In Pursuit

A good friend of mine works for a t-shirt company named “In Pursuit.” She gave me one of their t-shirts a few months back that has the companies name on it. (In Pursuit)

While I was working out the other day with this shirt on, I couldn’t help but look at myself (as I most often do while working outJ) and ponder the question…

What are we “In Pursuit of?

What is pursuit?

Webster’s Dictionary describes pursue as…1. To follow in order to “over take or capture”; chase 2. To follow (a specific course, action, etc.)  3. To strive for.

Have you ever thought about the paradoxical nature of human pursuits?

~We spend a large percentage of our life at work (or appearing to be busy) sacrificing our mental and physical health to make money and create fame.

~We work hard to project an image of what’s admired by today’s societal standards, all the while fighting to prevent others from knowing who we really are.

~Then in our later years of life, we spend all of our money trying to regain our health and improve our looks from all the misgivings of our past.

~And then we become so regretful of the past and anxious about the future that it prevents us from cherishing the phenomenon of right now.  

Throughout most of our lives we have lived in a way with no regard of the consequences of our past pursuits.

Unfortunately most will move forward with no regard of the consequences of our current pursuits; the ones that will create our future.

So in writing this I had to think…”what am I in pursuit of?”

I am in pursuit of being the best that I can be in all things… but not for me… but so that I can be better for others.

Happiness does not preside within the materialistic possessions we “over take or capture”…happiness presides within helping others.

"Its one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself...Serve and thou shall be served."
                                                                        Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We must live in a way to benefit humanity. Use yourself little, but give to others much”

                                                                                                            Einstein

      

Victim of our Success

In the Beginning

Today we live in a world that our australopithecine cousins would not have recognized.  For our early ancestors the struggle for survival was the main priority and goal in life.

Air, water, and food are requirements for survival in all animals, including our species. Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements.

The intensity of the human sexual instinct is biologically shaped more by the sexual drive than maintaining a birth rate adequate to survival of the species.

Our New World

As we have evolved in our cognition, we traveled through time from a world without names and numbers to one largely based on names and numbers… from one in which obtaining food was of foremost concern to one in which too much food is a common cause of fatal health problems… from a time where we worked together to protect our children from the lions and hyenas to a time in which we try to protect them from each other… from a time in which supernatural beliefs were the only way to explain the unknown to one in which the world can largely be explained through science.

Although we currently inhabit a time and place we were not programmed to live in, the set of instructions hard wired into our DNA on how to build a brain are the same as they were 100,000 years ago, which raise the questions… to what extent is the neural operating system established by evolution well tuned for computerized, predator-free, sugar-abundant, sedentary lifestyle, world travelers, media-saturated, densely populated world we have managed to build for ourselves?

Should we congratulate ourselves?

William Thackeray once said…“I never know whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses”

So now we are faced with the great irony of success. We can move forward; understanding the desires established from the evolutionary pressures of harsh times in a baron world…or…we can continue to ignore the past and blame our current situation on the inability to control our basic needs.

Are you going to control your future…or are you going to be a victim of your ancestral success?

“Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it”

                                                                        Santiago 

Landscape of the Mind

Imagine a smooth, fertile, freshly bulldozed field. There is no grass or debris, only rich fertile soil. Although the land appears level to the naked eye, its landscape is gently sloped and full of potential. There are inconsistencies in the lay of the land that naturally occur throughout our universe…no two fields are the same.  

Now envision a hard rain coming down upon this fertile soil. The rain is the impetus for life….but it comes with a paradoxical cost…it brings forth growth, but also creates erosion. As the water comes down, it seems to cascade with intention through inherent dips and peaks of the land.

This process has occurred millions and millions of times, over the course of millions and millions of years… At first the rain creates streams… which turn into creeks… which end up creating mighty rivers. These rivers become deeply etched into the earth’s core with no chance of changing course without a sufficient obstacle to divert its path.

The fresh fertile soil I speak of is a metaphor for our brain. In the beginning our brain is fertile and full of potential. The brain that we are born with comes biologically hardwired with inherent dips and peaks of neural circuitry. The rain (or information) that flows over the brain, cascades into the hemispheres that create the autonomic, subconscious and conscious mind.

As with rain, information comes at a paradoxical cost. Information/education brings forth intelligence…but also brings forth many misconceptions and neurosis. Throughout most of our lives, the flow of our cognitive river becomes so hard wired, so etched into the convulsions of our brain, that change will never occur without a sufficient obstacle to divert our path.

So now here we are…Immersed in the cognitive stream of life. We can choose to float down river and just accept things that are comfortable and known…or… we can swim up stream, as hard as it may be, removing the obstacles that once blocked our path leading to Nirvana.

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow:  Our life is the creation of our mind. –Buddha