Originally Posted by
Mike Dura
I hate the word "advice." When I hear it I'm prepared for some self-righteous self-promo. Today I woke up 37 yrs old (it's my B-day) and that number is a little unsettling. It sounds so old to me. Yet I feel far from being this sober, mature presence that I would have imagine I'd be at this age. But seing that it's my birthday, I figure it would be a good day to reflect back on what I've done in my life. Although there are some things I'm proud of I made alot of mistakes that have really set me back to square one.
This 37 yr old is going back in a time capsile to have a talk with himself when he was an 18-25 yr old "yute (i.e., youth). What do I say to him?
I would embrace this young man. I would listen to him with empathy. I would encourage him to "follow his bliss" to use Joseph Cambell's line. That is, what is it that gives you joy? Make it your life. It's the most natural course of action you can take. It's like "going with the flow." Don't listen to those trying to twist and turn you into what they think is best for you. It's your life not their's. Be courageous enough to claim what is rightfull yours, - you're not only entitled to it, it's your moral imperative.
When I was 18-ish, bodybuilding was my bliss. It would have made sense to major in excersize physiology and biz. I took a different major and I was semi-happy but that life went down the tubes with the death of my ex-girlfriend, depression, and a drug charge and conviction (not AAS). I made poor choices and that's my fault. I was weak. I'm ashamed to admit that but that's the way it is.
Anyway, when you choose to "follow your bliss" all aspects of your life will increasingly fall into it's own order and you live an authentic, integrated life. And in the concrete experience of the everyday, your sense of time lessons and you become less self-conscious and less conflicted and more engaged. In this mode, you are living in "flow (look up Mihaly Csikszentmihlyi's "flow" on amazon.com). " Social scientists assert that people in flow are relatively happy people. So there you go. There's the secret to happiness. This flow experience has a kinship with Buddhism which emphasizes experience over ideology or ideas in general.
There are many anti-flow influences. It's those things that can get in the way of life's optimal experiences and thwarts a truly authentically lived life. It's understood, for example, that American Culture is too top heavy - operating too much out of abstractions and devaluing experience and taking refuge into symbols and images - "heads without bodies" if that makes sense. Because many of the people around you devalue your (and there own) experience, you become insensitive to your experiential inclinations and operate out of "what you think you should do" or what someone who "knows better" tells you what to do. Not only do people try to define you (and in so doing define themselves), the power elite try to define you and mislead you to believe that their agenda is the road to happiness. They want to turn you into an unthinking consumer who defines themselves by ownership and energy consumption.
Under this scheme of things, the tendency toward self-estrangement is of little surprise. This was the great realization of Carl Rogers. Living through "the looking glass" or being determined by other's expectations, is the mistake that Tolsoy's Ivan Illych made. It haunted him on his death bed. Don't be like Ivan. Be you. That's why I think it pays to be a bit of a maverick.
Be authentic and be open to experience. That is, don't be too quick to "know " things and go back and reframe things constantly. The same experience should never really be the same experience when you are open, revisional and detached. It's this mentality that helps keep you from pigeonholing yourself into a concept or like Narissus, freezing in your own image. You are in the process of continuous self-discovery - a continuous "process of becoming" and not an end or a static existense. Time enough for end in death.
I'm hoping all of this doesn't sound arogant like I'm lecturing here. In fact, I'm thinking that me at 18 wouldn't listen to me at 37 because I don't trust people and I am always suspicious of other people's motives and intentions. I assume that people are truly out for themselves and that true altruism in our neck of the woods is more often a front for some kind of solicitation in disguise. If that's what you suspect than I would understand. I'm a pessimist too.
To you I offer this more concrete and straightforward gem (as it was offered to me - I didn't listen here either). Don't go too heavy to often or your joints will be aching by the time you reach your mid-late thirties! Cheers.
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I think I have found my flow so Im just gonna se where it takes me. But it seems very easy to lose it.
