a refuge for all the triangles heads

Since my last post talked about doing 'nothing' I guess you could take the title of this chapter two ways but chances are, despite my convincing explanation that consciously doing nothing could lead to being able to do so much more you probably did nothing about it -- and by nothing I mean nothing in the ignorant apathetic sense not the type I was talking about previously. Why? Simply because one of the hardest things to do in a world full of buzz and hype is simply to sit and do nothing. To follow no thoughts. To silence desire. To put a lid on the noise, so to speak. Simply, to do this equates to death of your figmented self - it equates to the death of your drama - it equates to actually changing rather than keeping the spielberg product running and to the undisciplined advanced monkey running around the planet, most importantly, this is considered 'wasting time' - even though it has been considered by many to slow down time and allows the practitioner to achieve more in smaller spaces of time -- just try explaining that to iCalendar or the office or team which have got you scheduled to countless deadlines. On a side note have you ever wondered why they call them 'deadlines'? My take is, if you bind your life to future appointments you are already dead. The deadline seeker is completely frazzled and has lost touch with the moment. Life is literally on delay, waiting for the future to arrive that never does. It is madness. But I digress for a moment - back to talking about doing nothing.

But can you really do nothing? Apparently we are always decaying or regenerating and to some deep thinkers like Deepak Chopra, they refer to sitting still as dynamic non-change -- meaning you are changing while not changing at all. There is the you that remains the same, and yet you inhabit a body with some 1 trillion cellular changes per second roughly. The observer remains intact, perfect and complete while your body is dying and being reborn every moment complete in its seemingly neverending ongoing deconstruction and reconstruction -- its continous struggle to keep order while dealing with the enslaught of chaos and entropy.

Naturally, we are on a quest to achieve what we want and keep our shit together. Yet what do we want? Do we find what we want by reading blogs or watching TV? Or do we remember what we truly want when we sit down and observe, listen, feel and reconnect with the undying eternal part of ourselves? Quite a silly question really. Essentially, if you are going directly for what you truly want, rather than a bit of this and a bit of that while being distracted here and there then obviously one would be many times more potent in creating what they want - when they can tell the difference between a true inner desire and a distraction. But most people, do not take the time to make the distinction. Life is one reaction of impulse to the next. Do you want a coffee or a water? Do you want to walk or have sex? Do you want to build or business or simply climb a mountain? Cereal or fruit salad for breakfast? Buy now or get a payment plan? The overload of stimulii in the outside world has made most of us totally uncertain of what we truly desire and so we react to a smorgasboard of substanceless options all of which can create momentary passings of pleasure which most of the time have no positive lasting effect on our health and happiness as individuals or a collective.

We are taught that trial and error is the way and you must exhaust all possibilities before you know what the right solution is and going within and simply knowing the path to walk is a kind of lunacy. That is the malfunctioning dogma at least - failing forward. The other alternative is to simply combine and do everything simeltaneously - the ceasar salad approach to life. For example, fruit salad with cereal. And water with coffee. And just take the iPhone with you and do business while you climb the mountain. A bit of this. A bit of that. We live in a time that is frothing with opportunitistic semen - an orgiastic boundless groping of stuff to do - a plethora of people who want everything now while only partially commiting to not much at all. Are we confused? Are we betting on a bit of everything in the hope one of the horses comes through? It sure seems that way.

So we have to look at what has stood the tests of time. What has retained inspiration throughout the ages and what is a new fad. Kellogs Fruity Loops is a fad compared to say, conversing with friends and family. McDonalds is a fad, compared to Oranges. Self-help books are a fad, compared to meditating and contemplating. And in reality, none of these fads have really done much of anything for me in my true times of problem solving needs.

Personally, I can't recall the number of times I have been sitting in front of my computer trying my heart out to solve a certain technical issue. The solution to the bug seems to evade me and it is ultimately frustrating. Then I remember "ahh, thats right! If I'm being frustrated I keep on creating more frustration" and I hop up and walk outside because I know it is the truth for me that what I focus on expands. By focusing on the problem, the problem becomes the focus and not the solution. Does water try to move the objects in its pathway? Absolutely not - infact, water has no intention of making its way down the slopes of a mountain - it just does. And if the water finds a rock that it can't move over? The water simply takes the lowest form by moving around, and a little bit underneath. Over time, simply by using the power of gravity the water moves the tiny pebbles underneath the large rock, and those little pebbles get washed down stream by the power of gravity and with no effort on the waters behalf what so ever a hole has been formed underneath the rock and the large rock falls down into it. Now the water flows through the space where the rock once was. Completely effortlessly. So I take a seat down on the floor away from the computer and just breath and turn my mind off. I stop trying to get on top of the problem and through no effort what so ever, I let the natural powers that exist in the world to move the pebbles so to speak in my own mind so that I can create a space for the rock to fall into.

Generally I notice 2 things happen:

1. My mind continues thinking about the problem even though I'm telling my mind not to.
2. In the moments in between the sort of elastic unwinding of those thoughts I feel a true sense of joy regardless of not solving the problem... yet.

Deep down, I know that once I can stop being in the frequency or the train of thought I am in, that the solution will actually just pop into my head and yet, it won't come while I am trying to think about it because this type of problem is something completely different to the rational or logical ideas I have tried already. See there is something innately wrong with the whole package or program I have written and its time to come from an entirely different space. So I keep breathing... I keep coming back to nothingness... I keep reinforcing that I am ok sitting on a balcony or in the garden and that despite my program being broken - I am not broken. I am ok. Infact I am more than ok, I am inspired now. I feel quite incredible actually. I mean really, what a great time to be alive. Wow, you know life is pretty damn amazing. What is that smell in the air? Is it jasmine? Jasmine with a hint of basil. Just delightful.

By now, I've literally forgotten what I was even working on. The subtle smell of life has overtaken the nagging electro cyborg issues I was working on. And then the most profound thing happens... a lightning bult hits. Not literally, but I'm perhaps making a cup of tea and I see something entirely different inside my mind. A pathway or a way to do the programs math in a way I hadn't even thought of before. Its a true breakthrough. I am excstatic, both by the possibility that this solution just might work, but also because I didn't even need to think about the issue for the solution to bloom inside my mind. Is that the deep subconscious coming to life and working for me? Am I tapping into parts of my brain I haven't been using? Does the simple act of being happy and inspired mean new parts of the brain start working? Or are there angels perhaps feeding my mind thoughts because I took a moment to notice the flowers? Who knows - really? What I do know is this works and that the solutions I have come up from in this space seem to transcend things I have spent sleepless nights tapping away at keys to create.

I believe if you were to ask some of the most profound creators of our time like Gary who co-created posterous we would find time and time again they came up with these awesome ideas when they were inspired, and not when they were afraid of a recession, or afraid of meeting a deadline, or in fear of running out of money. If you ever find yourself in these states of mind, just go for a walk, find a place to sit and simply do nothing. As you start to become comfortable with the idea that you actually get something truly sustaining and rewarding from the silence, the old belief that this so simple act of doing nothing is hard becomes overwhelmed with the reality that ease of life in all areas comes as a result of this practice.

There is something also ultimately rebellious about all of this. No, I will not mindlessly proceed and play out the dramas that were handed to me. No, I will not react to the fears and the scripts that everybody believes in. I am choosing to break this cycle which is clearly dysfunctional and adding to the noise and chaos in my life. I am choosing to collapse this delusion and I am choosing to embrace more - with less. I am choosing to be aware of more - without trying to be. I am challenging the concept that life is hard and that intelligence is difficult to grasp rather than what is inherent and flowing through every cell of my body. I am choosing to make my body my teacher and my feelings my children. My emotions no longer control my life. No more will I entertain fleeting desires and the persuit of temporary pleasures at the expense of my sanity and longterm joy.