Don't Do Something Else Instead

Insanity is doing what doesn't need to be done -- in preference for doing something requiring urgency and priority.  That is like filing one's fingernails, while the house is burning down around them.  It would seem rare that such a thing should happen -- but it is the commonplace rather than the exception.

We condition ourselves in precisely that way -- of going through a preprogrammed exercise routine -- rather than addressing the point of our momentary greatest concern -- thinking (hoping, actually), that we will eventually get there -- in good time, if at all.  Invariably, we usually run out of time, because all the things not necessary and urgent to do and consider, never got finished -- and so get put off for the next time, or the time thereafter.  In short, we never get around to doing what we really have to do, because all the distractions prevent us from getting there.

It seems like such a simple and obvious thing, but this capacity to deceive and distract ourselves, is a huge part of our conditioning -- that keeps us from getting to the point we absolutely need to get to.  In fact, many are conditioned to believe that is the point.  We must simply never get there -- but engage in all manner of distraction and entertainment -- and in the end, one simply runs out of time and money, or anything entertaining to do.

In the meantime, all the problems never attended to, have piled up -- into what seems to be an insurmountable mountain of hopeless debris one doesn't know where to begin -- and so defers it once again to another time.  Of course, things never get done in that manner -- but instead, one is always on vacation or at the bar, escaping from all those problems.  For unfortunately many, that is their lives and existence -- and so it is no surprise that they often end up homeless, and jobless, and not doing anything productive -- but escaping into their world of entertainment, illusion and addiction -- and having no idea how to escape it.

What would one expect?  How could one expect anything else?  So all the talk about grandiose goals, are merely another distraction from the basics that go unattended -- yet again.  To go far, we have to begin near -- and each step, gets us closer to our ultimate goal -- and not simply wishing it harder, while doing nothing to move in any direction.  Movement is change -- while no amount of wishful thinking -- makes a difference.  It is not enough to wish it were not so.

Yet many experts give such advice -- because it grows their business -- and they are all about.  Solving any problem, is not the answer.  Only increasing the magnitude of the problem and its hopelessness, ensures their future prospects.  What is a rare problem, must become an epidemic and flood of hopelessness, if they are to be successful -- whether that is obesity or diabetes, or all the other conditions for which it predisposes one greatly.

In fact, organizations must be established to promote its equality and acceptability -- and not that we should have a preference for any other condition.  But miraculously, a few started questioning that premise of non-discrimination of anything, anymore.  Some differences do matter -- even as much as they try to convince us that trivial things do -- but it is only "entertainment" anyway -- which are the only differences one should entertain.  A lot of people get lost in such worlds -- no longer knowing the difference, and in fact, preferring the illusion for all realities.  That is their drug of choice -- their preference for the arbitrary and needless, over the basic necessities.  It is all an indistinguishable blur.

Obviously such people need to be brought back into focus -- and with such practice and sharpening, they relentlessly move in the direction and preference of improvement -- as the driving force in their lives and the only thing that matters anymore.  Improvement are the means, and not the ends -- by which one gets anywhere.  Those fixated only on the ends, don't realize that those goals may change in the doing of anything -- which is the natural development and measure of any practice and productivity.

The ultimate objective is to change -- and movement makes that possible.  Change is the measure of movement -- and that is why we practice and cultivate movement.  It is what gets us there.  We are what we practice and cultivate.  That is the greater story of civilization -- and not that any great culture got there by staying stagnant and inert -- hoping that if they simply hang around long enough, life will rotate them to the top, by some mysterious, random process.

That's not how any one of us got here.  Always, somebody was trying to do better -- by their own understanding and circumstances.  That is the best one can do.  It doesn't guarantee any particular outcome -- but prepares us better for many different scenarios -- and not just the one.  The one, may not be the ideal, or even the preferred -- but the best reveals itself in the process.  The process is life working itself out -- in having all the information, and not simply the knowledge in each head -- often working against each other.

Thus the sum of the totality, is always much greater than just the sum of the parts -- but every individual, must still do their part.  It is for the greater (collective) wisdom and intelligence, to sort it all out -- and not for individuals to proclaim their all-encompassing wisdom -- in knowing better than any other part.  That is childish -- and the wise are always occupied in learning more than the little they know.  They do not presume that what they know, is everything that can be known.