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Dumb Thoughts
Dumb Thoughts
You can see this in yourself when you are thinking about something else deeply
while staring at something. You are staring at it but you are not looking at it
because if somebody quickly asked you a question about the features of the object
you were staring at, you wouldn’t answer because you were not seeing the object
even though you were staring at it which indicates that you were not performing
the function of focusing on it since you were thinking about something else. This is
the way attention works in the way we humans see anything.
In order to see anything, you have to select it from all the other details and objects
around it, and there is a reason you selected that thing instead of all the other
details around it even though you might not know what that reason is. Whatever
that reason may be, it is what’s allowing you to see that thing because reality is too
complex to see all at once without focusing and letting some things fade in to the
background all fuzzy and invisible in order to see one thing. Building on this we
can say that humans see a lot of things and we have different reasons for seeing
each thing instead of the multitude of complexity around that thing. Some reasons
are higher than others in our hierarchies and we give them priority and hence see
one thing instead of another. So those collection of reasons can be described as a
hierarchical value structure that allows us to value one idea or principle over
another, hence see one thing over another. I am using the dry technical term of
internal value structures because I didn’t want to use terms like “spirit”, “soul”, or
“third eye” on this essay but you can think of internal value structures as the thing
that is within you, the inner voice within you that you might not always understand
but you know it’s important because it tells you what is meaningful, makes you see
things in a new light, and makes you sure of things that you can’t explain
rationally. This value structure is what allows us to see. Seeing is choosing and
there is an underlying structure of reasons why we choose to see one thing over
another deep within our being, beneath our man-made ideologies and artificial
layers. We can even go so far as to say that we don’t really see “things” but the
meaning of things. Our ancient fathers and religious writers knew this when they
spoke about God and the meaning in our creation which is blatantly misunderstood
and attacked today in our scientific and fact-based world but don’t let me get all
“religious” on you. We will do that some other time.
It becomes easy to understand this value structure when you think about the things
you see and don’t see in your life. My sister is very aware of any tiny spec of dirt
in the house because a clean house is a high aim and a slight mess one was a
disgusting nightmare for her for some reason that neither me nor her understand
fully. Me on the other hand, only notice dirt when the ceramic sink goes grey or
when the floor has a couple of tissues on it, because I don’t find an extremely clean
and neat house as meaningful to me as my sister does. I can say that I value
cleanliness but I don’t value it as much as my sister does and you can see that in
my actions. We often argue about whether the floor is clean or not even though we
are looking down at the same floor. She often says “Look at it! Can’t you see the
mess! You didn’t clean it at all!” but all I can do stare at her in confusion. I literally
don’t see the dirt and mess that my sister sees.
I hope that is enough to give you a little hint about the way we humans are able to
see and the primary role that our consciousness plays in the way reality unfolds to
us. To understand this in more detail you can check out the suggested reading list
at the end of this essay.
Now let’s get to our question - What is success?
Everything that humans named, they named after they saw and as I have
mentioned before, we need a value structure to see anything in the first place
because reality has too many things and is too complex. So, the question of success
becomes - What did we value so much that we saw the pattern of success in
ourselves or others and named it as such. This is a tougher but more interesting
question than the typical “Is money and fame success?” question that many books
justify their expensive prices for answering.
As with most things we give names to, success is not simply an idea or a principle
that someone thought of but the name we gave to a way of being in the world that
led to prosperity and fulfilment. Success was the name we gave to a way of being
that we identified by watching each other for thousands of years, seeing more and
more of what is important, meaningful and worth pursuing in life and writing about
it in our fables, myths and now in our superhero movies. But wait a minute. We
said that our value structures (the hierarchy of things we find meaningful)
determines the way we see and if that’s the case, how come we all identified the
pattern of success and agreed to name it collectively, even if each of us have
different value structures that makes us see differently or completely miss the
pattern of success around us?
The extreme commonality of internal value structures
Although there is some value in asserting the individuality and subjectivity of
reality in some circumstances because we haven’t faced the reality that is facing
our brothers and sisters (we shouldn’t judge too quickly without understanding the
situation better), most of what we see and value as human beings is similar. You
can see this in the way we characterize certain personalities and build characters in
movies or books that bring laughter or tears to the majority of the audience
population. Even our aims are so common even though we think of them as
unique. We have almost 7 billion people and almost all of us (except a small
minority people involved in truly creative endeavors which trailblaze a new path
that was never thought of by anyone) are interested only in a few hundred
disciplines. We have almost 7 billion people but almost all see ourselves in the
future as having kids and forming a family and getting more prosperous and doing
good for the people around us. I could go on but the fact is we are way more
similar than we think although the specifics of our life story and experiences might
differ.
The fact that we named the pattern we observed and named it “success”
collectively agreeing on it and adding it to our dictionary indicates that almost all
of us have a gut instinct for meaning and quickly want to name a thing that
pronounces itself meaningful to us. This commonality of our internal value
structures (hierarchies of meaning) is what allows language to grow. Internal value
structures are more or less universal.
How did we encounter the pattern of success?
Internal value structures allow us to see what is meaningful. So one answer to this
question might be- “We all have structures within us that allow us to see what is
meaningful and we saw successful and fulfilled people and we saw that it was
good and wanted to have what they had but, to have it, we had know what it is and
to know what it is, we had to talk about it and to talk about it, we had to name it, so
we named it success and started talking about it. We failed a lot when trying to
define success because we were trying to define something that our gut instincts
(internal value structures) told us to pursue when we looked at a successful and
fulfilled person. We already know what it is in our gut but its difficult to articulate
it to others and ourselves because internal value structures might not even be
known to us consciously even though they are the way we see and act. So, we
started guessing- “Is success money?” when we saw a rich philanthropist, “Is
success fame?” when we saw a popular person adored by many, “Is success
sacrificing one’s self?” when we see a man giving his life for what he believed in,
“Is success caring for others” when we see someone devoted caring for the weak,
“Is success being nice and unoffensive” when you see people who get along with
everyone and have a good time. All these questions are interesting because we had
the audacity to name something without knowing what it is. This indicates that we
had a gut instinct that made us name it because it pronounced itself as important
and meaningful. That gut instinct is what will guide us to the answer of what
success is in our own lives. Simply thinking about in lying on your dorm beds will
not do it. We are meaning machines. We see meaning in everything and our guts
(internal value structures) tell us to follow the pattern of being we see in front of us
even though we might not be able to articulate exactly if that means money, fame
or cars. That instinct within you is what tells you when you’re off from the mark or
when you are descending a little bit in to hell by allowing yourself to be controlled
by money or fame, allowing yourself to be overly nice and harmless to people to
the point that they roll over you, Allowing yourself to be used by doing charity for
people who don’t deserve it, Allowing your ego to reach the size of the sun and
disrespect those around you. These are fine little balancing acts that you can’t fully
do with just conscious thinking because no matter how long you think about a
certain decision, there is a gut instinct at the bottom of your being that tells you the
truth if you are 100% honest with it. Follow that. Don’t obsess over what success is
because you already noticed it and named it “success” before you consciously
knew what it is, which means you have a good idea of what it is deep within the
core of your being that allowed you to see the pattern of success to begin with. You
might not articulate the reasons that you do everything and that’s okay because you
already knew and felt enough to name it in the first place.