Thug's Guide to Higher Consciousness
I am thinking of writing a book about my mental struggles to attain higher consciousness. Here is the preface:
Here is what I am learning on my own journey. I am not saying I've arrived at enlightenment yet. I'm still fumbling with the damn light bulb, but I am sharing in case it might help someone else. We got our Thug Kitchen cookbook, now here is the preface to your Thug's Guide to Higher Consciousness:
1. There are those of us who spend a lot of time trying to silence the committee in our heads. You know the feeling. It makes bad decisions and then berates you for them when you try to go to sleep at night. This is not the real you. The real you is hiding in the basement waiting for the committee meeting to be over, but it never is. Kind of like Congress and we all know how much they get done.
2. You cannot silence the committee without help. The human primate is a social species. Even us introverts need at least one other person with whom we can discuss committee decisions before we act on them. This person has to be someone with whom we can identify. Someone who will not judge, but who will give you honest feedback. For instance, if your committee suggests that you will feel a lot better if you provoke a moose in rutting season, your friend (who has probably provoked a rutting moose or two in their day) will remind you what happened the last time you did that and tell you that you should probably take a short, but vigorous walk and then have a hot bath and some tea instead. Your committee would not think of this. Trust me.
3. This person cannot be you, no matter how smart you think you are.
4. When you feel the urge to act on a committee decision, you should almost always do the exact opposite thing. For example, if the committee tells you to sit and agonize the answer is almost always going to be to get up and move. If the committee tells you to stay up late at night obsessing, the answer is almost always go the hell to bed.
5. If it seems counter-intuitive, it is probably the right thing to do. If you are responding the way you always respond and it isn’t working, doing more of it isn’t going to work any better.
6. It is human to fail. It is healthy to observe those failings and acknowledge them. It is healthy to take steps to prevent them from happening again. It is unhealthy if you don’t let them go. If you are constantly wading through a pile of garbage that keeps getting higher, the garbage will win. Eventually there will be so much garbage you can’t move. It suffocates you, it walls you in, it is piled so high you can’t get over it. Take the trash out every night and leave it in the damn trash can. You would not run outside the next morning, bring last night’s trash bag into your house, and climb in the bag with it. It would be really bad if you did that every day. Wouldn’t take a whole lot of time to start stinking up the house. A week’s worth of the shit will fill your house with enough noxious fumes to down a healthy ox. Mental trash is the same way. Let it go for God’s sake. Just because the garbage men haven’t come yet, it doesn’t mean that you should accumulate the stuff until they show up.
7. And finally, the act of taking out the trash is an act. Not a feeling. Not an act of will power. Not a pleasant thought that you should ponder until you make it a shitty thought. Even Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz had to click her fucking heels together in order to go home. Just saying, “I dream of a better tomorrow” will not make it so. For most of us this is the hardest part of all. Most of us can get with the mentally prepared program, but then when it comes time to follow through, it is like, “Oh gee. Look at the time. My committee is meeting in 5 minutes. Gotta run.” You can think of spreading sunshine and farting rainbows but if you don’t actually do something, that sunshine and those rainbows aren’t going to magically spring out of your ass. Wax on, wax off, little grasshopper.
Peace out.
Here is what I am learning on my own journey. I am not saying I've arrived at enlightenment yet. I'm still fumbling with the damn light bulb, but I am sharing in case it might help someone else. We got our Thug Kitchen cookbook, now here is the preface to your Thug's Guide to Higher Consciousness:
1. There are those of us who spend a lot of time trying to silence the committee in our heads. You know the feeling. It makes bad decisions and then berates you for them when you try to go to sleep at night. This is not the real you. The real you is hiding in the basement waiting for the committee meeting to be over, but it never is. Kind of like Congress and we all know how much they get done.
2. You cannot silence the committee without help. The human primate is a social species. Even us introverts need at least one other person with whom we can discuss committee decisions before we act on them. This person has to be someone with whom we can identify. Someone who will not judge, but who will give you honest feedback. For instance, if your committee suggests that you will feel a lot better if you provoke a moose in rutting season, your friend (who has probably provoked a rutting moose or two in their day) will remind you what happened the last time you did that and tell you that you should probably take a short, but vigorous walk and then have a hot bath and some tea instead. Your committee would not think of this. Trust me.
3. This person cannot be you, no matter how smart you think you are.
4. When you feel the urge to act on a committee decision, you should almost always do the exact opposite thing. For example, if the committee tells you to sit and agonize the answer is almost always going to be to get up and move. If the committee tells you to stay up late at night obsessing, the answer is almost always go the hell to bed.
5. If it seems counter-intuitive, it is probably the right thing to do. If you are responding the way you always respond and it isn’t working, doing more of it isn’t going to work any better.
6. It is human to fail. It is healthy to observe those failings and acknowledge them. It is healthy to take steps to prevent them from happening again. It is unhealthy if you don’t let them go. If you are constantly wading through a pile of garbage that keeps getting higher, the garbage will win. Eventually there will be so much garbage you can’t move. It suffocates you, it walls you in, it is piled so high you can’t get over it. Take the trash out every night and leave it in the damn trash can. You would not run outside the next morning, bring last night’s trash bag into your house, and climb in the bag with it. It would be really bad if you did that every day. Wouldn’t take a whole lot of time to start stinking up the house. A week’s worth of the shit will fill your house with enough noxious fumes to down a healthy ox. Mental trash is the same way. Let it go for God’s sake. Just because the garbage men haven’t come yet, it doesn’t mean that you should accumulate the stuff until they show up.
7. And finally, the act of taking out the trash is an act. Not a feeling. Not an act of will power. Not a pleasant thought that you should ponder until you make it a shitty thought. Even Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz had to click her fucking heels together in order to go home. Just saying, “I dream of a better tomorrow” will not make it so. For most of us this is the hardest part of all. Most of us can get with the mentally prepared program, but then when it comes time to follow through, it is like, “Oh gee. Look at the time. My committee is meeting in 5 minutes. Gotta run.” You can think of spreading sunshine and farting rainbows but if you don’t actually do something, that sunshine and those rainbows aren’t going to magically spring out of your ass. Wax on, wax off, little grasshopper.
Peace out.
posted by Unknown at 6:17 AM
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