A couple days away from home.
Sometimes it is needed.
Well, needed is a subjective opinion, isn't it? We claim to "need" a lot of things, even if they aren't vital to our survival. I suspect that the majority of human activity and global energy is spent on the creation of unnecessary processes and production. We do a lot for very little gain. But again, gain is a subjective element in this equation.
Most of us work in some capacity doing something to earn us money so that we can consume more of what we don't need, in order to make us feel like we are progressing. That sense of progression makes us feel good, like what we do is heading somewhere and matters, even if we recognise that it actually doesn't matter much at all. I think human nature is designed to want more, and this is how we evolve, but maybe evolution didn't originally plan us to be collectors of the useless, designers of the unnecessary.
But collecting is progression in our minds.
I have met many people over the course of my life who have adamantly denied that they are collectors, because they believe themselves to be minimalists. Yet, they have all collected something, whether it be books read, or places travelled, concerts seen, or just knowledge in general.
General knowledge.
Is it necessary?
Of course, some general knowledge is useful, but when a person is collecting information for the sake of having information, it has little value. Sure, they can win at Trivial Pursuit or at a pub quiz, but is that enough to warrant the collection? So much of what we do is trivial in the fact it adds nothing of value to ourselves or even to others. It is busy work.
For instance, I sat around playing poker with a few guys last week and after a few drinks, we were talking about life and the problems in the world. Solving many of course. However, I noted that even though they are in different industries, ultimately, all they are doing is part of a supply chain feeding the entertainment industry. From mining to software development, it is all in service to finding ways to take up people's time.
Busy work, to keep people busy.
Distraction.
Maybe this is all life is for all animals. Eat, sleep, procreate. It might serve our continuance, but in the moment, it is just asomething to do to keep our minds off what we must do. Must do is unpleasant, not because of the activity of what needs to be done, but because it is a must. Most of the work most of us do isn't inherently difficult or terrible, but because we have to do it, it feels much harder than it is. Even doing a sixty hour week in an office, people forget that they are sitting down, in air-conditioning, with a cafeteria for lunch, where someone else makes the food, and another person empties the bin. All doing it to earn money to buy distractions from the thought of having to work.
A supply chain of distraction.
I am no different. Nor are you. The flavours of distraction might change, but we are all doing something that keeps us from having to face the reality that our own lives, no matter what we do, are ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe. Our existence doesn't matter as individuals, nor as a species, and we know it. But we have found ways to add our own meaning, a smaller meaning, a personal meaning.
An irrelevant meaning?
We can justify a lot based on our meaning in life and we can excuse a lot of our behaviours as we give reason for why we did this, or didn't do that. But it is just more distraction, rather than facing that no matter what we do, we don't matter. That feeling of relevancy we have or seek, is just another opinion we have to make it feel like we matter.
This sounds bleak.
But that is not my intention. Rather, I am looking to highlight for myself that what I do matters to me, even if it doesn't matter to anyone else. If I have values, what I do has to be in service to them, and no matter what I do, I can't compromise my values, no matter the justifications. If I do, it means that I don't actually value them, right? Of course at times we all make judgement errors that can conflict with our values, but rather than justify to excuse our slip, we should use them as reasons to question what we value, and explore if we value what we broke enough. If so, we strengthen the value and do better next time. If not...
We change our values.
Many seem to believe that we shouldn't change our values, but that is under the assumption that they are ours to begin with, and we had enough experience when we built them. That is a big assumption. Especially since a lot of what we "hold dear" is imported from sources that we have no control over, like our parents and culture. But if our behaviours don't align with what we value, what is the point of saying we have values?
What are your core values?
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Take your time.
If they are so core to who you are, why weren't they there in mind? Because if they are what you value, than all of your behaviours should be in service to them, unconflicted. Every decision you make should be guided by them. And that means, they should be there in your conscious awareness, informing you to act with intention to meet your values. If they aren't there in your awareness.
Perhaps you are travelling life, distracted.
Taraz
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