Well, you can’t in good faith claim that I didn’t warn you. I told you yesterday that I would likely be writing a blog post today, because I am working today, which I am.
I am writing this on my mini lapcom, because I happen already to be at the office, and the lapcom is at the office, and I might as well enjoy making use of it, right? As I’ve often noted, it’s much easier for me to write on the lapcom than on the smartphone. That often means that I write too much when I use the lapcom, but today I think it less likely than usual, since I’m already quite tired and my energy is not at its best.
As I noted, I’m already in the office this morning. I spoke with my sister on the phone yesterday evening, from the office, starting nearly right after I finished work. We spoke for quite a while, and by the time we hung up, it was rather late—not crazily so, but still, it made little sense to go all the way back to the house, to try to get to sleep, to try to stay asleep, then to get up and come to the office again.
It’s not as though I had anything to do at the house other than put out some food for the neighborhood cats, and they’ll be fine until this evening; cats are pretty durable and adaptable.
So, yeah, here I am in the morning in the office, having slept on the floor, using the hoody that I keep in my backpack as a blanket of sorts (and using the backpack as a pillow). It was a surprisingly good sleep, all things considered, though I wouldn’t call it good overall on an objective level. I think, relative to what many people do, my sleep was rather poor, but that’s the norm* for me, anyway.
I will not of course be working tomorrow, and I will therefore not be writing a blog post tomorrow, though I expect to write one on Monday (exclusis improvisis). That time will take of itself, however. There’s no need to dwell on it at the moment.
I’m not sure on what to dwell, however. I guess I can note that it’s been 24 days since the last time I wrote a blog post on the lapcom, which I can tell because I save them by date. That’s a fairly long stretch. And yet, it’s so much easier and more natural, more pleasant, for me to write using the lapcom.
It feels like an extension of me, like something almost directly connected to my nervous system. It feel much more a part of me than the phone does, a fact which may be slightly ironic. After all, I have the phone with me most of the time, and I read books on it—that’s by far its greatest strength—and use it to check the weather, and to send texts that are related to work and other matters. It’s also my alarm clock, and in a pinch I can use it for emails (though that’s never very wieldy compared to a lapcom or desktop computer).
Okay, whew, I’d better slow down and calm down, so I don’t overexcite all of you with this gripping blog post! I would hate to cause someone to have an increased risk for a heart attack.
Well…there are people for whom I think a heart attack would be good, for everyone else if not for the one who has the infarction. There simply are people who cause a great deal of harm and suffering to those around them; even if nonfatal, a heart attack would likely take the wind out of their sails as it were.
I’m sure you could all name political figures and business people and even entertainers—let alone people you know in your own life—who would benefit the world by being significantly sickened or weakened by a health crisis, or even killed by one.
It’s not evil to wish for the ill health of highly detrimental people, but it may not be great for your own psyche to dwell too much on such things. This is partly because wishes don’t do anything in and of themselves, and also because such negative dwelling is almost certainly not good for your own mental health.
It’s better to approach things with a Stoic sort of attitude: you cannot directly change other people, and you cannot change the laws of nature nor most of the circumstances therein, so dwelling on them (except when literally, practically useful) is only going to tend to be futile and frustrating. Instead, work on making yourself better, on not letting things bother you that are deeply unimportant, and focus on those things over which you do have some control. There are fewer of them than you might imagine.
I’m being fairly vague about that, I know, but I don’t know what the specific thoughts and feelings and focuses are that might be optimal for your life, and it would be foolish of me to pretend that I did know such things. The onus is on you, unfortunately. That wasn’t my decision, it’s just the way things are.
In closing, based on the preceding paragraphs, I’ll just note that I suspect that people in general, and younger people more specifically, would do better if instead of all the therapizing that’s being done nowadays, they did more philosophizing. I think studying and discussing philosophy, especially things like Stoicism and Buddhism and maybe Taoism and Existentialism, would be far more conducive to mental health, and might even enhance mental strength in developing minds.
And all minds are developing, despite what you might think, for as long as the lights are on. You might as well make the best you can of it, whatever “best” might mean in your case.
Have a good day and a good remainder of your weekend, please.
*Norm!!
Yeah, Stoicism is worth checking out. But because it’s mostly found in dry serious books written a couple of millennia ago, it’s off the radar for the average phone and video addicted person. Plus it isn’t an ego-pleasing philosophy, it’s more of an ego correction, so there’s another strike against it. Maybe Stoicism needs to be presented in a more modern and attention-grabbing format, say, by a hip-hop group called Marky A and the Stoic Bunch.
Or maybe not. 🙂
There are a fair few Stoic “channels” on YouTube, and Stoic philosophy oriented sites on Substack and even on X and Bluesky. I think there are also ones on Facebook and Instagram and Threads, but I no longer can see those. They seem to be surprisingly popular, so there is at least some hunger for the ideas therein. And, of course, a lot of mindfulness based places also overlap with Stoicism and such. There are some potential Vulcans out there, it turns out (so to speak).
Dear Tony and Robert,
Hello! Wise words from you indeed, Robert! I particularly like the following two paragraphs:
I have discussed quite a fair bit about stoicism in my visually enticing discussions of some perennially useful ideas and philosophies presented in great detail in a highly engaging and expansive post entitled “🔄📈📉 Change Rules and Moment Matters: How to Stay in the Moment 🔖🕰️🔂“, published at
https://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2022/08/19/change-rules-and-moment-matters-how-to-stay-in-the-moment/
As you will see, the contents of my said post is rather congruent with your philosophical outlook. Please turn on your finest speakers or headphones, as the said post will be playing one of my musical compositions to you automatically. It is preferrable to use a desktop or laptop computer with a large screen to view the rich multimedia contents available for heightening your multisensory enjoyment at my blog, as the limitations of iPad, iPhone, tablet or other portable devices frequently result in very dissatisfactory and highly problematic handling of the complexities of my blog contents, severely curtailing their readability and distorting their formats.
On the whole, this expansive post discusses psychology, mindfulness, meditation, spirituality, philosophy, religion, Nature and so on. In certain places, the discussions do become somewhat erudite, though no less revealing.
There are many quotations distributed throughout the said post. The quotees include Buddha, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Werner Hans Erhard, Jack Kornfield and Elizabeth Thornton.
Hopefully, this post can be of considerable interest to you, insofar as I have distilled a great deal of observations and conclusions along certain themes. One of the investigated areas concerns being present in the moment with awareness and (engaged) mindfulness. There are also detailed analyses on existential issues, including those pertaining to “change” as well as “being” and “becoming”.
In addition, I have touched on many issues in my multipronged discussions on process philosophy (also known as processism, philosophy of organism, or ontology of becoming) in relation to change, causality, (in)determinism, metaphysical reality, stoic philosophy as well as the philosophy of space and time, in the concluding section of the post.
Near the end of this very long and detailed discussion, I concluded that “The ontological shift from substance (being) to process (becoming) brings the Western conception of metaphysical reality much closer to the Eastern counterparts, particularly those of Zen and Mahayana philosophy as well as various schools of Hinduism and Jainism with respect to their acceptance and contemplation of the imperfection, constant flux and impermanence of all things…”
You are welcome to join the discussion at the said post and offer your feedback, insight, doubt, opinion or the like. I welcome your input and am curious to know what you will make of my said post as well as your perspectives on those matters discussed in my post.
Wishing both of you a mindful and suitably productive weekend doing or enjoying whatever that satisfies you the most, intellectually, spiritually or philosophically!
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅ೋღஜஇ 音鷹
I watched that entire Norm reel. Good fun. Boy, did life seem simpler then. I had my struggles, but I was looking forward and didn’t think that anything could stop me. Surprise, surprise. I’ve always thought that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy had shades of Stoicism in it. Enjoy your big day off, Robert.
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