TMoL

this post, lady and germ, is about The Meaning of Life. or today's thoughts on the topic, at least. i have an idea that the point of all life, if there is one [i don't mean in a "divinely prophecied" kind of way so much as a what's-most-natural/what-makes-sense-given-the-seeming-senselessness-of-it-all kind of way] has to do with purest, truest SELF-ness.

nature never lies. animals [with whom we begrudgingly share that title] are THEMSELVES, purely and simply. a chicken pecks around in the dirt, with no great regard for its purpose or for the image it projects in the minds of other chickens — it is simply exhibiting / being / enjoying its utmost chickenness. of course we can loop into the discussion the idea that the chicken is concerned on a greater level with species survival, and that dirt-pecking is exactly what's needed to keep chickens chickening for generations to come. and we'd be right. same too with humans, i think. as we are animals, we are also primarily, cellularly, interested in propagation of the species, and maybe by following our urges to do the things we most love doing, by getting our brains & bodies all excited/entertained in the particular way that suits us as individuals, we too are making our own gene-propagation a little more progressive. our added consciousness (above that of animals i mean) makes this strategy more interesting than simply a question of Strongest / Most Attractive / Most Fertile. we can actually make conscientious, kind, good-for-all-species decisions, rather than just for our own. every creature, everywhere, can benefit. rather than just the melee of species duking it out for domination, the conscious folks can assess the situation, decide what's likely to do the most/least damage to the planet and all species in general, and act accordingly.

the question would arise, i think, 'what about the people who enjoy killing other humans or raping small boys who help light incense at mass, etc?' — to which i think the obvious response is that this theory is based on a preconception of the humans under discussion being as free from this sort of psychological problem as possible. and ideally humans would help humans who are this screwy to unscrew themselves and be able to contribute better, etc etc. this is a bigger topic...  but, i have to say in defense of the rapey (blowjobby?) priests, this seems to me more of a cultural problem than a personal psychological one. but it's a perfect example of a time when we can assess our situation and revise our worldwide strategy, right?

so the point, if i'm not belaboring this one to death, I THINK, is that the trick of life is to discover our ultimate USness, your YOUness, my MEness — and to act accordingly. something weird has happened in our culture over the past bunch of years to make this a bit harder, though, and i think television has made this effect grow exponentially. people, as social creatures (like all apes and many animals), care what others think of them. it makes sense, again, for propagation of the species purposes. but something has happened in us where we are so concerned [and i speak from experience!!! intense experience!!] with the perception of us that it almost eclipses the reality of us. or that we BECOME the perception or something like this. i think tv [and i do love it - don't get me wrong] has turned us into GAZERS and people who feel/are GAZED UPON, as opposed to BE-ers and DO-ers. (i am borrowing that phrase from the late great David Foster Wallace, to be fair.) tv has become the arbiter of worth, and our personalities have stepped in line, offering the world of viewers, watchers, judgers a version of ourselves that we feel will be favorable, given the context of all the other stuff we gaze at on the tube. i only bring this up because i think this [and its all really obvious i'm just talking it all out for fun] might be why and how it's become difficult to connect anymore with our own sense of our us-ness. and therefore, our sense of purpose.

the end.
to a possibly really silly entry.

habits

hi. trying out a new font. WHICH, i just realized, is very appropriate, given the topic i want to write about today: Habits, and changing them. 


“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.”- Mark Twain 


(just found that online when i googled "changing habits." but i think before i explore further online, i should just discuss what i'm thinking this morning.)


i have a feeling humans are largely made of HABITS. we make some deliberate decisions, yes, but these seem to be nested in a much larger, much deeper and more insidious house of habitual behavior and thinking. in fact, it's the thinking element i'm most interested in right now. i am very curious if anyone out there [you know who you are, you two!] has ever had any luck in changing a mental habit — a persistent belief you'd had that you suddenly one day decided was A) not true or B) not helpful any longer. and you went about changing it? and did you use specific steps? did you succeed? did it take a long time?  i am so curious about this topic; i wonder what would be possible if we could alter lifelong perceptions of how/who we are, how/who others are, what anything means. 


i've read that it takes 21 days to change a habit — not sure if this applies only to things like exercise, quitting smoking, etc — but it's interesting to ponder that we could change ANYTHING about ourselves in 21 days. like, what if, instead of endlessly TALKING about starting a damn coffeeshop [which, my broad audience may be aware, i've done for, oh, about 15 years], i actually did some work toward it for 21 days. on day 22, would something magically happen, something change that turned this notion into a reality or this "experiment" into a fact / a bonafide intention? 


people often say that "changing is hard." and while i can acknowledge and agree with this on one level, because it "doesn't come naturally" (i'm into "quotes" today), i also think it's often not so difficult to CHANGE, so much as difficult to REMEMBER to change. it's the old ribbon-on-the-finger thing. we are creatures of habit, and as such, do some things / think some ways almost automatically. we've created the neural pathways (i'm back on that - holyshit, did i already write this same post and i forgot about it? hopefully it's tangential enough to not be totally reiterative and boring), and we just truck-on-down these highways, endlessly, usually with similar results to before. yeah - i think the real key is the awareness of the thing you want to change. THAT's the hard part — not the changing itself. this is a slippery bit to contemplate, we're so accustomed to thinking of behavior change itself as hard. 


anyhow. that's probably about enough on this topic. i'd seriously love to hear about anyone's experiences with changing mental behavior (or even non-mental!).  
Thanks Everybody!


post-script: i read online, and i think this seems smart and plausible, that stopping a behavior is good but REPLACING that behavior with another, more desirable one, is even better. this seems like a good idea, because where is your mind to go when you remove the undesirable idea? you have to give it a place to rest, right? what's a good metaphor ... i can't think of one just now.... maybe next time. i hope you have inspiring mental-habit-change stories for me!!