Stress like hot, cold, tired and hungry is just another feeling. It seems important to recognize stress for it is, a feeling that can strip years from the human life or be dealt with, fear gets chucked in there as well. Walking away from a close encounter with a near death experince is exhilarating. Then one realizes wow! That could have been it. It’s sobering. It seems important to savor small victories, each day. Small accomplishments and goals achived make a difference. Getting through a tough physical workout isn’t nearly the same as cordite and cherry blossom scents on the wind. But it can help relieve stress! Great post Sam. It’s spring here in New England there are many scents on the wind, worth stopping for and avoiding the blue screen for a while to enjoy them….
100% Charles. I’m in PA and this spring is absolutely worth stopping to savor, as well as getting after workouts—each is a small but unbelievably powerful reminder of how epic can feel. Thank you.
" A good horse gives chase. It is beneficial to struggle for right. Daily practicing charioteering and defense, it is beneficial to go somewhere.
EXPLANATION
When nurturance of strength has been fully accomplished, the energy is full, the spirit complete; truthfulness within is about to reach outside, like a good horse about to give chase. However, though the spiritual embryo is complete, as long as there is negative energy in one's person that hasn't been thoroughly transmuted, it is all-important to struggle to stay right, being single-minded without distraction, like daily practicing charioteering and defense, at all times guarding against stumbling and slipping; in ten months, when the work is complete, there is a spontaneous liberation
and transmutation—so "it is beneficial to go somewhere." This is nurturing strength and stabilizing the basic energy."
So, you are evidently thinking much like people on the earth did long before you did. It's like turning around and looking down a very long hall at least one other person who found themselves in pretty much the same (unchanging?) circumstances as you, and who came more or less to the same conclusion as you did about those circumstances.
I’m adding this one to my list. Too many people have recommended reading it as this point and this section you quoted is beautiful. Your point about being part of a long thread in history is well taken, and the repeated admonitions over the millennia are probably proof many of us need the constant reminders and for this wisdom to be updated every now and then. I appreciate the book and thoughts.
I take it a little differently. These sort of things are not so much admonitions from the past as much as much as they are confirmations that the human system of things is largely unchangeable, intact, strong, and persevering -- because the same ideas and actions keep autonomically bubbling up out of people time and time again through all of that time. (Geologists call such a thing an instance of the doctrine of uniformitarianism in action.)
Perhaps admonition was too negative of word. I think your distinction is the correct one. I also imagine it becomes more important the further we get from "the state of nature", what I would call primal hardship, where the reminder was ever present. It is the sort of mode of mind I am chipping away at here, I hope from a more deeply rooted angle. In any event, it is enjoyable in the extreme.
This - Zero stress is death. Anxious stress is submission. Laughing stress is divine. Stress—when owned and trained for—is the gift of self-armament.
And this - What is left but to train mind and muscle for hell with a laugh? To find the divine in the scent of cherry-blossoms and cordite? To own our task on this earth as an anchor of our equilibrium, whether spooling a bit of wire while whistling beneath the mortars, writing with an ever-so-silky gel pen on a pleasingly soft legal pad, hammering a treehouse onto an oak, or simply savoring the fight?
I think it is a core issue of existence. Humans (and dogs) were and are faced with stress or panic by the mind, all the time. I try to remind myself that I’ve been accumulating FU capital (fictional) so I should use it :)))!
One tactic that I use in that strategy is to prepare a “to do” list and “voila”, ease comes.
So I am now a true believe of “FU capital”, that is excellent Barry. As well as the lists. They’re one of my favorite methods. Though I sometime wonder about the dog stress. We go out of our way to make Carson’s life something like royalty so his stress is probably even more overblown than some of ours.
These reflections are powerful and challenge me to see all life's speed bumps as just that. That there is vast untapped 'infinity' beyond my myopic focus on all that we are attached to. None of which we can control.
Anastassia Makarieva makes a good point that resonates with the questions you are exploring:
As Noam Chomsky stated, human thinking is based on “the innate, genetically installed “operating system” that endows humans with the capacity to generate complex sentences and long trains of thought”. This internally ingrained sanity-check system is linked to our genome, which has evolved to encode information about proper interactions with our natural ecosystem. As long as this link remains intact, we retain our sanity and can endure reality checks. Contact with nature—in all its multidimensional richness—is crucial for human cognition, especially for our long-term thinking to make sense. Recognizing the central role of natural ecosystems in climate is just one way to begin rethinking and repairing our painful detachment from the natural world.
I think is 100% a factor. When I compare the present to those like the signalers in war or pre-state peoples in a natural, ancestral environment, community is the most staggering difference nearly every time.
The WW1 Signalers are an excellent example. They succeed because they are totally focused on the moment at hand. They know the odds are terrible but do not dwell on it. Just lay the cable. The explosions are familiar, not surprising. Surprising is living another day.
As you say the one thing one can control, the one freedom of choice is ones attitude. Perhaps the Signalers believe God’s will will be done.
The happy banter of the Signalers is in the fellowship of the fray helping each other to rise again. Staying alive.
The modern anxious ones are not living in the presence, aware of the seasonal breeze on their face. They are not active, challenged physically. They look to led screens and worry about tomorrow and hypotheticals spun by spin masters. Thinking they are in the know, they are certain there is no wonder, no grace or God. They are alone, adrift, and unable to see the hands held out to them.
Life, defying entropy and chaos, is hard. Joining hands in the struggle leads one to ask for what other life could there be and give thanks. We’ll face tomorrow, tomorrow and sleep well in the knowledge of doing the best one could given today’s circumstances. Tomorrow we may die and it will have been lives well lived.
Awesome analysis as usual, Sam. I find your essays increasingly motivational and empowering; they consistently re-center my focus, encouraging me to stay true to my own goals. Thank you.
I am reminded of the robot in the webcomic Freefall puzzling out why people would eat hot sauce and concluding that some level of stress is necessary to human life.
"concrete stressors in hardship feel like us-versus-them while abstract stressors in ease feel like us-versus-us"
That is a very true and valuable observation, Sam, as are your comments about the existential importance of "training" for living. At some point, I hope you will take a run at our K-12 education system which, I think, is doing mostly wrong things and badly.
Thank you Baird! Your point about the K12 system is well taken. An overhaul would be an epic and worthwhile mission. The trick would be to build a system that constantly modifies itself to improve rather than regress; seek ever increasing hardship rather than calcifying into the opposite.
My mission statement for public schools is to "prepare youth to live a good life and be a good citizen".
I think some of your thinking/writing is very relevant to that mission. Defining what we mean by "good" would be the toughest part as far as any kind of workable consensus!
"Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in." -- Abraham Lincoln
Stress like hot, cold, tired and hungry is just another feeling. It seems important to recognize stress for it is, a feeling that can strip years from the human life or be dealt with, fear gets chucked in there as well. Walking away from a close encounter with a near death experince is exhilarating. Then one realizes wow! That could have been it. It’s sobering. It seems important to savor small victories, each day. Small accomplishments and goals achived make a difference. Getting through a tough physical workout isn’t nearly the same as cordite and cherry blossom scents on the wind. But it can help relieve stress! Great post Sam. It’s spring here in New England there are many scents on the wind, worth stopping for and avoiding the blue screen for a while to enjoy them….
100% Charles. I’m in PA and this spring is absolutely worth stopping to savor, as well as getting after workouts—each is a small but unbelievably powerful reminder of how epic can feel. Thank you.
This is quite a lot like one of the many human observations made and then recorded at least three or four thousand years ago -- well before the trenches of WWI. From https://www.amazon.com/Taoist-Ching-Shambhala-Classics/dp/1590302605/ref=sr_1_1: Hex. 26, Line (3),
" A good horse gives chase. It is beneficial to struggle for right. Daily practicing charioteering and defense, it is beneficial to go somewhere.
EXPLANATION
When nurturance of strength has been fully accomplished, the energy is full, the spirit complete; truthfulness within is about to reach outside, like a good horse about to give chase. However, though the spiritual embryo is complete, as long as there is negative energy in one's person that hasn't been thoroughly transmuted, it is all-important to struggle to stay right, being single-minded without distraction, like daily practicing charioteering and defense, at all times guarding against stumbling and slipping; in ten months, when the work is complete, there is a spontaneous liberation
and transmutation—so "it is beneficial to go somewhere." This is nurturing strength and stabilizing the basic energy."
So, you are evidently thinking much like people on the earth did long before you did. It's like turning around and looking down a very long hall at least one other person who found themselves in pretty much the same (unchanging?) circumstances as you, and who came more or less to the same conclusion as you did about those circumstances.
I’m adding this one to my list. Too many people have recommended reading it as this point and this section you quoted is beautiful. Your point about being part of a long thread in history is well taken, and the repeated admonitions over the millennia are probably proof many of us need the constant reminders and for this wisdom to be updated every now and then. I appreciate the book and thoughts.
I take it a little differently. These sort of things are not so much admonitions from the past as much as much as they are confirmations that the human system of things is largely unchangeable, intact, strong, and persevering -- because the same ideas and actions keep autonomically bubbling up out of people time and time again through all of that time. (Geologists call such a thing an instance of the doctrine of uniformitarianism in action.)
Perhaps admonition was too negative of word. I think your distinction is the correct one. I also imagine it becomes more important the further we get from "the state of nature", what I would call primal hardship, where the reminder was ever present. It is the sort of mode of mind I am chipping away at here, I hope from a more deeply rooted angle. In any event, it is enjoyable in the extreme.
This - Zero stress is death. Anxious stress is submission. Laughing stress is divine. Stress—when owned and trained for—is the gift of self-armament.
And this - What is left but to train mind and muscle for hell with a laugh? To find the divine in the scent of cherry-blossoms and cordite? To own our task on this earth as an anchor of our equilibrium, whether spooling a bit of wire while whistling beneath the mortars, writing with an ever-so-silky gel pen on a pleasingly soft legal pad, hammering a treehouse onto an oak, or simply savoring the fight?
Powerful writing!
Thank you Svend, I’m grateful you enjoyed it.
I think it is a core issue of existence. Humans (and dogs) were and are faced with stress or panic by the mind, all the time. I try to remind myself that I’ve been accumulating FU capital (fictional) so I should use it :)))!
One tactic that I use in that strategy is to prepare a “to do” list and “voila”, ease comes.
So I am now a true believe of “FU capital”, that is excellent Barry. As well as the lists. They’re one of my favorite methods. Though I sometime wonder about the dog stress. We go out of our way to make Carson’s life something like royalty so his stress is probably even more overblown than some of ours.
These reflections are powerful and challenge me to see all life's speed bumps as just that. That there is vast untapped 'infinity' beyond my myopic focus on all that we are attached to. None of which we can control.
This is it entirely, Anthony. I'm grateful this struck you in a positive way.
Anastassia Makarieva makes a good point that resonates with the questions you are exploring:
As Noam Chomsky stated, human thinking is based on “the innate, genetically installed “operating system” that endows humans with the capacity to generate complex sentences and long trains of thought”. This internally ingrained sanity-check system is linked to our genome, which has evolved to encode information about proper interactions with our natural ecosystem. As long as this link remains intact, we retain our sanity and can endure reality checks. Contact with nature—in all its multidimensional richness—is crucial for human cognition, especially for our long-term thinking to make sense. Recognizing the central role of natural ecosystems in climate is just one way to begin rethinking and repairing our painful detachment from the natural world.
Is the rise in the panic that disconnects and cripples concurrent with the absence of gratitude and fellowship? Individualism vs community?
I think is 100% a factor. When I compare the present to those like the signalers in war or pre-state peoples in a natural, ancestral environment, community is the most staggering difference nearly every time.
The WW1 Signalers are an excellent example. They succeed because they are totally focused on the moment at hand. They know the odds are terrible but do not dwell on it. Just lay the cable. The explosions are familiar, not surprising. Surprising is living another day.
As you say the one thing one can control, the one freedom of choice is ones attitude. Perhaps the Signalers believe God’s will will be done.
The happy banter of the Signalers is in the fellowship of the fray helping each other to rise again. Staying alive.
The modern anxious ones are not living in the presence, aware of the seasonal breeze on their face. They are not active, challenged physically. They look to led screens and worry about tomorrow and hypotheticals spun by spin masters. Thinking they are in the know, they are certain there is no wonder, no grace or God. They are alone, adrift, and unable to see the hands held out to them.
Life, defying entropy and chaos, is hard. Joining hands in the struggle leads one to ask for what other life could there be and give thanks. We’ll face tomorrow, tomorrow and sleep well in the knowledge of doing the best one could given today’s circumstances. Tomorrow we may die and it will have been lives well lived.
This is poetically said, Rob, and you're hitting it from multiple angles: community, control, delusion. I appreciate the thinking material.
You are fathoming some profound deep stuff here. Bully! and Thank you.
Awesome analysis as usual, Sam. I find your essays increasingly motivational and empowering; they consistently re-center my focus, encouraging me to stay true to my own goals. Thank you.
I couldn't be more grateful to hear it, Jesse, I really appreciate the feedback.
I am reminded of the robot in the webcomic Freefall puzzling out why people would eat hot sauce and concluding that some level of stress is necessary to human life.
I’ve never heard of this, but it sounds strangely appropriate. Thank you Mary.
This is a rich vein of comparison and I'm really enjoying your skillful mining of it.
Rock on Andrew, I appreciate it.
"concrete stressors in hardship feel like us-versus-them while abstract stressors in ease feel like us-versus-us"
That is a very true and valuable observation, Sam, as are your comments about the existential importance of "training" for living. At some point, I hope you will take a run at our K-12 education system which, I think, is doing mostly wrong things and badly.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you Baird! Your point about the K12 system is well taken. An overhaul would be an epic and worthwhile mission. The trick would be to build a system that constantly modifies itself to improve rather than regress; seek ever increasing hardship rather than calcifying into the opposite.
My mission statement for public schools is to "prepare youth to live a good life and be a good citizen".
I think some of your thinking/writing is very relevant to that mission. Defining what we mean by "good" would be the toughest part as far as any kind of workable consensus!
I love this!
"Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in." -- Abraham Lincoln