I have heard a saying across Buddhism, Taoism, Western Stoicism, and philosophy in general
This concept of letting go
This idea that ultimately we are powerless in the universe. That we are on a river, flowing through the universe and life.
The idea enforces a simple concept: you can try all you want to swim up river, but eventually you will get swept away. You should learn how to flow with it so we don’t tire ourselves going nowhere.
This has much truth to it, and learning to flow with life is a skill that is very valuable to both mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well being.
But do not forget that even the boatman needs to take hold of his rudder. He still needs to pull the sails and capture the wind, he must occasionally check his measurements, even less often the measure of the measurement, otherwise he can truly become lost at sea.
This idea came to me while I was reflecting on the generosity of a coworker, to the negative impact her own physical condition. If she worked too hard, her body would start to become inflamed — a condition I am all too familiar with.
I made it a point for her to stop helping me, made it a rule of my work area. While she agreed at first she eventually broke my rule and kept helping.
Regardless of the impact on her well being, she truly would push herself everyday to do the bet she could for everyone around her.
And the worst part, it was objectively helpful support that I should have been getting by both my leadership and the leadership’s assistants.
She always said she was fine. We eventually got into arguments about this at work. Objectively she wasn’t hurting me, she was helping me, but she wasn’t listening, and worse it put her at risk.
I asked her to stop. And she refused. Should I celebrate her generous nature? Of course! But I did ask her to stop, and she continued. Do people get to ignore your wishes if it is best for you? A much more unfavorable question, because in this situation what would be easier for me could be, for her, the first unfortunate step down a very deep, and very slippery slope.
As the physical body becomes inflamed, it gets harder to work. Anxiety at work because of missed days or current pains, worried about performance and doing a good job. Depression, both from the physical experience of prolonged inflammation and from the feeling of being useless, feeling incapable, feeling worthless and a complete burden and weight to anyone in your gravitational field. Anger, stress, anxiety, depression. Fear. And when you finally feel good, you jump back up to work as hard as you can like you are proving to yourself and the world how hard you can work.
Letting go is a great strategy to free yourself from these emotions of social anxiety and depression. Many times letting go is the only way to walk through fear.
You should learn to let go, you don’t have control over many things in life, life is still flowing, and sometimes the best course of action is to stop fighting and just flow. This has helped me many times.
But what if you are flowing down the wrong path? Or what I see as worse, what if you allowing the flow to continue would let somebody else drift into poor river conditions, rapids and waterfalls?
That’s the idea that came to me this morning. If I had let things flow, it would’ve been easier on myself. Our coworking and friendship would be much better today. Many benefits, and the only draw back is her own voluntary risk to herself.
But I climbed back from deep down that slope. Anyone of those times is a risk for her that far outweighs the benefits I would get, especially because others were paid to do work she did voluntarily.
This has cemented an idea into my head:
We humans were built to pick up the controller. And as these many philosophies have recommended, is necessary to learn how to put the controller down, and to learn the joy breathing without a controller in your hand.
But we also must learn when to pick the controller back up again.
The problem wasn’t my beliefs, it was in poor execution. I am glad I was able to stop her from the limited times she would have put herself at risk for my sake. I wish I had more tact and grace at times, but if the alternative was to be silent, to take the benefit to her risk, I’m glad I argued with her. I’m glad I picked up the controller. Next time I’ll use a different combo!
I really do need to learn to let go of fears, even with the void in the stomach, it’s the only way to walk through some of them.
Some of those MF I have to tackle head on! And I have to do this dance of holding the controller without squeezing, and still pull off the right combo, or at least a combo that works!
I think in my life, I have to learn to pick up two types of controllers: player 1, and player 2
Player 1 is the main, controls the map selection, menu features, and usually exclusively chooses the game mode. Player 1 takes active actions to create a specific outcome
Player 2 is along for the ride, and comes in to choose their role, and adds the extra piece in the game that makes it worth playing. This is supporting player 1.
It is important in life to learn how to be both players. For myself, I would expect mostly to be player 1 and sometimes player 2 — and for others, I want to aim to be a player 2 to their player 1, and be ready because sometimes I will be asked to take the controller to help them complete a difficult level!
Don’t be afraid to try to swim upriver. The current can make you stronger if you know how to learn from it. And maybe, just maybe, you start to climb. If you climb upstream far enough, maybe you can change the rivers course.
To flow, to sail, to swim with the current and against, to put the controller down, and to be able to pick the controller back up again. To be player 1 for my own life, and player 2 for others. These are things I will try and learn.
A new personal philosophy.
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absolutely wild. Thank you everyone who supports!
Amazon link: www.amazon.com/Dissolution-Calories-Introduction-M…
Free download link: independent.academia.edu/AustonCherbonneaux
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What explains the energy we get from food?
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2 weeks and we start to change the world
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It’s a great starter example of quantum mechanics if you have an intermediate understanding of chemistry (prereq: atomic orbitals > atomic shells) watch video on watch page
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@SellswordArts thoughts?
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I'm looking for the right science to getting stronger.
Authored my first book! The Dissolution of Calories and Introduction to Modern Physics: First Draft
access: docs.google.com/document/d/1fnwZEKoGO8KJjoB3IPiygb…
Modernized version of Elements of Chemistry, the worlds first chemistry and biochemistry textbook ever!
Kindle: www.amazon.com/dp/B0D117B714
Free Copy of Elements of Chemistry:
docs.google.com/document/d/1HBVGMgEvtB0pNeabvIXTct…
10 March 2011