, how can I work with this and make "the best of it." Well, it seems by focusing on what we are, we get some good ideas. We are social beings, we want to work together. We are creative beings, we want to change the world and create new tools and ideas. We face the realities of experiencing the physical body in certain ways. We need food and water to carry on. We need exercise to keep us healthy. By maximizing our body processes, we can avoid unnecessary pain and suffering by eating and drinking on schedule as well as keeping physical active as possible. We get a lot of natural pleasure from sexual activity. Given our love of social acitivity, raising children is a great outlet for this and arguably key to our programming. Psychologically, again I focus on basic tendencies for behavior. We enjoy the opportunity of interfacing with others and building tools and ideas. We like building things together. Let's focus on improving ways of doing that. Given our primary communication of abstract ideas is currently through language, let's improve our ability to use that tool. Etc Etc Anyways, I could go on and on, but my general idea of a meaningful life is being a human who is making the best of what I have. Humans have severe limitations, but we do have things we are good at. What's great is we also have limited attention spans and memories so we can do similar things over and over until we die without going crazy. So, for me, its just focusing on the core human strengths and avoiding getting out of sync with these properties. Its the best you can do, just maximize your core programming. That all said, this cool consciousness thing and emotions will mean I will have all kinds of crazy experiences in the process. I hope to maximize the "nice" ones. Whatever, I decide that means....
Anyways, I've just enjoyed exercising the human proclivity for abstract communication and creativity. This satisfies me. Now, I will go to bed, sleep again, wake up again, and eat breakfast again, and do something slightly new, but mostly similar to the next day while trying to do what my nature indicates is important. Well, that's my little story. I encourage you to never give up on finding yours. And, make sure to allow yourself to relax. Any answer you come up with will never be ultimately true, but it will be yours and it can could be very creative and useful. I think you'll like that. Well, its a good guess anyways, remembering after all, that you are just a human.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
The Misconception of Education
Education is a process of standardization where the only role for intelligence is how well you are able to learn the acceptable ways of doing things. Getting good grades has little to do with how smart you are in terms of understanding the underlying material. Rather it reflects how well you can adapt to the standards surrounding the material given to you to learn: how well can you complete tests, do multiple choice, use the vocabulary that is expected, and approach problem solving in the appropriate ways?
One will be better served early on to divorce feelings of self worth, competence, and intelligence from how well you do in school. There are too many other variables that go into grades.
One will be better served early on to divorce feelings of self worth, competence, and intelligence from how well you do in school. There are too many other variables that go into grades.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
The Manifesto of the Universal Donor
"About you the virtuous, my beauty laughed today. And, thus its voice came to me: 'They still want to be paid." -On the Virtuous, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Who is the true giver?
The giver is not a financier who invokes a debt with her gift.
The giver is not a puppeteer who attaches strings with her gift.
The giver is not a financier who invokes a debt with her gift.
The giver is not a puppeteer who attaches strings with her gift.
The giver is not the insecure who derives strength from anger, meanness, and discourteousness and loathes appearing giving or lenient.
The giver is not the gossip who obsesses about what other's will think of her gift.
The giver is not the gossip who obsesses about what other's will think of her gift.
The giver is not the vain who hopes her good name and reputation will be enhanced by the gift.
The giver is not the selfish who acts only from self-interest
The giver is not the flatter who gives insincere pleasantries in the hopes of influence.
The giver is not the clinger who holds on to those he bestows a gift without letting them go.
The giver is not the despot who demands a certain outcome from her gift.
The giver is not the selfish who acts only from self-interest
The giver is not the flatter who gives insincere pleasantries in the hopes of influence.
The giver is not the clinger who holds on to those he bestows a gift without letting them go.
The giver is not the despot who demands a certain outcome from her gift.
The giver is the truly compassionate, the giver is the universal donor.
Giving for any other reason than the benefaction of the receiver of the gift can turn a gift into a weapon or a one ton lead weight.
Beware feeling smug in righteousness and gift-giving, if you do, it is likely you still want to be paid. Don't be a loan shark, be a true giver.
In the end, the world is a beautiful place because the world is not about you, its about everyone and everything else. That is payment enough. Have you asked yet why you continually forsake this truth?
Giving for any other reason than the benefaction of the receiver of the gift can turn a gift into a weapon or a one ton lead weight.
Beware feeling smug in righteousness and gift-giving, if you do, it is likely you still want to be paid. Don't be a loan shark, be a true giver.
In the end, the world is a beautiful place because the world is not about you, its about everyone and everything else. That is payment enough. Have you asked yet why you continually forsake this truth?
Friday, August 7, 2015
Drawing the World
A little boy once decided to draw the whole world. He started from the top and began drawing a big circle.
The pencil glided along in a curve, round the bottom, and back up again.
As the pencil was finishing its circumnavigation of the paper, the boy suddenly stopped.
The line did not match up to the starting point to form a proper shape.
"What shall I do, the whole world is incomplete, I cannot finish!"
In frustration, he drew a vertical line connecting the two mismatched ends.
The boy moved on. He proceeded to draw things in the world.
He drew llamas, and forests, tall skyscrapers, and rocket ships.
All the things in the world to adorn his picture.
As he was finishing drawing all the many things, he reached the mismatched ends again.
"Aha!" A few wavy strokes curving around the broken edge of the circle.
And with that, the boy finished the drawing with a perfect waterfall.
The pencil glided along in a curve, round the bottom, and back up again.
As the pencil was finishing its circumnavigation of the paper, the boy suddenly stopped.
The line did not match up to the starting point to form a proper shape.
"What shall I do, the whole world is incomplete, I cannot finish!"
In frustration, he drew a vertical line connecting the two mismatched ends.
The boy moved on. He proceeded to draw things in the world.
He drew llamas, and forests, tall skyscrapers, and rocket ships.
All the things in the world to adorn his picture.
As he was finishing drawing all the many things, he reached the mismatched ends again.
"Aha!" A few wavy strokes curving around the broken edge of the circle.
And with that, the boy finished the drawing with a perfect waterfall.
Drinking from a Firehouse
There are many ways to interact with the world these days. With the click of the mouse, you can be connected to the musings of millions of people: news reports, stock prices, sports scores, the latest gossip, cat photos, status updates and endless forums and message boards of debate and advice.
Maybe the internet, and its accompanying access to 24/7 facts, figures, and emotions, should be classified as a 6th sense. Our brains already sort through gigabytes of data every single day through the five senses, but now our mind is flooded with additional abstract information transmitted by today's advanced communication networks.
Sometimes it is good to step back and reflect on just how much information we are deluged in every single day. Its no wonder so many miss small details and feel overwhelmed and disconnected. Knowing how much is out there in the world can make us feel like we have so little in contrast.
The truth is each and every one of us is enough, no matter how hard we battle a feeling of incompletion. One might say it is one of our quintessential tasks: to mold meaning into the formless clay of the external world.
Be kind to yourself. You are influenced by more people, ideas, and random inputs than any humans in history. Take note when you are drinking from the fire hose. You are bound to be overwhelmed if you pay attention to too many things at once. Attention is a finite resource. We have more demands on this resource today, than would have been imagined not long ago.
Its up to you to decide where and how to tune in. Calm the deluge and you can calm the mind. You do not have too little, we have too much!
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