Euan Semple's Blog, page 28

Being liked

Although I decided to focus on my blog rather than social media I’m still getting sucked into Twitter and Facebook. I post links to my writing there because otherwise few people would see what I write. I then become too interested in whether or not people have clicked “like” on what I have written. I then feel a subtle pressure to write differently, or just share pictures of Alby, to get more response. To get more likes. I start to worry if people “like” me!

But, as I’ve always said, my blog posts are mostly memos to self. They are for me to react to the world around me and to see those reactions placed before me for inspection. Yes inspection by others but mostly by me. Being concerned about whether or not people like what I have written affects how I write.

I guess this process mirrors our struggles to identify our true selves in the rest of our lives. The draw of relationship becomes pressure to conform.

Can we know ourselves without relationship? Can we truly be ourselves if it becomes too important?

A choice

If I see myself as separate body, as a small fragile thing in a dangerous and frightening universe populated with other small frightened individuals who are out to get me I will have to compete to survive. I will have to have more, be more, consume more.

If I see myself as part of life, surrounded by life in the various apparent forms which my mind creates out of the abundant energy around it I can relax and enjoy the show. I need less, I consume less, I don’t feel afraid and can dance with those sharing the dream with me as we enjoy the incredible privilege of being here at all.

It’s a choice, and we make it over and over again. In every single moment.

Saving the world

I just left this as a comment on Dave Pollard’s blog How To Save The World:

What we think we see never existed. If we change our minds we will see something else. It will look as if we have changed the world but it’s our minds that we have changed. And that is still possible. It’s not too late. But we have to start. With our minds.

Going nowhere

”For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

We are going on holiday at the end of June to Croatia and, having read that some countries are funny if you don’t have three months left on your passport, I sent off for a new one. This was two weeks ago.

I then remembered that I was hoping to go across to France before then – today.

And my passport’s not here.

What a plonker.

Technology

I sometimes wonder, looking back, if I regret my enthusiasm for technology.

But it was never about technology, it was about connection.

Workplaces

My work took me to lots of places.

Delivering my work happened all around the world and in everything from ancient castles to massive cruise liners.

Preparation for delivering my work could happen anywhere.

Even in my HGV work my work was moving stuff from place to place.

The thought of a “workplace” fills me with dread.

The inspector

It is such a boon being able to call on Alby’s wide ranging expertise. There aren’t many circumstances where he doesn’t feel qualified to check on the standard of my workmanship.

Bumping into unreality

This world is an illusion, but a dreamt head bumped against a dreamt rock brings dreamt pain.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Is there really anyone out there?

Our online interactions are so convincing. The feeling that I know who is there and what your reactions are to what I write is so strong that I really believe I am having real interactions with real people. But am I?

Even with someone standing immediately in front of me I am extrapolating, interpreting, making up, 99% of what is going on in their head. I assume that I am right, that I am correct in my assumptions, and then act accordingly.

How much more so is this the case online?! These fleeting chunks of sometimes badly written text and carefully chosen images are all we have to go on.

And yet they feel so real, they can feel so important. They can send us into downward spirals of irritation or envy, or soaring into feelings of connection and togetherness.

But, even more so than usual, we are making it all up. It is all a projection.

We should remember this.

Spot on

You were born, as every new life-form is birthed, ignited from the Source of life which sources everything. In the nine months you spent in the womb and during the process of birth itself, you were consistently supplied and provided for by the one same Life Source. Yes, I know you have come to believe your parents when they said you were theirs and that they created you, but strictly speaking that is not so, is it? It’s more precise to say, that in the action of your parent’s sexual union with one another, life created you. You were sourced into being through them rather than by them. Until you were ready to be popped out from your mother’s womb, you didn’t even know your parents, they hadn’t yet formed you in their own preferred mould. As far as you were concerned, they certainly hadn’t been your Life Source before this time. So what happened next? Well, in a nutshell, that is when things called problems became known to you. You took one look at your mother, in whose womb you had been incubated and you were told, “This is your mother …” and you took one look at your father, if he was in attendance, and you were told, “This is your father …” Wow! Talk about early child-hood trauma and confusion over identity. Let’s face it, no matter how loving your parents are, they don’t look like the all-providing, non-demanding, all-nurturing safe Creator you have been sourced by. They don’t resonate with quite the same consistency as your Life Source. The constancy of provision you have been receiving from your Source may suddenly seem less dependable, now that you are entrusted to the care of your parents. But who were you to question that? In all circumstances, your parents seem adamant that you are theirs and so you, being new to all of this, step out in trust and accept their ownership.

THE EGO IDENTITY YOU FORMED. From here on in you began to form an identity about yourself, contrived though it was. You were told how much you look and act like various members of your family; in many cases, people you don’t even know. You learn that you have your “mother’s eyes” and you are told you have your “father’s nose”, you learn how things are going to be, even though they haven’t happened yet … “You’ll be a great sportsman, just like your uncle!” and, “You are another stubborn little thing, just like your older brother.” All the time, you were beginning to piece together an image and an identification of yourself as you were taught to live it. This is the ego. It is the learned version of YOU and who you have been living ever since. You were given a name which, not surprisingly, you didn’t get to choose for yourself either. You were programmed, conditioned, cloned and named.

Addiction Unplugged : How To Be Free: For all those affected by their own addictions or the addictions of others by John Flaherty