Tag: mindfulness

  • A Ventlet

    I need to copyright that term. It describes my channels of expression so well.

    Ventlet. (n) Channel of expression or platform to express without fear of ridicule or repercussion. Most often employed to express confusion and/or angst that is unintelligible to most ordinary souls.

    My moment of deliberate superficiality has now been accomplished for the day. I browsed through an old post earlier and it struck me that I spend more time wanting to make a statement rather than share observations these days. I don’t like that. It blends in with the soap-boxers too easily, and I don’t care much for that kind. That tends to blend in too much with the hoards of deconstructionists that I find myself surrounded with. People that always have a reason why something is flawed or not good enough while rarely being bold enough to offer an opinion of their own. An informed opinion, that is.

    Perhaps they also have a need for ventlets but do not have access to one. Nah, that doesn’t compute. I could have said ‘that doesn’t add up’ but I felt like being superficial again. Over embellishment of expression is a great way to make something mundane seem important. I know how to do that well, even though it is something that annoys me easily. I often find myself prompting people to speak plainly.

    Having tough discussions without the political correctness to stroke people’s egos, from personal experience, tends to yield more meaningful outcomes than showing a superficial respect for everyone. The superficial ones are those that are so focused on appearing likeable or proper that they willingly compromise substance for image. The irony is that such superficiality, to anyone paying attention, is in fact disrespect, disregard, and a waste of valuable time. Its focus places the needs of the superficial one above any vested interest in a meaningful outcome that any of the participants of such an engagement may have. Perhaps this post should be titled ‘Superficial’ instead?

    Thinking aloud in a space that is no longer anonymous has its daunting moments. It has tested my sincerity on many occasions and is probably also why I seem so prone towards making statements rather than expressing my internal conversations with the aim of making sense of them. Like I’ve said before, we’re all curators looking for an audience. What an odd thought to be reminded of, yet so apt. Every overt act or expression is a means towards soliciting a desired response from the audience we wish to impress.

    I suspect that there is no logical end to this vent, yet I continue brushing these keys with the tips of my fingers hoping that my mind will once again form the expressions of the thoughts that need to be verbalised the way it once happened so naturally. Moments of reflection like these stem the tide in my slip into senility and self-obsession. Taking stock of my forms of expression tends to result in me calling me to account for subscribing to mannerisms and inclinations that I would normally despise in others. A moment of reflection is greater than 80 years of worship. I can see how that would be more valuable than ritualistically plodding on to an imposed rule set as opposed to conscious subscription to a way of life.

    Wow, how did this suddenly become about religion? Perhaps in that is a hint to the underlying tensions that I have subdued for too long.

  • A Choice Outcome

    On my way to work this morning I passed a student transport service that was broken down at a fairly quiet intersection. Young children aged 7 or 8 milled around on the pavement as the driver attended to the vehicle. As I slowed down I noticed one of the kids staring intently in my direction. Whether he was looking at me or the car is hard to say, but I wondered if that scene for him would prove to be inspirational in some way later on in life. Not inspirational in the typical sense of ‘I want to be like that when I grow up’, but rather in the sense that it represented certain goals for him.

    If I think back to my time in school, I recall similarly poignant moments that defined my perspectives or my priorities. It wasn’t earth shattering moments of ‘Eureka’ but rather unexpected sights or experiences that left their mark. There was a time in school when we were preparing for the official opening of the new school premises that we recently occupied. I was in the 6th grade and normal classes had been disrupted for several weeks already as all the kids were involved in some or other project relating to the building of floats or other decorative items for the event. It was then that I learnt how to cut polystyrene, spray the index tab onto library books in bulk, classify books according to the Dewey Decimal system and so much more. At one point I looked up at my teacher and asked him why it was that we didn’t learn things like this more often instead of sitting in class and studying from books all the time?

    I don’t recall his response, and his response was not defining either. What defined that experience for me was the practical knowledge and skills that I had acquired in such a short space of time as opposed to the endless boring sessions of indulging in theoretical and academic studies of subjects that would barely have any practical value in my life. I think it was then that my mindset shifted from the traditional methods of acquiring knowledge to one that is more experiential by nature. To this day I grow impatient and often abrasive if I find myself compelled to sit with textbooks or drawn out discussions about challenges that need to be resolved, and instead, I often aggressively prompt people in the direction of considering practical options or impacts around what we may be contending with. I think I’ve learnt to temper my impatience with some finesse more recently, although many would still disagree. Nonetheless, it has served me well, and if I had to try to pinpoint a time in my life when such an approach became tangibly attractive enough for me to adopt as my own, it would be that unexpected experience in school that was not shaped by the schooling system at all.

    In a similar light I contemplated the thoughts that may have formed in that kid’s head this morning as he stood there in the cold watching me pass as he waited for the driver to repair the vehicle. With every scene or experience that we endure, we make choices. Some are conscious, but most are not. Most play out in our sub-conscious minds as we shape our characters and lives relative to the circumstances around us. That child could have been looking at me and thinking what a snob I am, while admiring the humility of the driver that made a living from ensuring that he got the kids to school and back safely, and hopefully on time. Whichever of those two perspectives appealed to him at that point, that is what he will find himself sub-consciously polarizing towards as he goes through life.

    I think these choices that we make grounds us in our lives to the defining moments that informed our perspectives. The less mindful we are, the less likely it is that we’ll be able to identify these choices when we’re making them, and therefore the less informed our choices will be. While woefully simplistic as an analogy, it suggests some answers as to why some make destructive choices in life, while others choose more wisely. If anything, it prompts inclinations in us that we can choose to embrace or choose to question. Those that embrace without question are often victims to circumstance. They’re the ones that want to be seen as the brave ones that persevere in spite of their lot in life. They’re the martyrs among us. Always ready to assist even if such assistance enables dependence.

    Then there are those that question before embracing. They’re the ones most often seen as cold and calculated. But it takes both types to make this world an interesting place. The ones most endearing would be those that have a healthy balance between these two extremes. That healthy balance would probably be reflected in those that embrace without question that which is confirmed (to them) to be wholesome, while being pragmatic and realistic before diving into a mess to help a victim. While the choices we can make are endless, I guess the point of this deliberation is that the choices that most often shape our lives the most are rarely the choices we made consciously. I think that’s an important realisation that, if we embrace it, will prompt us to be courageous enough to question why we are the way we are. This is needed if we ever hope to grow beyond just the cycle of evolution that our lives inherently dictate. If we don’t wish for such growth, then perhaps we’re the martyrs we spurn in others?

  • Look Behind Their Eyes

    The one who judges is most often reflecting their bitterness rather than the merits of the subject of their judgement. There is a simple but important difference between judging and understanding. In seeking to understand we are compelled to make judgement calls about what we observe. Those judgement calls are in the form of observations or assumptions we make relative to what is visible to us, what we know about the subject, and what we think relates practically to it. In other words, our frame of reference is brought to bear on what we are faced with. We all do this. It’s a normal cycle we go through sub-consciously in order to make sense of the world around us.

    The challenge lies in what we do with this information. The worst among us assume that this set of information is absolute and authoritative and therefore feel confident enough to use it as a basis of judgement against others. The lesser contemptible among us realise that it is only true within our current frame of reference and could change substantially if new information were to come to light. But there must be a simple reason that tells us why we respond so differently, and it cannot be external either. So what is it about how we perceive ourselves that gives us reason to be either arrogant and judgemental, or grounded and understanding?

    I believe it lies in that septic space called self-worth. The lower our self-worth, the greater our inclination to judge, and vice versa. Those that despise themselves seek affirmation in the fact that others are lesser beings than they are. It’s an easy fix to stave off the contempt we feel for our shortcomings when we lack the strength of character required to face it, and deal with it. It’s significantly easier for me to slander the efforts of another than it is for me to raise my game and be as competent or benevolent as they are, all the while fearing insignificance with the current audience if I am seen to be the weaker one.

    The challenge in expecting such bitter souls to reflect is that their bitterness is exactly the distraction that prevents them from reflection, and in turn, mindfulness. I still believe that those that may be bitter but are inherently good, and strive (albeit internally only) to improve their character and humanness, will ultimately attract the right set of circumstances that will force them to set aside the bitterness for long enough to see the truth of themselves that they tried to wish away.

    The clutter in my space is making this thought process very difficult to articulate. When we see someone behaving despicably, our most common response is to despise them and to shun them. We distance ourselves from them from fear of contamination of their vile ways, or at the least, from fear of being associated with them. The former is a lack of our sense of self, and the latter being our need to be perceived well by others. In other words, our need for significance. If we didn’t fall victim to these two obsessions, I would guess that our response to vile behaviour would be very different.

    Instead of shunning or despising, both of which are inherently judgemental, we would seek to look behind the eyes of the contemptible one, and instead of responding harshly, we would see the weakness that drives them to behave the way they do. But this demands of us that which we are most loathe to acknowledge. It demands an embrace of our own weaknesses, and more importantly, our gravest failures. In order to look behind the eyes of another, we need to recognise in them what we once subscribed to as well. Look behind the eyes of anger, and you’ll see a desperate need for significance. Just because they may be demanding that significance in the workplace doesn’t mean that it’s their colleagues that are the root cause of their desperation. Most often we tend to project our aggression on those that are least likely to resist or challenge it, while avoiding such aggression in the presence of those that we wish to appeal to instead. It’s the path of least resistance that enables such behaviour. We are more likely to show aggression in those spheres of our lives where we hold more authority because the coward in us directs us away from those settings where we know the repercussions will be costly. The cost being relative to what we desire.

    It’s for the same reason that parents may vent their anger in the home but be docile and compliant at the office, or vice versa. As despicable as such behaviour may be, the moment we recognise that need for significance, or the need to appear competent, or simply to be liked, we will be able to see the weakness that provokes the brute, rather than believing that the brute is a lesser being than ourselves.

    When we judge prematurely, we recede into a space of arrogance that eventually convinces us that we’ve arrived at the point of awareness in our lives where all we do is impeccably informed, and all we challenge is of a noble cause. That’s when we become the aggressors, and it is then that we should pray that there is one in the audience that will take the time to look behind our eyes so that they may be able to sensitise us to the weakness that has driven us to become the contemptible one.

    If we look behind the eyes of the aggressor, we’ll see that there are no bad people in this world, only weak ones.

    [Yet another incomplete thought process]

  • Still Searching

    The search for serenity continues. It’s a search that will always be futile, like the pursuit of perfection, but its pursuit promises peace. The kind of peace that is forever elusive yet holds enough promise to keep us committed to its pursuit. Passing my fingertips over the keyboard without crafting any thoughts holds a similar promise. It’s as if I’m hoping that through some stroke of genius the clutter in my head and the weight on my shoulders will suddenly unpack itself beautifully in prose that will give it meaning and purpose. The stroke is there, but the genius is not.

    There was a time when a slow deep breath with my eyes closed would cause the substance of my thoughts to surface while subduing the noise. Now, such a breath only reminds me of the shallowness of my breathing. It’s the shallowness that echoes the distractions of my life. Discarding the essentials while focusing on the embellishments. I see it around me all the time. I’ve spent fortune after fortune of hard-earned bonuses in the renovation of this piece of land each time hoping to create a comfortable space that will remove the clutter and allow for repose, yet so many iterations later I have yet to place even a basic bench in the backyard so that I may be able to enjoy the peaceful surrounds of a garden that is admired but rarely enjoyed.

    My breath is like that bench. In misplaced moments I find myself inhaling deeply, feeling the release it offers, but losing focus on exhaling because the next breath is prompted again. Completing a thought, or a chore, or even a breath, have all become synonymous with restlessness. The chest tightens, the shoulders spasm, the neck stiffens, and the head pounds. But these are not my emotions being expressed through an unwilling body. It is echoes of the strife that exists around me. Strife that is disguised well. An unhealthy focus on needing to prevail leaves an underlying torrent of debris that threatens our composure the moment the crack in our armour reveals the wounds beneath.

    Too often I notice too many with an outstretched hand to seemingly want to lift me out of the abyss of reality. I smile a silent smile at their obliviousness. They’re oblivious to the fact that I stepped into the abyss to cup my hands beneath their feet so that they may be lifted high enough to see what life is like beyond the surrender of their hope to the expectations that they have grown to embrace as reality. It’s the same distracted-ness that convinces us that the more effective our defenses the more wholesome our perspective, until we reach a point where we’re ready to offer those defenses to others before we even understand their reality.

    It’s the tokens that count. The tokens that resonate with us in our search for familiarity of purpose. We see a struggle that, on the surface, resonates with a defining moment of our own and before even looking closer, let alone trying to understand, we present a promise of salvation not realising that such an uncalculated gesture in fact reveals our desperation for serenity more than it offers peace. I believe that life will only ever offer a psychosomatic relief from the trials of this world. As we prioritise our efforts on those things that provide relief or comfort, the impact of their poor cousins is deferred for only as long as we’re able to keep them away from the feast we hope to indulge in.

    Life presents us with a spread of delicacies and trinkets, carefully concealing the sweat shops that operate behind the veil of obliviousness. Those that are restless through conviction peer behind that veil in their attempts to see the delicacies and trinkets for what they are, slowly finding themselves repulsed by it. Most prefer to indulge instead, believing that what lies behind the veil is unimportant, because it is only in the appreciation of the indulgence that gratitude is reflected. Gratitude is hollow when it appreciates the outcome without an understanding of the toil that made it possible.

    Perhaps in that there is some truth. Perhaps it is the hollowness of the appreciation expressed by others towards our achievements in life that never fully heal the wounds that created the present moment. It’s a fleeting consolation that recedes when the darkness descends. The night is only as peaceful as the day’s indulgence, and the day’s indulgence is only as focused as the reflections of the night. Perhaps we should stop seeking fulfillment in the expression of gratitude from others. When we use that hollowness as a yardstick against which to measure our success, we subscribe to the insanity that dictates that the oblivious will define our peace. I just realised why the search continues.

  • Introverts don’t exist

    I’ve often been accused of being an introvert. Some apologists would say that it’s not a bad thing, but then they’ll continue to describe specific adaptations in behaviour that ‘normal’ people should adopt in order to understand or engage with introverts more meaningfully. They’re idiots, and so is every other person that allows some idiot with a degree to classify their state of being by attaching a label to it.

    I am not an introvert. I choose to be introspective. I choose to observe before flying my mouth off, and I choose to be measured in my responses only after I am comfortable that I have grasped the true nature of what I am dealing with. That is not being introverted, that is being reasonable. Yet once again, because spontaneity and instant gratification is worshipped by the masses, those that choose to live with substance rather than overt expression, are considered as lesser beings.

    To a much lesser extent extroverts are similarly labelled. The irony of that label is that it places many of ‘them’ on a pedestal, which denies them the ability to assume a quiet and introspective disposition when needed because there is always someone waiting to accuse them of being in a bad or sad mood. Those that don’t care for the labels will shun such shallowness and continue their introspection, while most will succumb and find the next best distraction through which to express their extrovert-ism.

    Labels will be the death of many kind souls because just the term introvert has such negative connotations. According to our friend Google, the dictionary definition of introvert is:

    image

    As if that isn’t enough against which to rest my case, I would go further to suggest that many consider introverted behaviour to be a personality disorder. Those that buy into this Neanderthal way of thinking embrace that label, and then go through life trying to find coping mechanisms defined by the ‘normal’ idiots with degrees so that they can fit into someone else’s retarded definition of what their behaviour should be like.

    It takes a healthy dose of a superiority complex to assume that just because you do not relate to the disposition of another, your inane academic qualification endows you with the right to define them as flawed in capacity and therefore a charitable case for those that compensate for this apparent shortcoming in introverts. This post is deliberately condescending because the hogwash about supposed introverts seems to prevail regardless of the logical reasoning offered in return.

    Just because someone doesn’t like your company, or because they prefer their own company to that of the gossipers, the nit-pickers, the shallow ones, or the distracted ones, doesn’t make them flawed. In fact, if you were honest with yourself, and you subscribed to the label of being an extrovert or a ‘normal’ person that is neither introverted nor extroverted, seeing someone shying away from company should prompt you to consider what is distasteful to them rather than assuming that they have a mental disorder that was created by sadistic capitalists with a degree is psychiatry.

    The world has learnt more, and benefited more, from those that are introspective by choice, than they have by the party animals that throw caution to the wind in order to appease the fickleness of the masses with which they surround themselves. Distractions rarely inspire growth. The art of introspection is to navigate through those distractions in order to grow. So the next time you see someone sitting quietly and observing, before you assume they’re an introvert, consider that they may very well be observing your whimsical behaviour and trying to understand what drives you to be as fickle as you are.