Time

The Voice and the Ego

Lifestyle

Screen Shot 2018-10-06 at 20.48.01After training for over a decade, one would presume that if there were a key to unlocking our genetic potential, surely, we should have found it by now?

Only in the light of our best selves can we possess the key, to which our fingers and hands bear the strength to turn the handle but the surfeits of our ego can not.

EGO by definition

‘a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.’

So if the ego is by definition our ‘esteem’ and ‘importance’ — The internal conductor which dictates the pace of our present ‘song’ — How then, is this same force silencing the rest of the show?

Ego by PSYCHOANALYSIS

the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity.

In Freud terms the ‘screening’ process of our thoughts and desires, the outcome to which is determined by whichever part of our ego dominates and decides our further actions.

So if for example we act solely on the ID or ‘pleasure principle’ —unconscious urges and desires— the logical part of the ego may have to pick up the pieces left from the decisions of a somewhat erratic and impulsive accord.

How does this fare in the grand scheme of motivation and further lust for life, when our thirst is quenched, need we drink more?

We live in an age of over-choice, over-thinking and decisions that have further financial bearing on our lives, a generation of hypothetical scenarios that we watch other people play out, envying their conviction whilst defending your own. It is the grace of imagination that will come to either serve us or be our biggest downfall, silencing the ego which holds us back from the risk of failure, or leads us to it.

Ask yourselves how many times you’ve not finished a book, completed a project or silenced a part of yourself which you wished you didn’t? What is talking you out of it? Is procrastination merely a limbo state to which your primitive and logical mind contest to the extent of your decisions or are you just plain lazy? For every £1,000,000 idea that you have just before sleep, is it a resistant logic that detracts you from picking up a pen and writing it down or a deep comfort which propels you further into the pillow and into the subconscious abyss of great ideas. Such a fleeting potentiality of our future artists, writers, entrepreneurs and the like, away from the ‘danger’ of risk, and the impedance of one’s modern survival. Strip away the comforts and masquerade of life and you will find that in order to survive we must evolve beyond the wanton thirst and safety in that which we know to be true. Surpassing the treacle of time into a flow which brings us from the knelt of a stagnant pool and not the dutiful hunt which gives us true purpose.

Persistence & Plateaus

Lifestyle, Special

Persist- To go on resolutely or stubbornly in spite of opposition, importunity, or warning.

Being persistent is a trait that can go both ways, we can either persist at defying the resistance we receive or continue to buckle under the same pressures that keep us confined to this forbidding continuum of resistance. A norm which is one forthcoming on the now millennial immediacy of all things rewarded, not earned. With every meal we do not have to cook, pin we need no longer enter and journeys we can take as passengers rather than drivers, is this convenience in time serving us well or do we now only sought after the most convenient appropriations and pursuits?

As a race we are becoming evermore persistently lazy; effort being our biggest opposition, our bodies reflecting our importunity to the easier option, and health, inevitably, the warning. We do not attribute the physical and psychological impediments of working in fields non-conducive to our happiness, nor do we anticipate how much our mind and body has to operate synergistically alongside our Neolithic traditions. It is only until we burnout that we then have to justify the NEED for a break. So when we are working on ourselves, why then is it so easy to justify a BREAK, to lose focus, to be distracted? It seems that no matter how much down time we award ourselves, it is never enough, and so the time to which we focus on working, whether that be for someone else, drags and our own time, dwindles.

The entirely resolute and stubborn approaches to downtime occupying those that simply cannot commit or see the simplest of tasks through without giving up is impressively persistent, proof that we can be persistent, even if it is persistently quitting. So why do we quit? What distracts us? Is it the fear of failing and being judged? Or if there even is a reward, does it reflect the time spent doing it? You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Technology has granted us with a facility of instant gratification, a cyclical navigation of short cuts and queue jumps to the ultimate destination of contentment. Does getting there faster only gives us more time to revel in the superficial glory of feel good chemicals? A depressing overcast brightened up by a passing sunshine of serotonin showers. Chasing this light from the now shadowy pits of only known similar feats, even more time to think of your next ‘best?’ The suckling appetite for faster turnover, more contentment and even bigger success.  The next best unhappiness or all time boredom? The next best date or the next best break-up? The need for constant entertainment and stimulus, entitlement and appreciation, self worth and in turn self pity. Plateaus.

Plateau

: a region of little or no change in a graphic representation

: a relatively stable level, period, or condition
So although people consider a plateau to be a negative thing, plateauing literally means being stationary, but when you’re someone who’s always looking to improve, being stationary may as well be going backwards.
How do I pass through a plateau?
There are more potential outcomes in a game of chess than there are atoms in the universe. When two people reach a stalemate, it is a reflection of how two potentially winning outcomes impede on the other, ‘I cannot win, therefore they cannot either’
Are you playing your own game or is someone playing for you? Are you making the same moves and bringing on the same outcome? Are you playing with the intention of moving forward or are you reluctant to risk leaving what you have behind? Whatever potentially winning outcome you are seeking to follow right now, improve it until it no longer brings any benefit to you and then start again with each calculated move at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

Conflicts of Interest

Lifestyle, Special

“Jack of all trades, master of none” We are all familiar with this idiom, an individual to which has a broad aptitude for various abilities , though an intrigue with all may come to restrict them from mastering the craft of only one. This is not confined to sport; languages, instruments, and every other skill-set that equips us with a platform for expression and creativity, have all the means of further mastering our own craft by the knowledge we expose ourselves to. It is this exposure which determines how we piece together our own understanding, though it is commonplace for two different people to achieve the same goals whilst veering on a different path…

We live in a densely populated area with a contrastingly vast spectrum of people, each bearing different skill-sets to the point of them seeming obscure and tumultuous alongside our own. It is easy to distance ourselves with those on a different path knowing its gravity, yet it is crucial to understand the direction that they are going in order to to navigate your own. While this void of obscurity is made more manageable by our interactions, things in common and perceived duty of politeness, is it this social middle ground which is controlling our creativity and curbing our crafts?

If you want to learn how to play guitar you wouldn’t ask someone who plays a violin, so why are we all too open to the accept the ideals of people with no constructive bearing or aptitude for the skill-set of your aspirations. This is prevalent at every level of corporate influence whereby the propulsion of targets and goals –you MUST hit x or y by **/**/**– are ushered beyond that of a single constituent, every number must contribute in conjunction with those on the same path in order to succeed. But what if you do not share the aspirations of those numbers? each feat being a thousands grains of sand into the hour/day/year-glass of someone else, your own time to which still bleeds whilst you console and reward yourself with vacuous comforts…

My current conflicts of interest are all dependable on being able to practise each at a sufficient capacity; energy, productivity and creativity being the ingredients to which form this elixir of DOING –at least something about it — but with any potion comes its time sensitivities, side effects and cynicism. If there was a magic pill for creativity and we could all go about our business with the greatest intentions and unequivocal focus, would we pursue our aspirations or would we still be conflicted by the dichotomy of immediate comfort and distant dreams.  By using all energy in one area would in doubt compromise the other. My advice would be to start by putting an hour aside to each thing that you aspire to do without the influence of anything else but your own rationale, then see whether it serves you any such purpose. If that purpose is enjoyment, keep doing it, if that enjoyment is not short lived, make it a routine. If it brings you greater satisfaction make it a hobby. If an hour turns into two, a hobby turns into a passion, and a passion turns into an aspiration, be aware that everything you do and everyone that you give your time to will in turn have bearing on it, whether or not it is conducive to its success, tick tock.