Running From My Own Shadow

There's a parable by the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi about the man running from his own shadow. He spends all day running around, but can never truly get away. If only he sat still and rested in the shade ...

Similarly, most of my life I have been struggling to change and adapt to carry out roles that others expected for me: a good student, a good professional, a manager, an educator. As history has demonstrated, I capable and indeed excel in these roles. Yet, if I am unhappy because I 'm not being myself, then what's the point?

The challenge of life is to find a role that fits me, not change myself to fit roles others invented.

So far, I have been running away from myself.

Deleted Facebook

I quit Facebook in July. Deleted my account. Simplifying my life. Less to worry about, less to stress about, and less of an online footprint to get me in trouble. Sure I lose some connections with people, but how deep those connections were? Better focus on improving connections with a few close friends, meeting more often in real life. 

Was Facebook useful for activism? It announced events, but was unreliable for news, and didn't give me a real outlet to express myself in a meaningful way. Rather than typing a few words and sharing stuff online, the focus should be on organizing in real life. Join Meetup groups and actual organizations. Go to meetings and meet real people. This is what's important. This is what I need right now. 

Facebook has proved negligent in using my data, and gleefully allows paid trolls and bots to rule the place. I don't need to waste my time and energy on that. I survived the loss of EP - a social networking site that was far more important to me and actually changed my life. The loss of Facebook is but a minor milestone. 

The recovery was far quicker than I thought. My fingers itched a couple of time on the first day, moving the mouse to where the Facebook icon used to sit on my desktop. But the addiction quickly wore off. I made an am implementing a FEXIT plan for easing me back to life before Facebook. This includes making better connections irl with real people, and going back to TV, newspapers, and reliable news sites. This blog is part of the plan to give me a meaningful outlet for self-expression.

Accept Imperfection

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the total entropy in the universe can never decrease. In other words, the universe tends towards ever greater disorder. This is a physical law that has a proven mathematically basis: there are far many more disordered than ordered states, so on average, a change to a system has a higher probability of resulting in a more disordered state.

Often I can see that in my daily life. Housework never seems to end. Cooking creates a pile of dishes. By the time one dusts, vacuums, and attacks a pile of laundry, there's a new pile of dishes. You cannot get the whole house looking perfect at the same time, and it takes a lot of work to keep it organized.

The key to dealing with this is to understand that the chances of everything being perfectly like I want it is practically ZERO.  There are many directions in which things can go wrong from that perfect state. At any given time, then, something (or more than one thing) will likely be wrong. It is mathematically guaranteed. Therefore, it makes sense to accept that fact and stop expecting perfection. If we wait until all conditions are perfect to do something, it will never get done.

Similarly, if we can't be happy until everything is perfect, we'll never be happy. If we don't rest until everything is perfect, we'll never rest. This simple bit of common sense is lost on a lot of people.

More importantly, we need to accept imperfections in ourselves, as well as in other people.  In fact, we can do better to recognize and accept those imperfections, rather than live in denial and have our plans constantly foiled by them. If we expect perfection, we are sure to end up feeling disappointed, upset, and worried.

Freedom

Freedom from the bondage of desire comes from Letting Go: letting go of things, to do lists, projects, ideas. 

The Buddhist ideal of non-attachment hits it right on. So do Taoist principles, and the modern minimalist movement.

If we don't like a movie or a book, we should not feel compelled to finish it. 

Walking away is empowering. Suffering through a project we lost interest in, simply "to finish", is a waste of time, and self-inflicted imprisonment.

Collecting things for the purpose of "using them someday" just adds to our stress, constantly reminding us that we're not doing things we've resolved to do. Giving away those things, or giving them up, gets us freedom to do whatever else we actually want to do at the moment. 

Fortune and fame, especially, need so much effort to collect and maintain. Those who have them long to be unknown and under the radar, free to do simple things without all the attention and headaches. 

Every layer of letting go unwraps a deeper feeling of freedom.

At the same time, every hangup about letting go is a thread in a spiderweb keeping us from total liberation. Some tethers, like our children, are necessary and positive. Often, though, the tethers are illusory, a product of our own tendencies to collect and plan.

Let go of old clothes, books, etc. Whatever we're not using and not likely to use. 

Let go of our past, or parts of our lives we're done with. 

Do not embark on a journey to the future laden with a heavy past.

Be the Nomad that picks up and moves at an hour's notice, following the rain.

Let go of anger. In forgiveness you find peace.

Let go of bitterness. That's the way to happiness.

Let go of regrets. We cannot do anything about the past, so what's the point of dwelling on it?

Only the present matters.

Bound by Desire

Doesn't it sometimes seem that the things we buy confine us?

The newest of cars still needs regular maintenance, and often repairs. 

Clothes need laundering, organization, hangers, ... 

Electronics need time for us to set up and read the manual, plus regularly update.

Books need time to read, games time to play. Subscriptions time to enjoy. 

Everything we buy or subscribe to binds us in a way to commit to using / sustaining it.

More insidious than this kind of bondage is that to our own creative force.

Our own ideas hold us hostage.

We get a creative idea. We commit to acting on it. Then we become bound to our own creations. My father worked his life for a small company, becoming beholden to its success, and forced to work to the end of his life to maintain what he started. Even my fun software project started as a great idea, then became an addiction to fix, maintain, and enhance.

Our knowledge is also confining. If people know you are good at something, they expect you to help them with it, be it math homework or fixing a house or a car. More than that, the more you learn, the narrower the areas you are expected to seek employment in.

These are not necessarily bad things, but the something in me rebels against the thought. I want to enjoy life as it is, in the here and now. Instead, I am spending more and more of my time catering to different thoughts and ideas I have. Even writing these very words in my blog. I had to allocate time and energy for it - time and energy that could have been spent playing with my daughter.

The rat race is not imposed on us, but begins when we choose to jump on the bandwagon - chasing our own thoughts. 

Zhuangzi said, you can't run away from your own shadow, but you can't catch it either. So much of life is spent in futile activities.

I wonder if God, provided it exists, is also enslaved to its own creation, i.e., to us. There is no other explanation for why he or she kept sending us prophets and missives, at great effort, when we were such a lost cause, and even - presuming Christianity is true - sending their own son to save us. Our having a life of our own, and freedom of choice, limited the Deity's freedom.

Life (a 10-Word Story)

Life is on the move ...
Death stays in one place!

Letting Go

The negative is just as useful as the positive. 

Negative clues are as important to solving puzzles as positive clues. Knowing that a Sudoku square can't be that number narrows down the choices.

That is the essence of Lao Zi's teachings (often spelled Lao Tse or Lao Tzu, the "Old Master", who founded Taoism). Yang and Yin, action and rest, power and yielding, interchange in a continuous cycle. Everything depends on both of them together.

Similarly, the practice applies in our lives. Deciding not to do something is just as important as a positive choice to do something else. It puts the matter to closure and moves on. No longer is that item in the back of your mind, or in a list somewhere weighing down your desk.

Letting Go is part of Going Forward ...

To Do ...

As part of simplifying my life, I hence embark on a journey to let go.  Every day, I shall give up something.  Perhaps donate a piece of clothing or a book, or review a to do list and cross off items not in line with my goals and priorities.

P.S. I have faithfully kept to this affirmation since May 1 of this year.

Simplify My Life

Simplifying my life is my ongoing theme for this year. I feel my life has become extremely complicated, and hence more stressful, than it needs to be. Changes of this magnitude are tumultuous, which is why so many people are stuck in unhappy stability. Tapping into my inner Nomad, I decided to overcome my fear and embrace the change.

You can track my journey in the titles of my diary entries over the course of  the year:

• Time for a Change ...
• The Plan
• Forging Ahead 
• Propelled
• Letting Go
• Saying No
• The Frog in the Well
• Less is More
• Running From My Own Shadow

This is only the beginning of the transformation. Stay tuned for more.

Less Is More

This writing advice I offer my students,

It applies to everything really, 

What we say to others,

Things we own,

Promises,

Plans,

LESS ...

... is more!

From now on, while everybody else strives to amass MORE,

I will strive for LESS.

I want less of everything so I can have more of what I really want,

or more time for it. 

The less on my to-do list, 

the more chances I'll do most of it.

The less time I have, 

the more focused I get.

Nomad

I was always a wanderer. 

Growing up in a big family, and until all my siblings moved out, I had no room of my own. I slept in the dining room, the office, the balcony, and nearly every room bar the kitchen and bathrooms. Moving to college meant more changes, moving from dorm to dorm, from university back home, and back to campus. 

In this life of constant change, I longed for stability, settling down in my own place. I regarded all those moves as temporary. My life was on hold, pending a list of successive goals: finish college, get a job, get married, and and buy house.

In my search for stability, as I checked those boxes, I was really going against my nature, building a figment of stability in a world that never ceased to change. 

The moves continued, in the form of travel. In each of several recent years, I made more than a dozen trips, one for each month: some only for a day, and some a week or longer. Spending so many weekends away from home, I longed to settle down, gravitating towards an unhappy stability, and accepting of bad situations. My distaste for change thus led me to years of an unhappy marriage and an unsatisfying job.

After my most recent move, prompted by my divorce, I got to accept that this nomadic life is in my nature. Wherever I am, even on the move, I am alive. If I were to put everything on hold until stability is achieved, I am throwing my life away. Today I befriended change again.

[adapted from a post written on the day I moved out of my married house, for good]