You live life as if some things were better than others, as if some things are wrong, and other things are right.
Truth is, these are all memes 1. This is not how life works.
Life works with physical laws, some of them we know, others we don’t, but they are laws nevertheless.
The difference between a physical/natural law and a rule is that for a law to be law you don’t have to agree to it for it to do what it does… But rules for them to be working on all involved, have to be accepted, agreed to, and bear the consequences if you don’t.
Ultimately every man made law and rule works like a rule… nature never agreed to it. In nature killing is not wrong, it violates no natural law. Neither do stealing or lying. So even the Ten Commandments were made up by people… so even those are MEMES.
Human arbitrary rules are memes, designed to make some people righter (lol) than others.
There are preferences, but they are not rules. Rule-making, rule-accepting separates you from reality, separates you from life, makes you live a life where A is not A… It makes you live a life where A is right and not-A is wrong…
…and this is the source of all misery… really.
Nothing in reality is ever wrong… A is A, and that is that. Pleasant, unpleasant, you like it, you don’t like it… A is A. However A is that is the way it is. It is never not A… however much you’d like it to be.
Now, there are exceptions. Games, for example.
In golf, the ball in the hole is better than outside of it. And depending on whose ball it is… you celebrate or cry.
But that is the only place where something is better than something else. The only place where your rule matters. To you. Not to life. Not to reality. To you.
- My next door neighbor needs to vacate the house today… and she is grieving. She lived here for three years, and moving hurts. Always. There is a perceived loss.
- A student of mine just moved back to where she used to live… and she is upset. She needs Heaven on Earth to feel better. A is A. She lived on the East Coast for two years, and now she’ll live in California again.
We all have incidents, happenings where what is happening is not to our liking. And we get upset… because life should be in a certain way. But life is the way life is. It is up to us to get over the disappointment, or the upset, and get on with it. Get on with life.
Life is simple: A is A. A ball in the hole is just a ball in the hole.
And this is true about moral truisms, moral rules, moral laws as well.
- Your mother was a manipulative user?
- Your mother said: unless you do as I say you are no son of mine?
- Your father never acknowledged anything about you?
- Your alcoholic father, alcoholic husband never gave a hoot about you?
- Your sister was pretty and got all the attention?
Your self-righteous indignation is just your self righteous indignation, considering a rule more important than life. Often more important to you than YOUR life… because do not be mistaken: there is no happiness outside of reality. In the world where A is A. Simply and irrevocably.
There is no happiness outside of reality
I watch students, readers of my blog, people who suffer. Ultimately, when you scratch the surface you’ll find that the source of their discord is that A is A, instead of A being B, or C, or whatever else.
They can’t stand it! They are up in arms about it! Angry, resentful, resistant, huffing and puffing… They are willing to kill you, or anyone who stands in their way.
They take the “insult” into their cave… like a dog takes a bone, and chew on it… days, weeks, decades, a whole lifetime… while life passes them by.
I have to wear protective gloves like one does with a dog you train to attack. The biting reflex is very strong.
I am not a dog trainer… People come to me already trained to be biting dogs. My job is the opposite of the dog trainer’s… I need to wake up my students that what they are attacking are just phantoms. Not real. Made up. Illusion.
Having been right (as in self-righteous) about something all your life makes it hard for you to see that A is A, and that is how it is supposed to be.
Most people are self righteous about one parent… the father did things he should not have done, and didn’t do things he should have done.
Really? In what game is that written and agreed upon? Not golf… not pin the tail on the monkey… what game is that?
It takes a while to get that you made up the game, or you learned the game. The game inside which everyone is supposed to do something in just the right way. A game with rules that no one agreed to. 2
At first it feels like a let-down, when you discover that it wasn’t a game with clear, agreed upon rules… it was a game YOU made up in your mind and then honored as if it applied to everyone. But when you discover that, when you accept that, when you can clearly see that, then you’ll get a sigh of relief, and start having fun in life. 3
In my personal opinion, fun is better than no fun.
By far. You may have a different opinion. This is MY opinion, doesn’t apply to you unless we agree on that.
I haven’t always had fun, and still don’t always have fun.
The pesky rules seep in under the door and sneak back when I am not looking… I have to “clean house” frequently. And I do. Not my physical house, mind you, that I neglect… my emotional house that I clean from rules. Any rules.
You can call rules also expectations… because that is the visible part of each made up rule.
If you have any inclination to clean yourself of the misery you feel, the Playground is the path I recommend. It is an easy, leisurely path… where you are never asked to do more, bear more, experience more than what you are ready for.
Ready? apply to be in the Playground- meme: an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means, especially imitation.
- In other articles I call these rules standards and ideals… The most important thing to see about these, that you yourself don’t hold yourself to the same standards you want to hold other people to… ugh. ugly and funny…
- Like you, everyone did the same thing. Your mother had an unwritten rule that a child is supposed to do what the parent tells them to do, without argument, without delay, exactly, or they are to deny being their parent.
I think my mother had this rule… and she often acted on it. Either by beating me, savagely, or denying food, clothing, shelter, support, being part of the family.
I lived most of my life as if I lived on borrowed time… A survival issue… Then I used my methodology of the Playground… and finally I got myself free… at age 71. Yay.
