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Daily Reflection 3.05.21
Mar. 5th, 2021 07:37 amSun Tzu says:
If you have a goal-- any goal-- the more energy you spend talking about it, the less you'll spend actually doing it.
This is true for a number of reasons, and we've discussed many of them. One very important reason that we haven't discussed yet is this:
The largest part of our minds is not capable of distinguishing fantasy from realty.
This is why you're able to enjoy watching movies or tv shows, or reading novels. You feel fear when the characters are in danger, joy when they triumph, sorrow when they die.
Notice-- You don't feel facsimiles of these emotions. You feel the emotions themselves.
Think of a good horror movie-- my favorites are The Exorcist and The Shining. The fear you feel during these movies is the same fear that you feel when walking through the wrong neighborhood at night or contemplating the future of The United States. And it's the same fear you feel during a nightmare. All four of these circumstances are different. In one case, the fear is provoked by a dream; in another, by anticipation of possible future events; in the third, by the actual presence of danger, and in the fourth, by a work of fiction. But it's the same fear, because the part of you that fears doesn't distinguish between the real and non-real.
In the exact same way, when you tell people all about the novel you're writing or the workout routine you've started or the new meditation you're practicing, a part of you treats the discussion of these things as though it was the things themselves. You confuse talking about it with doing it. And there's another factor, too, which is that, whether we like it or not, we're social animals, and all of us are motivated to one degree or another by social approval. If we receive the social approval for an action in advance of doing it, it removes one of the incentives for actually doing it.
Funny enough, this is also true if you spend too much time thinking about your plans. If you spend your time daydreaming about receiving a reward for your novel or being interviewed about your hit song on the radio, you run the risk of tricking the greater part of you into thinking you've already done it.
Remember that the primary battle is the conquest of our own souls, defined always as the sum totals of our actions and mental representations. And we learned way way back in Chapter 1 that we must understand the terrain on which our battle taking place. In the battle within, then, we must be aware that most of the terrain-- all that which is made up of instincts, passions, and emotions-- is unable to distinguish between the real and the unreal. Knowing this, we need to be exercise great caution when choosing which unreal experiences we allow ourselves to have!
O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the Enemy's fate in our hands.
If you have a goal-- any goal-- the more energy you spend talking about it, the less you'll spend actually doing it.
This is true for a number of reasons, and we've discussed many of them. One very important reason that we haven't discussed yet is this:
The largest part of our minds is not capable of distinguishing fantasy from realty.
This is why you're able to enjoy watching movies or tv shows, or reading novels. You feel fear when the characters are in danger, joy when they triumph, sorrow when they die.
Notice-- You don't feel facsimiles of these emotions. You feel the emotions themselves.
Think of a good horror movie-- my favorites are The Exorcist and The Shining. The fear you feel during these movies is the same fear that you feel when walking through the wrong neighborhood at night or contemplating the future of The United States. And it's the same fear you feel during a nightmare. All four of these circumstances are different. In one case, the fear is provoked by a dream; in another, by anticipation of possible future events; in the third, by the actual presence of danger, and in the fourth, by a work of fiction. But it's the same fear, because the part of you that fears doesn't distinguish between the real and non-real.
In the exact same way, when you tell people all about the novel you're writing or the workout routine you've started or the new meditation you're practicing, a part of you treats the discussion of these things as though it was the things themselves. You confuse talking about it with doing it. And there's another factor, too, which is that, whether we like it or not, we're social animals, and all of us are motivated to one degree or another by social approval. If we receive the social approval for an action in advance of doing it, it removes one of the incentives for actually doing it.
Funny enough, this is also true if you spend too much time thinking about your plans. If you spend your time daydreaming about receiving a reward for your novel or being interviewed about your hit song on the radio, you run the risk of tricking the greater part of you into thinking you've already done it.
Remember that the primary battle is the conquest of our own souls, defined always as the sum totals of our actions and mental representations. And we learned way way back in Chapter 1 that we must understand the terrain on which our battle taking place. In the battle within, then, we must be aware that most of the terrain-- all that which is made up of instincts, passions, and emotions-- is unable to distinguish between the real and the unreal. Knowing this, we need to be exercise great caution when choosing which unreal experiences we allow ourselves to have!
