Being happy

I stumbled upon this interesting article where author suggest that compulsive thinking about ourselves is one of the reasons why we live unhappy lives. 

Researches prove it ! :-)

So is being happy all about shifting our tendency away from focus on ourselves? 

From my meditation experience - it is (not). 

Because when we manage to shift/change our focus from inward to outward and that slowly becomes our default state of mind, then our definition of happiness also changes. 

Can you imagine to be happy just because you are alive, you are right here, right now and have a chance to smell, hear, see, touch and taste life?

:-)

Well, all in all it's a trip, long and unending. Hard and full of surprises rarely pleasant but often good ones. Shifting attention from me to the world is only one piece of the puzzle. But very, very important one. In other words - the basic one.

So long, roaches.

Dance or die

Dancing is definitely one of the ways to spend your life. Especially if you're ballet dancer or pole dancer or something in between. My friends, in the other hand, believe that playing music is a good way of spending their lives. So they play.

And you could dance.

Or die.

Meditation or Medication?

So, cockroaches, what is the difference?

Do you want to plug out or you want to stay plugged in?

Once you pull out a chord, you can't plug it in anymore. Not really. Cypher option is out. After taking a red pill there is no coming back. We can pretend but it's useless. We can even forget but suffering continues and it is even worse than before. I have friends stuck in the middle – it is hell. Maybe that was the real meaning of crucifixion? Nor here, nor there. Crucified.

That's one of the reasons why medication option is more popular.

But let's start with the choice offered in the header.

What is meditation? In Western culture there is a general belief that meditation is something that you do with result of getting in some kind of Disneyland state of mind where everything is perfect. If you want that effect try some drugs that fit the description. I, for example, believed that it will solve all the problems I had at that moment. It didn't. I solved them (and created new ones). Meditation just makes it difficult for us to turn blind eye to problems. They are not avoidable anymore. So, what is meditation? In short: meditation is art of paying attention.

What is medication? It's quite opposite from meditation. When we can't stand the intensity of life all we want is to pull back. If stress isn't high enough, we can ease our day with a couple of beers. If stress is higher and lasts longer – we snap. We can't pretend anymore that we do have control or that we know what will happen or what people around us will do. We are forced to admit that the world is not as we want to be or expect it to be. And the world is least of our problems – we don't even know who the people we share meals and beds with are or what will they do next.
That's really fucked up! When that happens, we experience a breakdown. It's too much. That, in a way, is a good sign that we need to slow down a little. Slow down, not retreat. But long way before that happens we usually take a pill to – forget. Nice. Comfortably numb.

So, the blue pill or the red pill, cockroaches?

Just remember, don't mess with the red pill if you are not willing to go all the way.

Here is a great article from a Long-Distant meditator on his intensive 30 day meditation practice for you roaches to get the taste of how things are, once (if at all) you take the red pill.

So long, roaches!

Dead I am the one

Funeral

We (my wife and I) organized a funeral last weekend. Actually, more like two. But with one grave. We went to the mountains. The air was humid and ground was wet. The sky was in the shades of grey. More than fifty. In her orange bag, Sanja carried an envelope with a few ultrasound images. Precisely - four. One of them had even heart rates. A year and a half before, she got pregnant. Embryo grew for 9 weeks. Then she miscarried. Surgically. It was dead. The same thing happened 9 months later. This time with heart beats. 10th week. Good people told us that we need to make burial ceremony. To let go. So we finally decided to do it, because it is not so easy to let go one of our sufferings. Especially when we grow attachment to them.

We walked until a flash flood blocked our way. Then we found soft ground we could dig enough to bury few pieces of paper. I dug the pit.

The Maker

How does Gollum see in the dark?

I was spelunker for almost ten years. If you turn off the light in the cave only what you can see is darkness. That is really interesting experience. It is not that you see nothing. You see darkness. (I don't believe anybody has ever seen "nothing". How can you see "nothing"?) It is the same as you look at your eyelids from inside in the dark room. But you have eyes open. That's weird. Immediately surrounding space become infinitive and (or should I say: therefore) claustrophobic. You feel that your heart has shrunk somehow (only if you haven't start to panic and treat yourself with panic attack, then started to scream and finally lost consciousness so the rest of the team must carry you outside :-)). Actually, you don't know what to think while you are immersed in blackness. You can wave with your hand in front of your nose but you won't see your hand. You can only feel cold breeze. Or hear dripping of water in the distance. Sounds are amplified by silence and from automatically shift to sense of hearing. It's dark like in a deepest pit in the midnight on the moonless night. :-) Once I was locked in the refrigerator car for a 10 to 15 minutes just to drive me from a point A to point B (I remember how hooks for meat are clanking on the bumps on the road) – it's the same darkness. So, if you want to experience that kind of darkness you can lock yourself in a freezer. It's little warmer in caves but darkness is the same.

So then, how does Gollum see in the dark? If you ever asked yourself that question, here are some answers from Wired Sience.

The Cell Phone

If men is five

And the Devil is six

Then God is seven.

Pixies

Ana sat on the metal bench at the bus stop. She noticed a middle-aged man coming towards her. He was talking on his cell phone.

- Yes, mom. Of course, mom. We’ll be there this weekend as planned. We’ll bring the kids with us for sure - he was saying as he reached the bus stop, looked at Ana and smiled.

She remained impartial to his kindness and thought to herself,

“Oh God, how I hate it when people show off on their cell phones! I’m never getting a cell phone! Never!”

She was unique.

Why Departed?

It’s all about death.

I’m immortal.

Immortal like every men and women I know. (Ok. I admit there may be a several people who are not immortal and I know them, but I can’t recognize that quality in them so it doesn’t matter. Sort of.) What I want to say is that I do not know that I’m going to die one day. I mean, I do know, but only as idea. I do not know it by my heart and certainly not by my stomach. And these are parts where our true knowledge is, where what we really know is. All those funny ideas what we have in our mind (some people call it “head”) about our values, who we are (kind and loving person), who we love (yes, darling I’ll love you until the end of time) very quickly evaporate when our everyday routine has been shaken. Like, for example, when stupid bitch that I call “wife” (or “mother”, or “sister”, or “grandma”) ate last peace of my favorite chocolate. All that stories that we talk ourselves about love, care, giving etc. are flushed down the toilet in second. Isn’t that funny?
- Hey, man! Who you are?
(with crying voice)
- Don’t know, man!
- Why?
- I’ve been flushed down the toilet.

What's this blog about?

It's all about money.

That's it.

The Plan is simple. Make enough money from my writing so I can quit current job and write and meditate the whole day. To do that, I need to start a blog (among other things :-)) in English because a lot more people understand English then Croatian. Cro-what!? Yeah, you got the point. That will be quite challenging because English is not my mother tongue and I was very lazy student throughout whole of my scholarly life. I simply didn't want to study (English as a foreign language, included). Maybe school was too easy for me or I was not ambitious enough or just lazy. Who knows? But it doesn't matter, really. Now I know what I know and I have to live with that and try to do better than I did in my past.

I know the Plan is very long shot and I know there is probably a million young writers like me worldwide, but in a way - I got nothing to lose. Monty Python said in Life of Brian:

You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing! 

So, is there any good reason why should I succeed? I don't know. But I'm going to find out. In the end:

It's all about writing.

Goodbye cockroaches!