Discontent and Mindfulness

     Where is the discontent I feel coming from? I am not content with myself right now. Perhaps this means right now, in this very moment, or right now in this phase of my life. It's hard to tell. Life feels off. I began thinking about what I have lost. The friendships that now feel like they're in the past. I was comfortable for a while. I'm not sure what changed. I feel like I've regressed. I've reintegrated negative thought patterns into my life. Not intentionally, of course, but the strength I felt only days ago has been replaced by anxiety. I felt like I had moved past this anxiety. This anxiety is suffocating, it takes away my ability to breathe and I lose the ability to control myself and my mind. My thoughts delve into places I'd prefer not to go to, in the sense that I reject these thoughts while maintaining them. It's paradoxical, confusing, and paralyzing. I am not allowed a consistent thought process regarding these thoughts and the way I feel about them. I am not allowed in the sense that I'm not allowing myself to follow them, out of fear that I will come to a conclusion about myself that I am not happy with. The problem is, by not allowing myself to think I have already made the conclusion. I struggle to accept that I could come to one conclusion or another and either conclusion could be true or false and with that information, I can improve or change my behavior. Of course, I don't think this at the moment. Instead, I'm hit with a thought and provide an emotional reaction to that thought. I don't entirely know what this is a result of. At the moment, it feels as though the thought and emotions represent me and I identify with them. I feel as though I am unaware of it but others are aware. This comes with life. I've been doing something that I haven't really done in a long time. Socializing has been going well and I have turned much of my attention toward having positive social interactions. The problem is, my desire to have positive interactions comes with a fear of having negative social interactions. Again, I have fallen into a cycle in which I desire social interaction, achieve it, then stress over whether or not I will lose those positive social interactions. I'm learning once again that the waters get muddled when you're involved with other people. I have come to a point of cognitive dissonance where a decision I've made has gone against my values. I lose myself for the sake of others. It's weird how this seems to happen covertly. There's a spy in my own mind that convinces me to go against my morals to please and appease others. I'm not sure why I feel so much shame in this failure to live up to my own standards. Are they my "own" standards? Were they standards that were given to me? When I fail to live ethically and live hedonically, I inevitably push myself into a situation I don't like to be in. Experiencing pleasure is great but peace is my preference. I've been both feet in for a bit now, maybe it's time I take a foot out and consider myself and my experiences lately. I'm conflicted here because I believe living life to its fullest means keeping both feet in but I'm struggling to keep both feet in while also holding onto peace and quiet within. I find so much goes on and the more things go on, the more I desire for more things to be going on. This leads me to a point where every waking minute is spent with my attention on everything but myself. I overidentify with other people, I try to reach into their minds and find answers but I've said this before, and I hold it to be true, when you try to look into the minds of others, you will only find your own. I agonize over the thoughts of another and I agonize over whether I'm capable of doing so. I agonize over whether or not I can know if I'm capable. This is an unmanaged, obviously uncomfortable mental position. To me, this feels like a product of moving past thoughts before I'm ready and them subconsciously cluttering up, which enlarges my subconscious and minimizes my conscious mind. When I'm ready to think, I don't even consider it because I'm overwhelmed by the amount I have to think about. It is easier and more pleasurable to tune it out and focus my attention on something mindless and comfortable. This becomes my personal hell. When the entertainment I enjoy is no longer something I can enjoy because I'm too distracted by my nagging subconscious. I can't relate to other people in this way. This is a phenomenon I haven't discussed or heard much of. How do people successfully tune out the brain? There are times when everything I do feels like a mistake or an error and there are various possible reasons. I feel depleted of joy and energy. Perhaps, also, this is a product of my habits. Maybe this is all complete bullshit. Maybe my habits negatively affect my ability to deal with thoughts consciously. I feel and am less capable of understanding what I feel and why I feel it because there are too many possibilities and my life simply needs an overhaul. Meaning I need to take a step back a little bit and allow myself to question reality in the comfort of my home. My home being me. My home is my "soul". My soul does not have the answers but it is capable of sitting still and allowing the irrational to make its case and be dismissed or modified. Perhaps I'm comfortably deluding myself. This might be true but I am able to accept realities I am not comfortable with. Or do I modify them to fit my wants and needs? In any case, a moderately delusional positive view of life is better than an intensely delusional view of life either positively or negatively. Perhaps we are all delusional and it's just a matter of where we are on the spectrum. This is a comforting thought. It makes me feel less alone to think that all people are delusional on some level. It helps that there's no way to know whether or not this is true. Also, based on what I've been educated on, it seems to be a popular philosophical belief that this is the case. Belief, in general, could often be described as a delusion. I wonder how this could change if I switch the word "delusion" to "illusion". Maybe this doesn't seem so bad and it will help me expose my illusions as they are without a negative connotation placed upon them. Thoughts are thoughts. They are an incredibly useful tool because we can think of anything at all and have no consequences come from it. Of course, consequences can come from thoughts. For example, the thought "Maybe it's a good idea to murder people," could have some pretty strenuous consequences but any person could think this simply to think it. Deciding to think a thought does not mean the thought will affect a person's behavior. We can think simply to think. We can think of anything. This should be met with a liberating feeling but I believe people may disagree with this. Some people believe a person's thoughts represent them entirely. Maybe this is true but what of a battle between conflicting thoughts? Or a thought someone chose to think for no reason at all? Not all thoughts represent the thinker. The thinker represents themself with what they choose to express and hold onto as belief. Belief can be crippled and when this happens, it is easy to feel a bit lost. The only advice I can give to myself is to retreat for a while, restructure, and move forward. The easiest way for beliefs to be crippled is to have new experiences. If you're open to these new experiences being something you haven't experienced before, you can learn much that may make your current beliefs shaky. When this happens, and you don't restructure them, you'll be lost and looking to those who seem confident for guidance. Asking questions is a good way to restructure your beliefs to new experiences but be careful, don't blindly believe the answers you're given. Instead, interrogate them politely. Ask more questions and give newly developed thoughts. Maybe sharing those thoughts is not ideal, since once you do they are now open to their own interrogation, this is a breeding ground for new thoughts but the origin of the matter can easily be lost. Speak and think calmly, if overwhelmed stay silent and take a deep breath, then proceed cautiously but not with suspicion. The other person likely believes what they are saying and has good intentions. Becoming suspicious of the other person does damage to your beliefs, as it becomes more difficult to take seriously the words of the person across from you. At this point, you have to trust yourself. Retreat, rethink, reapproach. This can be done at any time. As Marcus Aurelius said, “Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul". It may be distracted but you ought to always have access to your soul. Return to peace and mindfulness for the sake of manageable development of belief. 

Comments

Popular Posts