This isnt right…. (a look at the finite structure of life)

A long time ago, Atoms were thought of as the indivisible unit of matter but Years ago, physicists proved that completely wrong. Atoms turned out to be made of things a lot smaller (electrons, protons, neutrons) which were again thought of as indivisible. This again was proved wrong and somewhere along the way matter became waves of energy and vice-versa.

Despite the constant upheaval of existing theorems, many millions of man-hours are spent every year in search for the essential elements of nature from which all other things arise. The search as you well know is still on with no conceivable end in sight.

Why should there be such essential elements? Why must there be an underlying indivisible matter under all the divisible matter we see around us?

I think human beings are always running after patterns. Mostly because, if there is a pattern, something that moves in a predictable way, we can control it. By playing with inputs and initial values we can make the pattern do something in a repeatable way. We can use it to do our work for us 🙂

So, what does this have to do with the title?

During my 1.25 hr commute to office one day, I was thinking on these lines and stumbled upon the similarity between Transformation and Science.Transformation being the science of transforming life to one that we want.

Life is something we are all trying to control. Trying to make it work the way we want it to. Shouldn’t we also be  looking for an underlying pattern of life?

In between the honks of traffic and music from my car stereo I hit upon a kind of epiphany.

The Indivisible unit of life is the Moment

Our life is made of moments. Many millions and billions of them. From a physics background, of-course, these can be further divided into sub-moments and those again into sub-moments. BUT from an ontological (or consciousness) perspective we dont have sub-moments, because we aren’t conscious of them.

Life is an ontological experience. We experience or are conscious of our lives.

Conscious of what though?

We have memories of moments of our life, we dream of moments in the future. Some people, a very rare few, are aware of the present moment, but everyone usually catches up with what the present moment was like when it becomes the past.

So the indivisible element of our lives is the moment. Yes, that one that just went past, and that one and the one just now…..

So a good life has more number of good moments when compared to the bad moments and a bad life is the other way around.

But who is keeping score? This is where the mischief is,

the previous bad moments tend to colour the present one and worse shade the future moments as well.

BUT THIS IS ALL BESIDES THE POINT

Who is keeping score? We are!!! each and every one of us is keeping score for ourselves and we are LOSING!!

The cosmic joke is that every other moment in our lives is in our head! The only moment that really exists is the one that just went by! RIGHT NOW!

So BE happy now, BE caring now, BE cared for NOW, BE loved now.

Who decides how you are being? Why YOU ofcourse! The score-keeper, the athlete, the linesman…. YOU, Yes the person in YOUR chair.

So you want to be happy in the future, just focus on being happy now, as in right now. Its all a conversation in your head anyway!!

How would you like to BE? then BE it now!

The indivisible element of life are these moments, string them together and you have life. Make every moment the way you want it.

Dont live your life that  “Life is not right”, Life is the moment right now and if you strip all the pasts that you “experienced” and the futures you imagine, there is nothing special about this moment.

There is nothing there, and you can fill it with any way of being you want!

Its up to you to decide if it was a great moment or a bad one, so go ahead and cheat, be great and mark it down as great, you are the only score keeper anyway! Every body else is keeping their own score.

When life is a mess….

The title is actually a redundant question 🙂

[1] Life is always a mess. 

Mess: A dirty or untidy state of things or of a place

This MahaVakya of sorts has been hitting me of late. Its not a comfortable enquiry to be in:

Looking at life and seeing mess as it is. 

 

I think its important to understand WHY I am even bothering with this enquiry. 

 

The context is looking at performance, whats stopping me from getting the results I want. No, this is not a post appraisal sob story turned insight. Well maybe it stems from some appraisals in the past, but not the most recent one… 🙂

 

Performance: The act of performing or the state of being performed

 

Performance is a funny thing. Although we are performing every moment of the day, most of us think that we perform only when we do some “Live at the acropolis”-like performance. Otherwise we are not performing. Of-course I generalize here from my experience, if you have other thoughts, thats what the comments are there for :-).

 

[2] The paradox is that while we are continually performing there is no performance . 

 

Performance in [2] means that “playing lead in a Rock – Concert in front of wild screaming fans” kind of performance. Of -course this is not in all areas, there are areas where effort leads fruitfully to a fruit punch type of performance. However, I am looking at the areas where the above paradox is true. Where there is a lot of performing but nothing happens.

 

[3] Where there is a lack of a performance, regardless of performing, there is a mess

 

Please note ‘a performance’ is that “result” you are (have always been?) working towards.

 

The first thing to get from [3] is that its not how much  we perform, as we are always performing, but How we  perform. For Example, I could go to the gym everyday and so I am performing regularly, but If I put some aggressiveness into my actions at the gym, I will get a better result and maybe with less time spent.

 

The next thing you need to get is the word “mess”. I kindly underlined that for you, so that it does not fall into your already understanding of the word. But I guess it already has.

 

In part your understanding is probably correct (going by the dictonary definition) its a dirty or untidy state of things. I want you to add to that “state of mind” as well. So the complete definition of Mess would be 

Mess: A dirty or untidy state of things or of a place or of mind.

 

So how do you distinguish a mess in your life? 

1. It doesn’t work the way you want it to. Or specifically, you want X but you always get Y.

2. You tend to ignore it or avoid it.

3. Its a nail that hurts when you talk about it.

4. Its not what you want but you adjust.

 

The above is not an exhaustive list but gives a gist of the kind of emotions that come up when you are in the proximity of a messy area. Take a minute and list areas that come to mind.

 

So now you have a list of Messes in your life. Now what ?

 

The first question you need to ask is, 

 

A. Why have I kept this area the way it is for so long?

 

There are many reasons this happens, Some fear, hatred, or other kind of resistance. Its important to be able to see these as they are. Just a form of resistance.

 

Next you need to 

 

B. Get Complete

What this means is to deal with the resistance. It can be done in many ways, but ultimately you should be able to see things as they are.

One way to do this is to look at the stories you have about this area. Look at them as what they are, your stories. Try to distinguish them from what physically happened and look at other possible explanations that fit. Choose one that is more inspiring. This new story should sound true to you, maybe even inspire you. Landmark Forum is a good place to learn how you can do this.

 

C. Create a new future in that area

Look at this at 3 levels

1. How do you want to be in that area?

2. What new actions open up if you are “being” that way?

3. What will you have in this area when it works?

 

D. Keep the future alive

There are 2 things you need for this to work.

 

1. A presence system. 

     Some way to keep that future alive for you. Could be through pictures, todo lists, journals. Any thing that will actively remind you in an inspiring way of the future you are living into.

2. Enroll others into this future you have.

     The best way of keeping this future alive, is in the mind of others, in their conversations, in their thoughts. When you do this, your future becomes a collective future. In a sense it becomes more real as its outside you now. To do this, you share this new future with the people around you.

 

Once the future is alive it will pull you and get action out of you. 

 

If it doesn’t, you need to look at the first question again [A] . Things have changed, but its still not the way you want it. Redo the steps again, until the future is alive and pulling you actively again.

 

And what happens when you reach that future? Well then you look at other messes in your life and create newly, until you have created a life that you want.