I’ve been continuing with Power of Now, and that has provided some respite. As I read it I do admire its simplicity and elegance. Sure, there are parts of disagree with, and places where he says too much (vis-a-vis “all illness is mental in origin”) But it is effective and it moves people. Sometimes I become overly concerned when it comes to meditation and awakening, with outlining a perfect system, rather than just putting something out there that is helpful and liberating.
I’ve been thinking over a concept for a while, which I’m going to call the pyramid of effect. It provides a map for change. It places our emotions, our habits, our choices and our bare participation in reality in one spectrum, and identifies the pecking order. We need something like this to place things like habit change and life hacking in their appropriate context. The current situation is that people are reluctant to observe their deeper patterns—or see how those patterns are already shaping their lives—and so they reach for a hack or a tip.
Just could not be assed to work out yesterday. After writing down that I felt lacklustre, it clarified things—brought the resistance to rest—and I realised I could take a break. As a result I got loads of other blog work done and felt less pressure throughout the day. And then just before dinner I felt a spontaneous urge to do a little strength. I haven’t used the kettlebell for a while, and have perhaps overlooked it whilst focusing on carefully increasing power lifts.
Not sure what to write today. I’m more pulled towards writing on specific topics again, as it’s an easy way to get a blog post into draft form. But I also don’t want to remove the freedom and lack of expectation with these 700 word writing sessions. I skipped a swim day yesterday to go for a trail run. I just could not be assed with the driving, parking, paying, changing, swimming and back again.
I have to say, there are a lot of duplicate blogs out there. I don’t mean they are being copied and pasted, but they do seem to be written according to the same formula. The language and voice is overly-friendly and ‘yo’ and ‘heya’ and here’s 27 different pictures of me. The blog posts themselves seem to cover all the same topics, just in a slightly different voice, according to who actually wrote it.
I’ve been setting out some goals and related practices for the blog. Getting systematic about it. It’s really powerful to see the WHY I’m doing all this, and then directly below it the HOW. HOW is broken up into goals, “reach 100 subscribers”, and then an associated practice to get me there. In this case there would be a few: “sharing daily”, “adding first email capture content” etc. This helps to keep things focused, and ensures that my actions are helping achieve the goals that push me in the direction I want to go in.
I’ve thinking a lot about rekindling the ancient. About how we can bring back what was good in the ancient worldview, and teach it to people today. I’m talking about the fundamental shift in values, from ancient to modernity to postmodernity. Ken Wilber talks about this a lot, and the distinction comes up in various other writers’ works too. Meditation has had a bigger impact on my life than any other practice, and it is distinctly ancient.
Nice routine this morning: straight downstairs to prepare everyone’s breakfast. Didn’t eat; had a decaf coffee and did my stretches. Then I went up to meditate just as they were heading out for a walk. Got about 40 minutes in! Then had first coffee and did my 700 words. Made breakfast when Gina left. I feel that I’m going to bed enlightened at the moment, then acting like a fool the whole day until I sit again.