“I exhort everyone to the philosophic life, for an unexamined life is a life not worth living.” Socrates
Part 1
It has been said that it’s all about asking the right questions. The first question we should perhaps all ask ourselves is, “What do I want to do with my short time here in this wonder we call life?” Do you want to live a life with real meaning and consequence, ‘Make a difference’, or are you going to be satisfied with being a mediocrity? If one is sane enough to attempt the former, what is going to be required? Whatever it is, we could say that it is enough ‘energy’, or power to make it happen, correct. Do you believe in equality? It’s clear to me that the only way we are equal is that we have all been blessed by our creator with the gift of sovereignty. That’s why the US Declaration of Independence is correct when it says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (lets assume the founders meant both genders for our purposes, shall we) So we possess Life, and we are sovereign, but are we Free?
Down the Rabbit Hole
It might be advantageous to visit one of the major factors involved in what is the main challenge for us all, that being Life Navigation. It’s clearly the case that the quality and often quantity of each of our lives greatly depends upon how successful we are in finding the best path to follow or tread during our short time on the wondrous planet this time around.
We are all born into a society which is already organized and structured into a hierarchy, both psychologically and materially. From early childhood, we are directed, both informally in the family and formally in our education, to commit our energy to learning as much as possible about this construct, which is governed by an ‘elite’ powerful and wealthy few. This governance is accomplished by control of, and through governmental institutions at all levels, exercising continual implementation of laws, rules, and regulations, and enforced by police and military force. (note that ‘force’ is a violation of our sovereignty)
I will call this construct ‘The Matrix’. I once took the government to court, pointing out that we are born into a situation where all the land and resources and means of production are already owned, possessed, and controlled, either privately or publicly. This engenders an environment of pressure, for we all necessarily depend on securing the necessities of life, which are already possessed by others. This ‘pressured’ environment is a sea of pain. We will be examining how psychological ‘PAIN’ engendered by the Matrix is central to the challenge of navigating our way to Freedom.
The Importance of ENERGY
Major but worthy challenges like personal growth and securing Freedom, (which aren’t supported by the societal ‘Matrix’), require a good deal of precious energy, as the bigger the challenge, necessarily the bigger the energetic demand. Energy just Is, and neither is it created nor destroyed, but rather simply transformed at varying rates or transferred around. As an example, the body is miraculously brought into material existence at inception, grows through energy absorption (food, air and water), reaches our maximum, degrades through the wear and tear of aging, and transforms again through the process we call death. So we need sufficient energy to attain our goal(s). If we have any problems in our life, one could say that the cause is a lack of energy. This fact is the foundation upon which is built the common (but as will be shown, mistaken) approach to gaining freedom by the quest for more monetary wealth. Money/wealth can buy many things, but is freedom one of them? That is one question which must be answered.
So we need sufficient energy to attain our goals. We have been conditioned (trained) to seek pleasure and avoid pain, right. And that makes sense on the surface. Pleasure feels good and pain feels bad. Instead of the usual approach of attempting to find more energy (money) for freedom and pleasure and pain reduction, I was fortunate enough to early realize that the first challenge is related to energy waste. Could the issue be not one of getting enough energy but of wasting it? Do we waste energy? Have you seen the way through that challenge yourselves? I had the good karma to ‘see’ this fact early on, and so Energy was and remains my main focus. That quickly led me to the importance of ‘addictions’, in all their many forms, which are all clearly very wasteful of energy. Drugs that numb pain give us some temporary pain relief. But at what price? They often cost time and money, cover over problems but fail to solve them, and bring with them negative side effects. Not only that, but they prevent the natural pain signals getting through to us, so we can even fail to know we have a problem, and thus lack the incentive to find a solution. Finally they require ever more ‘drug’ to get the same effect, so the energy waste continues to increase.
Addictions are Pain related, aren’t they. Life in the matrix is very painful, with its Time, Education, Work, Relationship, Money and Sexual pressures. And to cope while on the treadmill, we have been taught to numb the pain with ‘drugs’, both legal and otherwise, and both psychological and physical, correct? This allows at best being able to function, albeit at a mostly mediocre (or worse) level. And the conditioned mind, noticing the lack of energy, has been taught to try to find shortcuts and work arounds. Unfortunately, this process is doomed to fail, as the root causes of the issues are never encountered and solved. So seeing all this clearly as factual, my approach, which I fortunately found effective, was to slowly build up my pain tolerance, with the strategy of starting by breaking small addiction habit patterns. To break an addiction, one necessarily needs to be willing to ‘feel’ the pain which the ‘drug’ addiction is covering up or numbing, right? This is not easy, as it isn’t socially generally supported, and it really ‘Hurts’. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, pain is rather easier to say than to actually feel. The idea is that as one slowly breaks the dependencies, one gradually saves that precious energy which the addictions waste, which gradually allows for the additional energy to challenge those that are ever more serious and deeper. Step by step, slow and steady. Don’t attempt too much all at once, or you risk failing and giving up. Krishnamurti said that even an hour of real ‘work’ each day will take one a long way. That’s because the increased energy compounds over time. It’s unnoticeable at first, but goes exponential in time. Persistence is key!
This process is what I call ‘The Work’. It seems rather mundane, (not sexy or flashy) and will go unnoticed by others, and may even seem rather futile for a time. It’s a very demanding and relentless task, but there is simply no other way forward, as the demands of true growth are considerable, and the energy wasted by addictions is needed. Here’s an aspect I find interesting. I’m sure you’ve heard the admonition “Be here now” haven’t you? What takes us out of the present, which is where reality lives, after all? Do you know? Could this be the answer. When is pain felt? Only in the present, correct? So is it the case that we all have a backlog of unfelt pain (due to the conditioned response of addictive pain avoidance/numbing) and each time we come into the present, there it is, Pain, waiting for us. At that point we have two choices, don’t we? ‘Feel it’ (in the present) or leave it (into the illusory psychological past/ future). Only a true spiritual warrior determines to consistently feel it as an ongoing discipline, you see this?
It’s worth noting that this process is completely up to us and in our own hands, as no one can prevent us from exercising it, as it can be done any time and any place and under any circumstance! That’s truly empowering. Do the ‘Work’ and reap the rewards. Natural Law will prevail!