To ponder the stream

Whenever I'm feeling mentally or emotionally stuck, I love to meditate on streaming water, such as a river.

Sitting there, quietly besides the stream, I ponder my worries. Mostly going over these same things again and again. Seemingly without a difference or purpose.

Yet, suddenly I notice my gaze having trouble fixing on one point on the water.
Without me noticing, my eyes have drifted away along the water. Following the stream. So I return my gaze to the point from whence it came, only to notice later on it had drifted away once more.

The strange thing is: by moving my eyes that way and letting them drift off unconsciously, my mind also starts to drift, slowly at first, thus allowing me to move on mentally, and emotionally as well. No longer stuck!

Sometimes this meditation helps me to let go things easier. At other times it allows me to reach a conclusion, an insight or to rekindle my creativity.

Anyways, it is a fun thing to experiment with. Drift on! ;)

Wisdom: glowing human crystals

The (internal) beauty of a person comes from his heart, not his mind. For it is the glow radiated by the heart that determines how the mind shines and sparkles, regardless whether it’s made of crystal or glass, whether its polished or crude.
The most pure and sharp mind will be unappealing when filled with the eerie light of a cold, heartless or even hateful person.

This conjecture makes me realize the potential value in every person, not just in the smart, experienced or ‘deep’ ones.
Only the mere summit of wisdom has a need for a genius mind. Meaning: the rest of the mountain consists of the vast majority of people. Also meaning (almost) anyone has the foundation of wisdom:  which is the most important part.
Peace, assistance and even guidance can be found in most people – nay: in most living things!

A happy 2015 to you all! :)

Living in the present

'Living in the present’ is advice often given when it comes to improving one’s life, yet it is a double-edged blade which has always both fascinated and confused me.

Undoubtedly: it is good advice to stay connected to reality, rather than continually responding to what has happened a long time ago, or to what you fear might happen in the future. 

Work with what is at hand, for, indeed, any action occurs in the ungraspable moment of time which we like to call the present.

Yet, what has always confused me about ‘living in the present’ is that there is neither a past nor a future implied in this advice. But that excludes the possibility of learning from what has happened as well as the pursuit of big dreams and life goals. Without the past and a vision towards the future, improvement is not possible.

My take on the issue has always been that people who advize you to ‘live in the present’ don’t necessarily mean by that you have to forget about the past or the future, but rather to stay connected with reality and give both past and future their appropriate places in it.

As if to say: ‘the present is writing the future with ink of the past.’

(See Waterval van het Heden for a similar take on 'living in the present' — in Dutch)

Destroying your 'ego' - come again?

'We have to destroy our ego,' I read today. And it's not the first mention of this mysterious entity I've heard. Mainly they were negative. As if ego was something bad which only troubled people and they would love to get rid of.

That word - ego - doesn't have any meaning to me. It doesn't cover any experience I've had in my life. I know ego means 'self' in Latin, so do people refer to everything that is themselves?

But if that is true, I find such a pronouncement quite disturbing. As you may have noticed, I've written several blog entries against not accepting yourself and wanting to fundamentally change, even be someone else entirely!

I can't but shiver at the thought: those who want destroy themselves (their 'ego'), must have very negative self images, or a very bleak vision on what to expect from life. Destroying yourself isn't a good thing in my eyes…

Chances are that I'm mistaken and I don't know what I'm talking about, for I have no idea what is really meant by 'ego'. 

But still the question rises: why does that ego need to be destroyed or suppressed? Can you help me understand why that would be necessary? For I truly do not get it.

If ego is only an unwanted part of yourself, isn't it a wiser choice to integrate that part in the whole? Giving it a place, even a use, which enriches your life and that of others. 

On being wise

Those who search for and aim at wisdom should try not to forget its simple nature. 

Wisdom is essentially the art of making the best choices; acting in a perfectly appropriate way; doing precisely the right thing.

So what is the right thing to do? That vastly depends on an innumerate amount of variables. To start with I'd say it depends strongly on what you want to achieve. What are your goals? And which of those goals is of more importance to you, if you have to choose between them?

Now, an easy mistake is to think wisdom is the same as achieving your goals. That is part of it, but not the whole story. For setting the right goals is also part of being wise, a part that depends on the circumstances. Some of those are environmental, societal or social, others personal.

So it depends on what is possible for a person like you in a situation like the one you are in at the moment.

Being wise is about doing the right thing given your goals, given your personal strengths and weaknesses, given the opportunities and barriers in your surroundings. A part of this includes setting realistic (but not too low) goals.

That is and always has been my project: to create a philosophy of life which grants me an aide to do the right thing in any given circumstance. 

It is not a philosophy that gives solutions to every possible problem or disturbance encountered in life, for many of those are insolvable. Rather it gives me directions for the best possible action, given that specific situation. 

You do or you don't

Today I'm going to teach you a very simple principle to make life easier.

Whenever there's a task at hand:

if you don't feel like it, then don't do it! If you do feel like it, then do it! If it's not possible: make it possible or else just change your mind. :)

Not doing what we 'have to do' mostly doesn't cause a catastrophe, regardless of what we often think and fear. So if you don't feel like it, don't do it! ;)

Ignorance is bliss

It was about time to write an accessible introduction on my own philosophy.

The primary goal of this text is to give you a starting notion of a particular way of thinking positive. Mainly because the simple expression 'think positive' is so vague it doesn't give you a practical clue about how to actually start thinking positive. 

And of course I don't mean to look at the world through a naive and pink goody-good optimism which thinks there is nothing wrong in life whatsoever. Let's not be blind, but let's be as positive as realistically possible. ^^

Enjoy. :)

Dutch version

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We should only question something when we have a good reason to do so. That's the direct opposition for a common consensus, namely: only to believe something to be true when you have good reasons to do so.

With this, I'm wandering near the fine and blurry line of irrationality. But I am not crossing it and firmly believe we should question our beliefs and opinions only when we have good reasons to do so. The given that these beliefs would appear false upon observation, is in itself no sufficient reason to abandon them.

Only when discontented, when we experience a clash between our beliefs and the world, yes, only then it is justified to apply our most sharp scrutiny and start examining those beliefs. Yet, once this clash ceases to exist in our experience, once the discontent is dissolved, it is no longer needed to continue the cross-examination of our clashing beliefs.

The scrutinizing faculty of reason (which scans for causes and inconsistencies) is best seen as a pair of pruning shears in our mental garden: we should only apply them to exterminate weeds. And we should take heed not to cut through flowers and weeds alike, whilst we leave nothing behind but a barren, empty dessert.

I like to admit I'm a big fan of pretty illusions. Think about it. Once a dream, a fantasy or an illusion is seen through it never comes back to live. Now, try to re-establish your belief in the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus, or any of the innocent little lies and fairytales your parents told you as a kid. Nice little stories to believe in, forever gone!

Now, judge for yourself. When a belief in something causes no problem at all, yet provides us with a good mood, optimism or an inner calm - why for heavens sake would we want to tear apart that belief, why would we want to kill and dissect it with the scalpel of reason?

Well, alright. Maybe the belief might strictly speaking be wrong. But what's gained by that? An example. 

Many people have an unfounded confidence in their own skills and trust themselves more than capable to do their job right, without therefore being arrogant or know-it-alls. They think better of themselves than they really are, so their opinion is false. Yet, thanks to their solid selfconfidence they succeed in finishing tasks they would never have succeed in, had they thought more realistically about themselves.

Why should we question shuch believes in ourselves? It doesn't make sense! And in others? Ah, yes, exactly! The unfounded questioning of someone's false beliefs is nothing more and nothing less than immoral! A belief  being false is in itself not enough reason to question it. 

On the other side, there is a whole set of believes which both are false and cause missery in our lives. Not in the least I'm talking about a negative self-image, negative images of other people or even misantropy and pessimistic world views. This also includes negative stereotypes and generalisations. But more in general I'm aiming at any onfounded negative thought or intention.

I consider it irrational and of intellectual neglect, and simply not wise, to even tollerate such weeds to exist in our own mental garden or that of those near to us. Helping others cut through those tough vines so they can cultivate a marvelous and positive garden is a kind and good thing to do.

Ah, alas! Everyone of us, I think, knows somebody witch such a bleak outlook on the world, such a grim self-image, yes, everyone of us will have experienced those powerless moments where a desperate friend, relative or acquaintance was exclaiming in a bitter voice: 'they all hate me, I'm not worth it, I'm good for nothing, I suck at everything, I can't do anything right, the world is against me, there is no hope, all people are just mean oportunists, I'm ugly, it's all meaningless, …' etc.

These are the complaints to be cured by my philosophy!

And finally there is still one more issue, an issue I'd like to empasize as little as possible because it can provoke a halt in our thinking. It concerns the fact our world as we perceive it is filled with attrocities we hoped never to have learned about. Horrible stories, each and every one of them!
Of course, it doesn't have to be as exagerated as I pose it to be. This concerns little and annoying, yet not horrible, facts as well. And the extent in which a person experiences his or her world as filled with such undesirable facts differs between people. Some people think it's not all that bad, while others witness the last rose drown in a valey of tears. But I hope we all can agree there are things we better had not known.
On a light personal note: I rather don't  know what my dentist is going to do to me. I rather stay in my delightfull bliss of ignorance, just holding on to my trust everything is going to be just fine. :)