Last night a new thought made me free

Last night a new thought made me free. I was in bed and felt tired into my bones. My back was strung tight like an archers’ bow before he’d let go of the arrow, and thus a fiery mental arrow pierced through my mind; all the pain I’ve suffered to achieve my goals, countless youthful hours, thrown into an endless pit of expectations. Was it worth it? Yes, and no, are equally good answers. Yes, for I had no other option. Failure was, in a sense, impossible, because I would never give up. On the other hand: no, since the toil and work necessary to do well, also meant I had no life left in me for anything else.

There was however another realisation I fancied in the wave of mental arrows bursting across the night sky of my mind: I can’t be bothered to pour any more much suffering, anguish and despair into every single thing that can might go wrong tomorrow. I’m just not willing to care, or freak out, this much about this little any longer. Time to stop the worry-train and trust myself a little.

After all, by most measures, my life is, on paper, great! It’s just that it’s taking too much worrying and struggle to maintain the score. So I figured I’d put a little more trust in the one guy that’s made my personal dreams come true along the way, I pronounce, humbly I should add, myself. I can let myself come into important situations, without trying to figure out everything that might happen beforehand. I can respond to the one actual thing that happens in an effective and good way. Once the mind is freed from holding on the never ending «what if’s», all mental energy is channeled directly into the actual experience of what is happening.

This made me happy to think of, and went into dreams with a new found lust for life, and I began to trust, for the first time in a long time, that I would be able to face what life throws at me simply by trusting my intuition and focusing on whats happening around me and acting on my thoughts and feelings in the moment as they arise.

Have a great night*

Life just levelled up and so did you. Be ready.

The loss of feelings, make greater feelings possible.

I remember as a child, how easily I was struck by emotions, and how strongly they hit me. A new song would lift me up to the sky in an instant, just like a stern look from my parents could rip my heart out and make tears flow like the Nile. Same goes for my teens, but here I more often recall sexual frustrations and achievements as larger than life events.

Point is, at 24, I am still young, but life’s got more blunt. New ideas don’t make me laugh with joy, nor does a rejection sting like a venomous snake anymore. Ideas are instead entertaining, and rejections is more like a rainy day, instead of a thundering hurricane outside my door. Recently I found this frustrating, for example, the idea for this text that came to me 5 minutes ago, would have made me thrilled when I was younger, but now it doesn’t really stir any particular strong emotion in me.

What a bummer, right? Maybe so, but I just came to picture how effective this makes me to do things where more is at stake. Events that involve great fears, and demands deep control during moments of intense stress – will now be easier to complete, since emotions won’t completely overpower me, or make me crumble under pressure.

So here’s my sentiment to all young adults, that feels like life doesn’t bring out any strong feelings anymore. Heed this call: With emotions made blunt, you are ready to take harder quests than ever before – with equally large rewards. Life just levelled up and so did you. Be ready.

Have a good evening!

The grind or The authentic?

In gaming there is something called “the grind”, which is to play the game in the most effective way to level up or achieve some goal, it often involves repeating some task a million times as it is the most time-effective way to level up, instead of exploring new territories or completing complex quests to level up, which is less effective. The grind is effective and soul-crushing. To do quests or explore new land is often more satisfying, but slower in regards to reaching maximum level.

In real life, I do “the grind” on Tinder, a dating app. I swipe right on most faces, even the ones I am not very interested in, and so when I match with someone, I don’t fancy it much. Eventually I grow tired of my own standard opening-line, my refined sequence of escalation at the bar, and eventual walk home together. The “I’m tired” afterwards, and the final “good-bye” half an hour later.

Everything comes in cycles, and “the grind” is one of them. Eventually you grow tired of it, despite it being time-effective. You grow bored of the grind game, the brain self-regulates, and you bother to invest more in each person you meet, to be authentic, and you decide to give, once again, Love a chance.

Have a good night.

Like, a drug –

My legs need caffeine, they’ve fallen asleep.
My tongue need a cigarette, cause a whiskey voice would charm her now.
My eyes need MDMA so she can see my true love for her.
My hands need weed so she can feel my fingers warmth deep inside her bones.
My mind need alcohol so she can hear those few words from me without hesitation.

Life is a drug and I want it all H E R E + N O W.

where nothing hurts

I went and bought some first class weed, and made a clean roll of the good stuff. Took 5 good hits, and was teleported to another dimension. Laying down in my bed, I was overcome with sensations, and began to panick slightly, it was a rapid shift between ecstasy and horror. In an instant I was disconnected from everything that was going on in my mind, like my body was someone else’s – even my thoughts were foreign, and it must be in some way connected to the rest of me, because this state of existence (mind), calmed down my fear, the sensations that stirred the horror was still there, but it didn’t scare me anymore.

I am a firm believer that we can experience everything and anything without judging it to be bad/horrible – choose your negative adjective, because the mind, or the ground of existence, – is without judgements of good and bad. It just sees everything, then the mind adds a layer of thought and further directs bodily reactions.

We have a certain way we desire to go in this world, of what to achieve, and the great anxiety of not succeeding in those endeavours, but with this observation of a third layer, of seeing without judging, makes it possible for the «bad» to happen without our suffering. – It is not unavoidable, but it is possible to walk through it with grace.

Happy summer to you all.

A question to erase regrets and lack of self-awareness

What is the most pressing question for philosophy to answer? – How to live the best possible life.

Best life implies that one makes all the right decisions, otherwise one is filled with regret. One becomes stuck in the past, and continues to hunt the present. This is a downward spiral that is difficult to get out of. Most importantly because one is unaware of the negative thoughts that dominate the thought process, and in effect, damages all aspects of daily life.

The downfall comes to be because one regrets and then becomes fixated on the past, which cannot change. Life becomes stagnant, as one stays on a problem that cannot be fixed. This again is caused by lack of mindfulness, not being aware that this is how one lives.

The cure needs to address the two poisons of regret and lack of self-awareness. The following thought experiment seems to have a potential redeeming effect on both poisons:

–  In the future, how would you have wished that you acted right now?

This question makes one aware of:

• What is important to oneself right now, and what to pursue.
• That you one as if transported back in time to fix these regrets in the present time.
• The powers one has to make something joyful happen this very instant.
• It turns the strong tendency to focus on everything negative, and applies it to future regrets, making one keenly aware instead of all the current possibilities to fulfill those desires right now and avoid those regrets. 

I Want More Turbulence and Meaning in My Life

I was about to check my most recent post to see what kind of state of mind I was in last time I wrote here, but figured it would be interesting to compare, after I pour my heart out now.

I haven’t thought of myself as a stable person for years. I have felt violent waves of emotion, gnawing anxiety and terrible persistent annoyance, depression and anger. Perhaps as a grander joke, the package included the height of my creativity and persistence in my work, and I am very proud of what I have learnt and created the last 3 years at architecture school. I have discovered my strengths in this profession, ie. unusual perspectives, abstract methods and drawings, and a keen eye for connecting the dots and story-telling. My weaknesses are a tendency to think instead of doing, and being completely green to so many tools and techniques that exist, but with time and work I am slowly growing in expertise.

In summary I have thrown myself into these studies with all my heart, and felt overwhelmed on a daily basis for months at a time, and in despair isolated myself, listened to too much Pink Floyd, watched too many turbulent documentaries, and mostly felt unstable, with rushes of joy and despair racing beside each other to see who reaches my mind first and most heavily.

Right now I am kind of kicking the earth out of mild boredom, but boy do I feel stable, nothing makes such an impression on me as it used to. I enjoy small-talking with my friends, partying once every weekend, working out, reading a little, and overall not having very much to do, and not caring deeply about anything. It is very relaxing, but I am starting to look around for another challenge. Something paramount important for me to plunge into, but it is very comfortable right here. It’s like I am in a warm bathtub with candles and Mozart, and somebody tells me that there is an ice bath and an adventure waiting for me. I want to just stay a bit more before I head out. The adventure can wait until this water is lukewarm.

Because my identity has been so strongly tied to my work, I kind of don’t know what to think of myself right now. I try my hands at the social game a lot more, where the good vibes rule, and impression and appearance is what matters. I think I, for the first time, understand how somebody can spend their entire life doing mediocre work, having some good friends, and just trying to do some fun stuff after work, if not after, at least in the weekend, and never being very tired, over-worked or worried, but neither being elated as strongly as one is when one works hard and succeeds in ones deeds. That is the greatest feeling in the world, together with being in love. It is being in love with your work, and your work finally loving you back. Nothing beats that, nothing!

Putting the dream in the future, and perhaps why I do it

I sit here in my dirty apartment, with used clothes, empty cognac glasses and stained coffee mugs on the light-wooden IKEA table and more clothes from the winter-term not yet stored away… I sit here and read Heavier than Heaven, a biography about Kurt Cobain. I’ve come to him being 17 years old and his first experience with punk music and the freedom he finds.

My mind instantly brings me into a dream of a cottage by the west coast of Norway, where my grandparents live, sharing the vision my dad has of working in this empty, nostalgic, beautiful, cottage hardened by rough weather and the wild nature. The dream of making great art, with absolute freedom, from morning and far into the night. Then, there, I will unleash my full potential and show the world.

And I wonder, why do I put it off? The dream? Why not begin here in this dirty apartment, I have the pencil, the brushes, the A1 sized paper and lots of colors, even the ideas are sketched out in my mind. I just wonder, why do I dream of this idealized place to make art, instead of just doing it here, taking the direct route instead of a fantasy?

Probably because dreaming is cheap, and makes me feel good, in the fictional memory I create, I am living that memory as I imagine it, it is so very close to real. A more favorable perspective on the dream, is that by looking into a potential bright future of being able to make art in a perfect space, it plunges me into creating art here, and working towards that goal, and that by doing any kind of art here, now, I am reminded of the beautiful potential future, and it drives me to keep going.

Anyway, that’s all I wanted to write, now I’ll go back and read some more Heavier than Heaven – until I find myself in another fantasy of mine.

M

Why I criticize_Reflection

In my unconscious criticism (happens instantaneously), there is a longing that nobody will be this critical when I say something, but because they dare and say something, I must criticize them, or there would make no sense for me to not say something. By criticizing them, I validate my own fear of speaking out. How dreadful. Blessed to see this clearly, I can change my automatic pattern of condemning others, so as to free myself as well. 

That’s where the ache ends

I see your tears and hear your cry, and it’s not like a bum like me knows anything, but maybe that’s worth something. I don’t know your story or how you feel. I mean, I see tears, I hear you say your mama left you, but that’s not a story, that’s a sentence. But, kiddo I tell you one thing. A whole lotta problems come from assuming that because you feel this or think that, then something must follow. I first heard this from a beggar who used to be a monk. He was this big rich business man who went full spiritual thing in a crisis, and then spent eight years in a monastery up in the Alps. Sat on a white mountain for eight years, did he. He still has a couple of millions in the bank, but prefers to sit on park benches and smile at the sky and what not. But I am forgetting myself, the point is that nothing follows. Cause and effect? No, man. It’s like them waves after a boat, you know, doesn’t affect where the ship is going. Like the past doesn’t affect your steering, right? Unless you’re looking back, nobody can do that and not hit into problems.  There is this event, what happens next, is like this event, but also another event, if you compare ‘em. So don’t compare, just comprehend. With silence. Like, don’t say your mama’s mean cause she left you, you be the silence. Yeah, the silence brings you what you need. The silence will provide and protect. It’ll sculpture you into perfection, boy! You think cause your mama left you, you’ve gotta do something. Cause you feel your heart aching and you wanna make it stop, but like, that’s a hoax, man. A total hoax. It is the assumption you make that by proceeding into some steps, it’ll ease the ache, but it’ll only make it more sticky. Your thinking grows tight, no air to see and breathe. Sit still, and be the silence. Then, maybe your mama comes back, or you get into a home, or none of that happens, it’s like you can’t control it. But you wanna escape the ache and so you feel the need to control. Control your mama, control your aching, control them thoughts of fury that keep hammering on your front-door like wild dogs. Makes you get stuck. Instead, you just sit still and let the silence come, man. Silence clears the water, makes you see the bottom. All the way, deep into the darkness you’ll see it so easily. It’s like the darkness turns into light. That’s where the ache ends, you know, at the bottom of that dark sea. With the silence you move like a pro, all the traps you sweep right through, don’t even walk around ‘em, you just flow through the barriers like they’re not there – like it’s air, man.