Why are you here?
This post is a side-note to my personal time-management post.
At this level of existence, we cannot control if we are born into a starving family in a third world country or with a silver spoon in our mouths in a mansion on Rhode Island. We cannot prevent the sun from burning out or the Tsunami from hitting our house. Those that lead us to believe we can are aiming to extract value from us for themselves.
What we can do is achieve command of our bodies, minds and craft. Not control — command. The voluntary and enthusiastic rallying of parts of a system to serve a common cause. The common cause is simply survival and prosperity for ourselves, our family, our flock, our society, humankind. Life. Nothing else matters.
Our personal purpose is so mind-blowingly obvious that it is a mystery why this would even be a question. We are the products of a process that had matter bump into other matter causing more complex structures to arise. Those structures that were able to replicate themselves were the ones that… well replicated themselves and survived the external onslaught.
We are cells in that which has no outside.
The prime directive is survival. First for ourselves, and then our genes, village/flock, humanity and life in general. This is built into the wetware. The reason it is like that cannot be stated. There is no way to describe that which has no outside other than from the inside. It can be experienced on a personal level when the mind is still, but not explained.
When we let ourselves be lured by the kind of success pursuits that allows us to retreat into perpetual safety we are shutting ourselves off from being. When we die, all that matters is how we affected those that remain to carry on the dance. The pursuit of superficial success is a perverted sublimation of the fear of death we all have.
We are servants of the world and the world is our servant. When we believe otherwise, we lose our way.
As goes for the world outside, so goes for the world inside. My body is a world of its own with many inhabitants, systems and parts. My biome is it’s own separate being entirely and masters the incredibly complex task of digesting food and funnelling nutrients out to the other systems. My immune system is masterful at keeping me from becoming sick or poisoned. My shoulder muscles are masterful at moving my arm up and down and my mind is masterful at processing sensory data. My mind is terrible at moving my arm. If I try to have my mind move my arm deliberately it will be awkward and inefficient. My shoulder can’t manage my calendar for shit — so each of us stick to what we master to sustain the whole and ensure survival and prosperity. It would be terrible for the whole if my liver decided everything was about its own comfort and happiness or if it succumbed to its fears and languished in depression unable to filter out the poisons in the bloodstream. It is terrible when the mind believes that the body is there for its comfort and happiness or when it succumbs to fear. It is a simple misunderstanding easy to make, and easy to undo. It is about the whole and the whole extends beyond each unit of units we may conceive of. We are in service of the one.
The belief system I have outlined above is fully consistent with the reality I experience and allows me to delegate planning to my mind, knowing full well that because it is has been granted full domain of its own territory, it will look after the other systems with loving kindness as they will for it.
My body provides a great home for my mind and my mind puts my body in situations it thrives in. This has not always been the case, but the gradual ascent to loving kindness and the specific approaches outlined here makes it so at this time.
