"The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend."
Aldous Huxley – Doors of Perception

I remember vividly a specific moment riding on a school bus when I was young. Sitting alone in the uncomfortable green bench seat and staring absentmindedly at the rear view mirror. I was cold on a warm day. A depression sank into my soul where at that moment I felt the life leave my body. It was a state of complete sadness. As if my mind let go of my body. Death would have been more welcome, it was a state I can only describe as 'nothingness'. It felt as if I was fading out of existence.

What happened next I cannot adequately describe. Like a reflex my brain lit up with unfamiliar images resulting in a sensation I can only describe as my mind snapping back to my body. The sadness was still there, but it wasn't complete — in that brief moment I saw a future without pain, without emptiness, a world by design. I don't really believe in angels but I like to believe that someone wonderful in this world connected with me out of time and space in that one moment of beautiful rescue. I'm such an idealist.

That memory has been crystallized in my head for most of my life. Thinking about it always resulted in sadness, but also a cause for appreciation that I was able to see at that early age the life I live today.

I thought about this more, and I realized that my life changed over time in a way that was by design. Freeing myself from the trappings of a deluded reality opened the doors. I realized that even those painful memories (crystallized they may be) are my own perceptions. I was not aware of how I chose to experience the world, to see the bus, to feel the uncomfortable seat, and to let myself drown in depression; I was only aware of my perceived reality. Since that childhood reality left no hope or reason to exist, my mind faded itself out of existence. Perhaps in that disconnected state I opened the door just briefly.

As a test, I decided that if anything I'm saying has any merit, then my own memories are as much my design as my reality.  So I experimented, I took my mind back to that bus and I tried something different. I adjusted the lights, I adjusted the pace of time, and viewed the scene from third person. I changed none of the events, only the perceptions. The "truth" was preserved but I found I could easily sway myself to any emotion (happy, sadness, anger, pleasure, even apathy) just by changing the subtleties of the perceptions.  My own memories seem to be by design and under my conscious control. This whole time I've been choosing sadness…

It's quite a strange feeling to recognize that all of your memories can be adjusted any way you see fit; completely changing your past and present reality. I settled my memory of the bus as a comical one where I brightened the lights, and sped up time just enough so that all the children (including me) just seemed ridiculous wobbling around in that silly yellow bus.

Reality is an amazing thing. It bends and shapes to your perspective. Simply put, it is what you believe it is.

Where in one minute you’re feeling isolated and stressed, you may simply shift the context of your thinking and feel connected and relaxed. We put our conscious attention towards something and it will become the center of our reality. As our attention is consciously controlled, so then, I argue, is our reality.

If this is the case, then the limits of our perception and our cognition could be exploited to our own ends. We invent a facade for reality that matches what our five senses tell us. My optic nerve reacts to the suns radiation as my ears react to vibrations in air. My brain takes the limited sensory data and assembles a larger picture of reality. We assume that this reality is accurate yet we forget that it is based entirely on limited sensory data with a lot of imagination.

As our brain tricks us into thinking that our perception of reality is universal (and not at all imaginary), we can very easily alter our perceptions by where we choose to direct our awareness – thus easily controlling our own reality.

The limits of ones imagination then would be the only reasonable limit to ones reality. Can you shape your waking reality with an active imagination? To what extent can we change our perceptions such that it changes our lives?

There are very few certanties in this life. The sum total of my
experiences has led me this far. I do not know what is coming next; I
only know that it will be different than it is today.

We often make decisions based on a future that resembles the present.
It seems static at first glance, but if you watch, there is a
continuous and subtle change occuring. Every moment is unique.

We all drudge through life trying to survive, but why? What is so important for survival? What makes any of this life worth living? Is it a biological imperative to keep breathing for as long as possible? Or is there something we ought to be doing with our lives that motivates our survival?

The human condition seems to impress that there is a reason for our existence; a reason to survive if you will. We put ourselves in a survival mode in order to live by what we consider to be “good” or “right”. Many of us never really think about what that means and instead just hope to make it through the day without stress.

A steady pressure over time has shaped humanity into creatures compelled towards survival. The same evolutionary pressure has shaped our limited capacity for reason and logic, and that limited logic tells us that there must be a reason for our survival. We plan goals and imagine the desired outcomes. We are goal-oriented to fill an evolved need for a purpose in our life. Whether we are conscious of the goals or not we carry beliefs of what our life is suppose to be…

You plod though life towards your goal and whether you like it or not that goal becomes your purpose. If the goal has not been achieved then there exists a dissonance between your reality and your purpose; a continuing source of stress that will push you towards your goal. On the other hand, if you have achieved your goal then you’ve also achieved your life’s purpose; this can be depressing if you’re so successful that you achieve all of your goals!

This goal-oriented behavior results in either stress or nihilism. I propose an alternative to the goal-oriented life that is hopefully stress-free and nihilism-free!

Time and Pressure

Given enough time and pressure we have evolved into the goal-oriented and stressful species that we are today. Within an individuals life, all of their accomplishments are the result of discreet actions towards a goal. The goal is often emergent from the day-to-day actions. Most goals change over time, evolving to better suite our needs from the actions we’ve taken.

I would argue that you should never be concerned with a desired outcome or goal. There is no perfect state of existence in life but there is an ideal flow that is readily achievable. Your goals are often expressions of your own ideals or virtues and they tend to change. Ironically, the closer you get to your goal the more you learn about it and hence the more the goal will change.

Imagine a river rock that is perfectly rounded and perfectly smooth. This perfectly round and perfectly smooth stone represents a goal. In our goal-oriented perspective a rough non-rounded stone would be a source of stress compelling us to chisel and polish until it’s “right”. But a river rock wasn’t chiseled or polished; it was merely shaped over time by the pressure of the rivers water.

Many people let the water dry up and stare at rough stones planning just how round and smooth they’re suppose to be and never really make any progress. If you let the water flow you’ll always make progress.

Rather than focus on the specifics of your goal, focus on the time and pressure in your life and simply maintain that ideal flow. Improve with every step. Continuously refactor your life. Love every moment of the ebb and flow of this precious life. Remove focus from the goal and instead focus on the time and pressure. Make your life better, and better, and better without every worrying about what it’s suppose to be. You’ll end up with more accomplishments than the goal-oriented person would know what to do with.

An aside: Time and Money

Time and money are non-comparable. Money can be the result of time and pressure, but do not be so foolish as to compare time with money. Any fraction of time is worth an infinite amount of money. Or as one of my friends recently discovered: Time > $

Sometimes we plant our feet firmly in hope for stability. Kids, mortgage, bills; the excuses are endless. Yet for all our static behavior life has a tendency to knock us right on our ass. If you’re alive and breathing, then there is no such thing as stability. Not only can your life change at any moment, it’s changing at every moment.

But what about all of the compromises? As stability becomes a value in life, where do we rank that with our other values? Everyone has a ranking of values. Some people will maintain honesty as a value even over friendship. Other people value friendship more and will gladly lie to preserve their friends favor. So what values are we willing to compromise for stability?

Maybe you’re a few months from vesting or just a couple of years from retiring? When do you stop rocking the boat and hope things settle down?

I hope the answer is never. The boat is always rocking whether you want it to or not. The water is guaranteed not to stay calm. Stability often appears as an imaginary value. The problem is not stability itself, but with the values that you compromised for something imaginary.

In my own life and in the lives of people around me, I’ve seen compromises that sacrifice integrity, competence, and honesty all for that illusive stability. I’ve watched good people do bad things, and observed my own bad behavior to make compromises in order to maintain a deceitful status quo. A lifetime of compromising your values and it’s no surprise where otherwise good people with well-intentioned values become bad people based on the ease with which they act out against their own principles.

I can’t speak of a perfect solution. It’s difficult if not impossible to just simply erase stability from our core values. The irony is, we want stability to protect ourselves and the people around us, but as we compromise in favor of stability we end up hurting ourselves and the people around us. My idea is to instead focus your life on the process and not the outcome.

We tend to focus on what we want and our minds fill with imaginary outcomes. Some people want kids and a house, and once they get them they want to preserve them, they want stability. I’ve seen people sacrifice happiness (which in my opinion should be the highest order value of them all) in search for stability. Try instead to focus on the process; on living in your home and raising your children rather than outcomes like kids, house, and bills. Or focus on living a good life rather than imagining a future retirement. Perhaps then we won’t compromise our values and our actions will reflect our good intentions.

Like waking from a slumber
I open my eyes and see clearly
The world around me
My place in it
The present
Where have I been?

While I shouldn’t care that I’m turning 30; I still feel depressed. Why would birthdays make me depressed? Every year at this time I end up in an existential crisis.

I used to think that I didn’t like birthdays because I don’t like being the center of attention, but that’s stupid, we all love and crave attention. If anything, I find myself getting annoyed that I have to entertain, laugh at everyone’s jokes, thank them for the thoughtless cards, and make them feel good at my expense. Yes, yes, I’m old, that’s hilarious.

The irony is, as I’m depressed I still smile and joke with everyone. I can’t help but to smile when smiled at, nod and laugh at the appropriate moments. Dance Monkey, DANCE! I guess it makes me feel better making someone laugh rather than cry.

The more I think about it, I guess birthdays are about everyone else. We’re all equally selfish, the poor bastard having the birthday usually does more work than the people supposedly celebrating the birthday. If anything, having a birthday gives you more responsibility to entertain friends and family.

But why all the depression?

I will admit, my reaction to birthdays has never been typical. I’ve noticed two distinct reactions in other people.

The first reaction is the imaginary todo list. Where you reflect on how many items you’ve checked off this list. Some people have “live in a foreign country” while others have “marriage and kids”. The principle is the same in all cases. It’s completely arbitrary, and no doubt will cause depression since turning 30 becomes a deadline where it’s not clear what you’re suppose to do afterwards.

The second reaction is “I don’t think it’s important”. I know a lot people who have this reaction, and I suspect most of them are full of shit. You’re getting older, it’s perfectly natural to reflect on your life and think about past accomplishments and mistakes. This is how we grow and learn. I would argue that your life isn’t worth living if you’re not taking the time to reflect and examine. Take it up with Socrates if you don’t agree.

All that said, my reaction to birthdays seems bizarre by comparison. I’m starting to fear I’m alone on this one. My reaction to every birthday is an unprovoked existential crisis. Normally I love reflecting on existence, pondering those seemingly unanswerable questions. But on a birthday it just hits me; as if some higher power decided that on your birthday you’re going to think about why you exist and what you’re suppose to be doing with your life.

So, every year, it’s time for the status report. Only I lost my orders, and have been playing video games instead. “Sorry boss, I have absolutely no idea what I’m suppose to be doing”.

Quite the perplexing state: we desire to know why we exist, knowing only that we do exist and with a feeling of self-importance. We can’t help ourselves but to be ignorant of why we exist while simultaneously overstating our importance to exist.

We assume our lives are important even though we don’t know why.

In all likelihood my life isn’t that important, but believing that is contrary to the human condition. It’s like Nihilism, even with a good argument, it’s so contrary to the human condition that the only people who believe in Nihilism are either being cynical or they do so with a Pandoras Box approach (where Nihilism is the path that breaks down the interpretations of the world that prevent us from understanding our right course). Nihilism tends to contradict because of this instinctive idea that our existance is important; that there is a right path for humanity. It seems that our existance is reason enough to believe in this importance.

Most of the year it is. Most of the year my existance is reason enough to assume that my life is important and that through intuition I can understand what I ought to be doing.

It’s different around my birthday. “Hey, you’re 30″. I laugh, I make jokes. I get depressed. I think about why I’m depressed. On my birthday, the fact I exist doesn’t provide me enough reason to believe that my life is important. Depressing, but confusing too, since the rest of the year is different.

Normally I trust my intuition, faith in myself if you will, that the only way to overcome not knowing why you exist is to trust that you exist for a reason, that all of those crazy emotions are key. We are guided, without reason, by an intuitive sense of purpose, a need to belong and do what is ultimately right. Slaves to our own intuition, fed by the instinctive desire to feel important, to feel needed.

…

See what I mean?! Every year is like this, some worse than others. It’s the weirdest thing… you’d think I’d just write a list like everyone else.