Superstar

When I was watching the YouTube video of Karen Carpenter playing drums, smiling so big and enjoying herself so much, I felt jealous. She's so pretty, musically talented, and adored. Songs like Superstar and Yesterday Once More were ironic in that in singing them, she was speaking of stars as if she wasn't one. In an attempt to feel better about myself, I thought, "There must be something wrong with her life. It's too damn perfect." I was ashamed at my schadenfreude when I discovered the circumstances of her death. On the other hand, I wanted to find proof that being admired like her wasn't all that great, and it was good to find that evidence. The admiration of entertainment stars is often for superficial and unstable reasons. It's much better to be validated just for being human rather than for any particular accomplishment or gift because conditional love isn't really love and can only sustain you temporarily.

Fairness

There is no such thing as fairness or unfairness. It is a line in the sand of human imagination drawn to motivate balance between equally imaginary parcels of the one true whole. Instead of engendering balance, thoughts of fairness or justice sometimes instigate war as one side imagines being deprived by the other.

"Reciprocity" can also be used as a club to beat the other into giving back. Such a demand needn't be verbalized; one can signal disapproval with the body, mood, or even more subtle ways.

Balance doesn't require justice. Balance just is. When a ball drops into a pool of water, the water splashes upward in a balanced response. Every moment is a moment of balance even while the quantities involved are still changing. Equilibrium is no more balanced than the movement toward equilibrium.

We may push forcefully to secure a certain outcome we consider fair. If worry accompanies the push, the outcome will likely bounce back the opposite direction. If the weight behind the push is greater than the either your hand or the object you're pushing, you will effect a more durable change. The largest weight is the weight of the world. Hence it is the complex interactions of the entire world that determine where the scales tip, not some man-made sense of fairness.

It would do us good to observe with humility the hugeness of the universe and let it determine how the galaxies and atoms should dance with each other. Atlas, let down your rock and let it roll.

Trusting the clarity of the mirror

She looks at me with disgust as I refuse to do what she says.

I look at her with disgust as she demands me to give.

The thoughts that arise from the dispute are meaningless rationalizations that only serve to empower the feelings of righteousness and contempt. Thoughts like:

She is so ungrateful.
She is so spoiled.
She is so lazy.
She is so weak.
She is so incapable of happiness.

Simultaneously, she has a volley of negative thoughts toward me.

He is so lazy.
He is so inconsiderate.
He is so weak.
He is overly sensitive.
He is so selfish.

We are reflecting each other's negativity. We don't see the hall of mirrors, only the infinitely reflecting images of hate.

Until now.

Others are just perfect mirrors of ourselves. Paradoxically, we are perfect mirrors for others, even though as the subject in the experience, we must think of ourselves as the generators of the image, not the mirror. In other words, when I look at others, I see only my reflection, me in turn being any image I dream up in that moment. There may be some artifacts in the reflection, like the right and left sides being reversed, but the underlying relationship is the same. For example, if I hate being told what to do, what I see in the other person won't necessarily be disobedience. It would most likely be bossiness.

As we are but mirrors, if we want to see a better picture, we must be that picture first. This requires thorough trust that the other will mirror it back to us because we don't want to waste energy projecting for nothing. Unfortunately, we think their image is coming at us from outside us; the mirror analogy is too much a leap of faith. They are independently mean and selfish, and so I must defend myself or avoid them. In so doing, I lose the opportunity to change a part of myself that would've benefited from the feedback.

Practical Solipsism

Whereas the philosophy that all we can know is what is in our own minds is often ridiculed as being impractical because it denies the objective existence of others, there is practical value in noting that our values and judgments are indeed subjective and thus changeable.

Our minds hold a pattern, which ostensibly corresponds to an "external" reality. It is a map of a territory that we can never sense directly because sensing necessarily filters information. If we had a direct, unfiltered experience of so-called external reality, we would receive one huge chunk of information, unorganized and unmanageable. It would be like downloading the entire content of the Internet as one large stream of ones and zeroes without a method of decoding it.

Objectivity is consensus and relative repeatability mistaken as fragments of absolute truth. The illusion of absoluteness leads us to a problem in judgment of right and wrong in human intentions and behaviors. When we think, "He should have done this," or, "She shouldn't be this way," there often arises an uneasy feeling of annoyance, rejection, or distaste. We automatically blame the other person for causing this disturbance when it really is our mind's signal that we are encountering a contradiction in our mental map of the world. Before we can even consider that our map needs correcting, we must be open to the possibility that our judgments are not absolute.

The feeling of judgment signals a contradiction between what we expect the other person to do and what we observe them doing. Ironically, it's easier to assume that our expectation is more correct than observed reality. This is simply a habit, a repeated pattern of thinking that has served us in the past. We ignore the fact that it does not serve us now out of sheer laziness: it requires thoughtful effort to adjust our mental map of how the other person should act. We would need to ask ourselves why it is the most beneficial course of action in their minds and hearts to do what they just did that annoyed us so.

What can we control?

A practical solipsist does not deny that his values and actions affect the conditions of his experiences even if he denies the metaphysical independence of such conditions. The practical question then is, "What can I control to achieve happiness or less disturbance?" In the case of judging people, the answer is to elaborate upon or otherwise change your model of how the other person should be. In other words, justify their behavior with adjusted "laws of the universe" (mental model). The alternative is to resist your observed reality, a tiring and futile endeavor.

As a bonus, when you understand more deeply and more consistently with your observations why a person values or acts a certain way, you can more easily organize causes and conditions for them to act in a way that is mutually beneficial. You can spend your energy where it actually matters instead of just frustratingly grinding on why they are the way they are.

I don't need anyone's praise

I don't need anyone's praise. It's not important to me. They have
their own values, which may be different than mine.

I don't need to judge others. They have their own values with which to
judge themselves. Mine are irrelevant except when I mistakenly believe
that others are pressuring me toward their values. In that case, I
remember that only my values need to be factored into my choices.

This is not to say that I ignore other's desires and preferences. In
fact I am closely observant of them, and in my striving to fulfill my
own values I see the multiplicative power of mutual benefit.

This is not to say that I'm a calculating sociopath. My keen
observance of other's values stems from the joy of connecting with
others' joy. I do not need their praise, so I am well prepared to
receive it in the form it was given rather than requiring the gift to
conform to my own design.

You are good

i want you to be happy. do whatever you like. i know you will harm no one. it is not in your nature to. people will tell you otherwise but it's not true.

trust the goodness of the universe and those around you. there is nothing to gain from fearing them and much to lose. don't believe those that tell you to be afraid. they are just afraid themselves.

trust your own goodness. you are a strong force of benevolence that can overcome any obstacle. you have a history of solving difficult problems, and i know you will continue to do so spectacularly. you simply cannot lose.

drop the walls imprisoning your true self. let it out and watch it enlighten and enliven the world.

Cholesterol--Don't Think Without It

Cholesterol may promote neuronal communication. Maybe clogged arteries are a sign that the heart wants to speak. http://sageke.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/2001/7/nw26