Break free from the Devil’s shackles you bent Ishmaels. Welcome to my blog.
Today’s blog is for the seasoned veterans. No creative writing this week. If that was what you are after, go back and read some of the earlier stuff. I will write a short story next week.
There is this thing that I do, a big part of me since childhood.
When I was a kid, I was ultra curious. It is said that my Dad used to purchase three sets of toys for my older brother and I. One for him, one for me, and then another one who will be the sacrificial lamb to my curiosity.
I used to strip the living shit out of it rendering it beyond repair. Any remote control car became a motor with a battery stuck to the wires with sticky tape and the spindle turned into a propeller with the aid of a popsicle stick.
I never lost this curiosity for how things work. A blessing and a curse rubbing up against each other in rapid fire, constantly wreaking havoc on my thoughts and actions.
Some say it’s simply Peter Pan behavior, and it might be, but these childish behaviors are present in everyone. It may not be as obvious. Sigmund Freud would agree with me.
Why do I mention this?
I have three cars and two bikes. I have never sold a running vehicle in my life. I usually run them to the ground.
When my oldest kid got her license, she went on and bought herself an Audi TT. The most gorgeous, but shit vehicle ever made. The price was reasonable at the time, so I thought it was a bargain. It drove mint on day one, but on day two the dash started lighting up with all kinds of warning lights.
I avoided it like the plague, because I know myself.
The verdict was to sell as soon as possible.
But then it required a Warrant of Fitness, and selling without this would not yield a good return.
So I went to work.
Brake adjustments, air intake repair, wiper motor, ABS calibration. Foreplay really. But as I was begrudgingly fixing stuff, I felt my curiosity grow. Every day a little more tinkering, a little more googling.
All of a sudden I know about DSG gearboxes and mechatronic units, TCM sensors and adaptable gearing. My mind was so occupied with this that my Youtube recommendations now look like I live in West Auckland.
I always do this. The car goes really well now, besides some really tiny issues. I could actually sell it and get a profit, but I won’t.
As much as I want to, I know I won’t. It’s like a Gestalt I need to complete.Gestalt psychology is when you feel that something has not yet gone full circle and that the sum of all parts are not yet in place.
I’m not a wealthy man, and I know that this kind of behavior is ridiculous. I would love some new stuff, but I can’t have new stuff if I still have the old stuff.
This is why I ride bikes that are 23 and 55 years old respectively. I drive a car that is 24 years old, but still runs mint.
I develop these toxic parasocial relationships with inanimate objects I have gotten to know intimately. It could be anything, a computer, a tool, anything really.
However, I’m not complaining. This curiosity has saved me thousands and also keeps my mind busy when I have feelings of anxiety or depression.
Once I start ramming my penis up the exhaust I will re-evaluate this aspect of my behavior, but for now it is under control.
This blog is not about having sex with automobiles.I want to talk about my experiences with finding happiness and explore two things that are fundamental to all human beings.
But quickly.
This blog is supported by you, the reader. If it brings you solace or mirth, please support it by liking and sharing. I also do this for myself as I have reams of notes and musings to myself and it feels good when I share at least some of it. Social media and the internet allows me to do this.
There is no such thing as perpetual happiness. Happiness is simply a state of momentary bliss, and people who have these moments more often are perceived as having happy lives. Activities or material wealth are certainly things that aid one’s path to happiness, but it doesn’t necessarily make you happy. This is why they say money can’t buy happiness.
I’m no psychologist, but I have loads of life experience, coupled with an internal monologue voiced by Morgan Freeman. I think in words rather than pictures. This allows me to be more in tune with my emotions, specifically why I feel a certain way. It also means I can write down what Morgan is telling me verbatim.
Besides the obvious stuff like seeing my kids do well or achieving stuff, there are two real aspects of life that make me happy. I honestly think they are ubiquitous.
The first thing and top of the list, but hardest to achieve is doing things mindfully.
This means being fully immersed in something that it feels like you are so present in the moment that everything else is of no consequence. It can be anything; washing the dishes, taking a walk, filing your taxes. By being mindful and in the moment, you achieve the same state of mind as someone who is meditating. Because that is what meditating is, simply being mindful.
Fucking easier said than done. Life these days is filled with stimulation. Good luck even watching Netflix without checking your phone, washing the dishes requires headphones. You can’t even take a mindful shit these days.
So what happens is that people are forcing themselves to be mindful. Lifting weights obsessively or running for miles, anything that is so close to the edge of intensity forces one’s mind to engage fully. These things are constructive.
There are also things that are destructive in the pursuit of being fully immersed. The worst culprit is definitely substance abuse. Nothing like a good old heroine spike to get you into the zone.
Another one is forced distraction. This is what I do. I play a computer game that is so engaging that I cannot think of anything else. I can do this for hours on end. I’m well aware that this is time I could have spent doing something a lot more constructive, but happiness is always the dragon we as humans chase, and we do what makes us happy. Even if it is a shortcut.
And what makes us happy is being fully immersed.
The other thing is having a sense of achievement.
This one is a lot easier. Ticking boxes is what makes people happy. This is where you find your enjoyment of your work. This is where you find happiness in fixing a faucet or finishing an assignment.
No matter what you believe life is, it is undeniable that life is chaos. Some say meaningless chaos, but I know that some people who read this believe that everything has a meaning. And that’s ok.
In this chaos, we are meant to find structure, and structure is getting things in order. Being in control of what we are able to control. A hint of Stoicism is what everyone needs.
Achievement affirms that you have controlled what you have in your control. This is why failure is so devastating. You have lost control of what you are meant to be in control of.
What I mentioned about fixing vehicles gives me a massive sense of achievement, finishing a blog does the same.
I’m a Manager at my day job, and seeing my staff productive and happy, inadvertently makes me productive and happy.
Unlike happiness, there is such a thing as perpetual sadness, it’s called depression. The cunt, the black dog here to fuck up everyones life.
The antithesis of the two paths to momentary happiness.
Unfortunately for us as humans, all life is guaranteed suffering.
You are born, you live, you die. In this cycle, there will definitely be suffering. We need it to survive as a species, but we also need to manage it as much as possible.
Sadness is our default state, uncomfortable yet motivational. The more you focus on the latter, the better you will be. Don’t strive to be happy, this is unachievable. Simply strive for a moment of happiness.
In my experience, this is what what is fucking us up.
We are not mindfully engaging with life. When undertaking a task, how often are you not focused on it at all. All the time I’m guessing.
Here is an example of what I mean.
Say you are driving from work after a busy day. You get into your car, and then you exit your car. That is all you can remember. You know that at some point you used your indicator, you stopped at lights, you gave someone the right of way. You remember none of it. This is what happens when you are not fully engaged and doing something mindfully. We live a big part of our lives like this, and the missing moments promote a feeling of emptiness. Emptiness is the sister of sadness.
Procrastination is another cunt that makes us sad. So is the fear of failure. These two things are just two cheeks of the same ass.
Both these are the roadblock of achievement.
Procrastination is something that is misunderstood. I have spoken about it before in a previous blog. I don’t know which one as I give them fucked up names and never reference them.
Procrastination doesn’t mean putting out something you don’t like doing, it means putting out something you love or that is good for you. We do this to prevent ourselves from failure.
I love writing. It gives me both mindfulness and a sense of achievement. The unfortunate thing is that unlike my job, or my house, or my family, there is a certain amount of my being that I put into my writing. When my writing gets criticized, I don’t necessarily take it personally, but I do feel like I have failed. Probably the equivalent of Mo Salah missing a penalty. He feels sad for a while, and then he bounces back and scores the next one.
So this is how it works for me if I get offered a writing gig.
A customer will get hold of me on Monday for something he needs next Monday. I have a regular job, so I need to submit it by Sunday morning.
I will go whole week doing absolutely fuck all. Then come Saturday night and I shit myself and do it under pressure.
Then I submit it.
If the client comes back and says it’s good, I can tell myself, Wow I didn’t even try. Imagine how good that would be if I tried.
If the client comes back and says it’s shit, I can tell myself I didn’t have enough time that’s why it was shit.
By procrastinating like this, I protect myself from failure because I didn’t even try in the first place.
OK Fuck off
Be mindful and fix stuff.
Rub a dog
Tell lies to a budgie
Fingerbang an itinerant sheep behind the wheelie bin
