Story telling is the most effective ways you can communicate to yourself or others.
I write a lot. The writing I do is mostly an effort to better comprehend abstract thoughts, ideas, and experiences that arise. In fact, I have a hard time reading too much of anything with out writing something about it.
Stories allow us to we remember. I often look for analogies to explain to myself (and others) an abstract ideas such as this one.
The more meaningful your stories, the more they are filled with emotion and relatedness, the more effective you will be in communicating your ideas to others.
Fewer words is often better. Powerful is the one who only speaks when he/she has something meaningful to say.
Analogies or stories serve to illustrate the point. When you are able to pull the reader into a relatable experience, they'll better understand it. The more more meaningful your story is to the listener, the more they are filled with emotion and relatedness, the more it will be planted into their memory.
Without the actual experience, can one can ever truly know?
Our thinking is grounded in concrete experiences. Abstract concepts become more real when they are linked to experiences through analogy and metaphor.
An analogy for systems.
What is the function of a computer program? It's to produce an outcome. How does it produce the outcome? It runs code written by a programmer. What makes the code run? The system. What makes the system work? Energy. Where does that energy come from?
When a program is run, it lights up circuits from point A to point B. If a circuit missing, the program stops. The conditions for a program to complete it's path is dependent on the circuits it must cross. It is not 'thinking' about the where it's been or where it's going, it just acts on the circuit it's on. You could say that program has only one state: now. Everything in the future is yet to be executed, and everything in the past is no longer relevant to right now.
By design, the program is not even aware of it's next function until it's needed. It's called an if/then statement. It's only objective is to get from point 'A' to point 'B.'
Although we may buzz with anticipation about Point 'B,' anticipation takes us away from the present moment. Anticipation is rooted in expectation. Expectation is an assumption of an outcome. But because the outcome can rarely be predicted with complete accuracy, it will inevitably fall short or exceed our expectations.
Electricity explains how everything works.
Like a program, our awareness is constantly expanding. Like a flashlight filling the room, to see further you must step further. As you step into the light, the darkness is behind you. The past is a chapter that's already been read. You can go back and read it again, but you won't move further through the book when you do. Like a program stuck in a routine, the outputs don't change until the programmer codes a new routine.
Life is a one-way journey, you get on at the womb and get off at your tomb.
The purpose of your program is to get from point a to point 'be.' To 'be' where we are (in the here and now), not where we're not. Our path is written upon the actions we are take, and it unfolds as the we travel through time into a certain but unknown future.
Programs simply carry out an instruction to get from point a to point b. The programmer continues to adjust the inputs to the until it produces the output she desires. More often than not, unexpected outcomes result. Our efforts to go back and explain why something happened is an effort to decode the system that underlies result. Most of the time it's a futile attempt.
When you let the program define the outcome, life becomes lighter - almost effortless.
Effort and struggle arise when we try to force a particular outcome but forget a key aspect: The program, not the programmer determines the outcome! You are like a programmer demanding a particular result.
Everything works within a system. The concept of everything is revealed in the workings of the system that produces anything.
Within the system, all things are possible, yet nothing is possible.
The system itself produces the outcome, not us.
We can change the inputs we put into the system, but we cannot change the outcome itself. Changes upstream results in changes downstream. But karma does not occur on a one-to-one ratio, and there are other inputs into the system (outside our control) that influence the outcome.
How the system works.
Willpower is ineffective.
Imposing our will against the system is like swimming upstream.
If consider life is like a river, the system is the current. When we make incremental changes, with the current, the redirection is not seen until we are further downstream. But those incremental changes made upstream can result in big changes downstream. It's like a ripple caused by a rock we through in the lake. It's how tiny ripples in the ocean turn into big waves by the time they reach the shore.
Willpower is our effort to project our will over the system. But the system does what it does, and our will has no power over it. We can only enact our will into what we put into the system, but not the system itself.
Without putting changes into the system upstream, nothing different down stream ever result.
Our experience of life occurs between the upstream and downsteam.
It's the changes we put into the system upstream that direct the experience downstream. The things we draw our attention towards are the things we influence. But influence itself is not change, but influence does precede change.
Frustration arises as when we recognize the outcomes produced are not aligned with our desires.
Willpower become easier when you view it as an experiment. I will experiment with different inputs into the system (my will) and observe the outputs. When the outputs I desire are produced, I will be motivated to do more of the same. I will stoke the fire if stoking the fire produces the desired result.
Our ability to generate the outcome we want is directly tied to our ability to accept the outcomes produced. The more we understand how the inputs impact the outputs, the more we can steer the ship in our direction.
When it comes to planning & goal setting, the more clearly you can see the outcome, the more likely you are to see it when it arrives. Our ambitions are limited by our reality. When our ambitions are larger than our abilities we have two options: 1 - Scale back our ambitions or 2 - Inject more will into the system.
Wanting what you have is the simplest way to agree with the system. Change is only possible once you are in agreement to what is.
Disagreeing is resisting what is. Talking about what's wrong, what you don't have, and what's screwed about the system doesn't allow for anything to change.
If we can't agree with what's wrong, then change is impossible.
Deep down inside, we all know this. We all know that there is nothing wrong with the system. The system simply does what it does. To produce change downstream, we must make changes upstream. The changes downstream are not up to us, but the ones upstream are. And the changes upstream begin right now.
What's happening to America is simply a result of Karma. The correct definition of karma is that for every cause there is an effect. We don't know the effects of our actions, in fact, most of the time, we are completely unaware of the effects of our actions. We do what we do and suffer the consequences later. We know we can deal with whatever comes along because we always have. Resiliency is part of the system. Is resiliency resisting?
Don't see it as a hardship, think of it as an experiment.
No sugar is hard to do upstream, in fact, you have to STOP in the current to do it. The default is to do what we've always done. What we've always done is the current. It's what carries us down the river. But there's a smarter way that going against the current completely. Rather, we introduce small changes, not fighting with, but rather working with the current.
Where are you supposed to be right now? What are you supposed to be thinking right now? Who are you supposed to be talking to? What are you supposed to be writing about?
Obstacles exist in the system for the system to work. Without obstacles, there would be no point to the system.
Who am I is not the question. What will I do with what I am is.
There's where we are, and where we want to be. Where we are is point a. Where we want to be is point be.
We crave a sense of be longing.