This is a problem, as we obviously don’t have the time, $$, nor the base knowledge to perform our own experiments and scientific studies, and we can’t wait until we’re 60 to acquire a reasonably useful model/map to guide us through life.

So, inevitably, we’re all relying on conclusions others have arrived at, and we filter these conclusions by experience and our understanding of the basics. But what or who's conclusions, as once we get beyond the basics, and even some of the basics these days, the 'experts' contradict each other. Try researching the ‘right’ nutrition or learning about psychology, and you'll enter a swamp of contradictory beliefs.

The only way is to learn the relevant basics first, and then this core foundation provides a filter through which to judge the next level of sophistication. It’s like building a pyramid; to make it solid and high, the foundations need to be broad and reasonably accurate. From that foundation, we have the ability to discriminate between the beliefs presented at the next level of sophistication -we can competently choose the right blocks of information, sort the wheat from the chaff, and put that information in the right place. Then the same with the next level of sophistication, and then the next. It's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together; once we have some foundational pieces in place, we start to easily see what else fits where, plus we also start to get an idea of what the overall picture is. Of course, we're free to put the pieces together however we want, we can be guided by what we like to believe instead of what the evidence points to, but ultimately, that's obviously counterproductive as we're just disorientating ourselves.

‘We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality’.

Ayn Rand

If we know what we're talking about, we can clearly define each word we use and explain any belief right back to the 'big bang' (or whatever is the beginning in our model). It might take a lot of time, but we can do it if needed and/or we can be bothered to. If we don't know what we're talking about, we can't do that, as there's no pyramid around our belief - the pieces in our jigsaw/model don't actually fit at all, we're just pretending they do. This is why people who subscribe to ideologies can't explain their beliefs beyond the superficial. They can't, because there's nothing coherent there. Their beliefs exist in a vacuum, believed because it's what they've been schooled to believe and/or because it feels good to believe. To identify mere ideology is very easy; just ask 'why?' a few times, and if they can't answer logically and scientifically, perhaps they don't know what they're talking about.

Anyway... in practice, given that we exist and are something, finding out what that something is seems the first obvious step. We’re obviously some form of life, so if we can find out what species we are and then understand the characteristics of our species, we go a long way to understanding ourselves and others. We'll be a lot more accurately orientated than if we’re just guessing.

Know Thyself

Socrates

Personally, when I was 21 I stumbled upon the book ‘The naked ape’ , which is a zoologists explanation of our species characteristics. He - Desmond Morris - had written many books about other species and then he turned his enquiring eye towards his own. The first thing that was obvious to him, when looking at a human, was that we’re an ape. Weirdly though - the only ape out of 300 plus species - we’re largely naked, so he started there: The Naked Ape’.

Written long ago in 1966 - the year I was born, actually - the style and some of it’s references are dated, but it was immensely popular as it provided an accessible, broad-brush summary of ourselves. The book was a bit controversial, as the reality that we're apes is not glorious enough for some. But then, what are we? Fish? Birds?

There are many books, and no doubt youtube videos etc, that provide the same information as The Naked Ape does. It's no secret. The recent book 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari is also good and has sold over 50 million copies.

People can believe they are whatever they want to believe they are, and if that model produces a reality that they're happy within, then all is good. There's no reason to change what isn't broken - dive in and enjoy life.

But if someone wants change, if they want to raise their level of future happiness, then getting from A (where they are) to B (where they're happier) is probably only possible, outside of pure luck, if they know where A is and where B is - if they’re reasonably well orientated. It's hard to take ourselves to an actual oasis if we have no idea where it is or we're confused by mirages.

If a person doesn't know to which port they sail, no wind is favourable

Seneca

So, while we need relevant knowledge, the other thing we need to understand is that we can't know the truth and therefore shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking we can. What's valuable is useful knowledge, not the 'truth' mirage.

The more we know, the more we know we don’t know. In other words, the further we see, the more we see there is to see. At the same time, we’re increasingly aware of our limitations as regards perceiving what exists and then being able to decipher it accurately given our limited abilities. We know we can’t know because it’s impossible to know; we can only have beliefs.

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend, and the mind comprehends only what it is able to construct."

Henri Bergson

“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.”

Thomas Sowell.

"Only a few know how much one must know to know how little one knows."

Werner Heisenberg

We can only know that we know nothing.

This is the highest degree of human wisdom.

Leo Tolstoy

'Only a fool knows'

Socrates

'The Tao that can be explained is not the Tao'

Laozi

It can be hard to escape the mirrored walls we humans, individually and collectively, build around ourselves. It seems like the universe revolves around us, and our ego readily believes it does. But it doesn't....

Beyond our hardwired instincts, what matters to us is what we believe matters. The more that matters, the more battles we must engage in, and win, to be happy and content. If we believe our particular beliefs are the truth, the more seriously we take them and ourselves. This enlarged ego leads to rigidity and a lack of flexibility, we cannot go with the flow, the flow must go with us, as we're all that's right and good.

Buddha just observed, he didn't divide reality into 'right' and 'wrong', 'good' and 'bad'. Is the tiger killing the fawn a good or bad tiger? That question makes no sense, the tiger just is as it is, the universe is as it is. Accept it, and it's easy to celebrate. Label it, and react to those labels we've randomly generated inside our skulls, and we've now got many battles to fight and win before we can be happy and content. Yet, we're just battling to make the universe how we prefer it to be, but unless we're some kind of God, we're in no position to tell the universe how it 'should' be, and nor do we have the power to change it anyway. Knowledge leads to humility, and humility leads to happiness. We make the hard easy, instead of making the easy hard.

If we think reality equates accurately to the conclusions our grapefruit-sized, subjective primate brain arrives at from that tiny slice of reality our mediocre senses perceive, then it’s easy (and satisfying) to think knowing the ‘truth’ is possible. Yet, no matter how much such a delusion feels good to cling to, we’re no more able to know the objective truth than a sparrow is. While the collective scope of our senses might exceed a sparrow's and our brain is certainly more powerful, having more accurate beliefs does not equate to being accurate, and how can we judge what is totally complete and accurate (the objective truth)? Even if all of us Homo Sapiens believe something to be true (according to our senses and brains), this just means all of our species on this little planet (one of billions of planets) happen to collectively share that belief. So what?

How can we know, and who are we, unless we credit ourselves as being some kind of God, to proclaim the universal truths? There may well be another life form somewhere in the universe armed with senses far beyond what we possess and an intelligence many times our own that sniggers at our self-aggrandizing delusions just as we laugh at a sparrow's 'truth'.

Is the sky blue? No, it just appears to be blue to us, given how our senses and brain translate what is up there. It's not blue for most other animals, and as our sparrow can see a wider range of colours than we can, the sky is almost certainly not blue to it. So avoid getting into an argument with a sparrow about the 'truth', as in some areas, it's truth will be more accurate than yours. Ultimately, though, neither has the ability to determine who is right.

Why is this distinction important? Because if we believe our truth is somehow magically the truth, we lose all flexibility, and we don't seek to improve our model of reality. We therefore don't increase the potency of our decisions and actions, as we already 'know' the truth. We stagnate, our beliefs and values solidify into mirrored walls around us, and we're trapped - trapped by our own ignorance.

“It ain't so much what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” – Mark Twain

By chasing the illusion of ‘truth’, we lose sight of what’s actually important - happiness. We can high-five ourselves for possessing the ‘truth’ (that isn’t) or we can high-five ourselves for navigating ourselves to a very happy reality. They’re different paths; they take us in different directions, and so we end up in very different places.

The point is to value, harvest, and accumulate useful, relevant knowledge - that which orientates and guides us to an oasis of our choosing, instead of labouring in the desert digging fool's gold.

Of course, in normal everyday language, we mostly use ‘objective’ to separate beliefs that have a scientific basis, from those that we believe just because it seems so according to our personal limited perspective. Objective vs subjective beliefs. Sure, but my point here is that our objective beliefs are not the truth; some of them might be, but we have no means of determining which are which.

Ignorance - lack of self knowledge - leads to ideology. I wrote this little 'poem' thingy some decades ago.

But, though most of us can intellectually accept that we can't know the truth and thus our beliefs and values are just our subjective beliefs and values, we - because of how we humans are wired up - often struggle to accept this emotionally.

One of the main hurdles for social primates like us is our innate desire for status. We can't have status unless we believe we are better/superior to the bulk of other people. To be 'better' requires a 'real'/'objective' definition of 'better', and so we're strongly incentivised to confuse values that are obviously subjective with being objectively true. Status depends upon a 'true' hierarchy, which, in turn, depends upon 'true' beliefs and values. It feels great to be right and good ('superior'), but to be superior, others must be inferior. We must divide reality into black and white and then consume those labels. Yet, reality is swirling shades of grey - yin and yang.

A hippie has a very different set of values than a rich businessman - a different hierarchy - and so the hippie sees themselves as superior to the businessman and the businessman sees himself superior to the hippie. Who is 'right'? It depends on who you ask obviously, as what is 'right' depends on the hierarchy someone subscribes too.

Being the clever monkeys we are, we naturally form the bulk of our hierarchy based on what we see in our mirror. Completely normal, and to not do so would result in low self-esteem (lack of status), which constricts the supply of related dopamine and so we don't feel good - depression.

We're motivated to feel good, much more than we are to be intellectually curious or honest. This is normal, it reflects the natural balance of power between emotions and intellect. But, if we understand the temptation to fool ourselves is present, and the price we pay for that dollop of status-derived dopamine very high, we can 'thread the needle', and harness relevant knowledge while remaining humble, flexible, and focused on what's relevant.

If some are struggling, typically for emotional reasons, to accept how reality seems to them isn't how it actually is, I'll throw this abstract from very recent studies to add some more substance.

Deeply Rational Reasons for Irrational Beliefs

Michael Barlev *

Department of Psychology

Arizona State University

Steven L. Neuberg

Department of Psychology

Arizona State University

Abstract (176).

Why do people hold irrational beliefs? Two accounts predominate. The first

spotlights the information ecosystem and how people process this information; this account

either casts those who hold irrational beliefs as cognitively deficient or focuses on the reasoning

and decision-making heuristics all people use. The second account spotlights an inwardly-

oriented and proximate motivation people have to enhance how they think and feel about

themselves. Here, we advance a complementary, outwardly-oriented, and more ultimate account

—that people often hold irrational beliefs for evolutionarily rational reasons. Under this view,

irrational beliefs may serve as rare and valued information with which to rise in prestige, as

signals of group commitment and loyalty tests, as ammunition with which to derogate rivals in

the eyes of third-parties, or as outrages with which to mobilize the group toward shared goals.

Thus, although many beliefs may be epistemically irrational, they may also be evolutionarily

rational from the perspective of the functions they are adapted to serve. We discuss the

implications of this view for puzzling theoretical phenomena and for changing problematic

irrational beliefs

https://psyarxiv.com/avcq2. The link

Ultimately, they are 'discovering' what should be pretty obvious - our rational mind evolved much later to better serve the objectives of our instincts by increasing the level of sophistication available to achieve those innate motivations, but is subservient to them. That the authors separate 'inwardly' motivations from 'outwardly' motivations, implying that the base motivational forces of the two are different, seems to spring from a truncated model. For example, while there is obviously rational survival and reproductive reasons for the desire for prestige/status to exist within social primates such as us, the actual source of the motivation isn't rationally driven. Of course it's emotional, it's how we're hardwired, and while it's adaptive to our ancestral realities, it's much less so today. The base motivation for status is obviously also pleasure and pain, so also 'inwardly'. Just as we reproduce via particular sexual activity, the vast bulk of sexual activity is initiated because it's pleasurable; that's the motivation that initiates the process. Sex evolved to be pleasurable, so we'd be motivated to do it; if it wasn't pleasurable or if it was painful for us humans, we wouldn't be here - obviously.

The spring of pleasure and pain flows into many rivers and streams, but the source is the same, even if it doesn't initially appear so. Similarly, the 'intentions' of that spring are the same - to guide our actions into activities that aid our survival and ability to reproduce. Ultimately, it's not even about us, we're just the wrapping for the DNA we carry, similar to how the pulp of a peach exists to serve the pip. Sure, we go about it in a much more sophisticated manner than a peach does, which camoflages the intention, but at base, all life is the same, and once we get to the animal level of sophistication, behaviour is determined via the poles of pleasure and pain. For example, we feel pain from injuries, therefore we make an effort to avoid being injured and the pain also motivates us to repair the injury and so escape the pain.

Enduring romantic love is perhaps the most highly valued pleasurable feeling humans seek, especially among females, because of how great/pleasurable it feels and because if one can obtain that feeling 'forever' then that adds up to a massive quantity of quality pleasure we get to experience for the rest of our lives. Of course it's valued so highly, but at base it's just pleasure, and at base, we love the feeling/s, not the person. We love the person because that person generates the pleasurable feelings we call love. Obviously, if the love feelings was the major motivation bringing the couple together, that motivation is significantly weakened if those love feelings fade away.

Interestingly, Desmond Morris, the author of 'The Naked Ape', states in the book that humans have an imprinting mechanism - a bonding ability - but that it's not as fully developed, or strong, as it is in some other species. Some bird species, for example, have very strong imprinting mechanisms, so strong that they pair bond for life, and if one dies, the other never 'remarries'. Freud was perhaps the first to see that we form bonds in our early childhood that provide a 'template', the outline of which we seek to colour in again as adults. While Freud was clearly on the right track, I didn't study his work much, as his conclusions used to frustrate me given his lack of understanding regarding the basic human operating system. Of course, that's not his fault, as that knowledge wasn't readily available in those days. Some of my notebooks of the time - about 30 years - have numerous pages devoted to 'correcting' Freud.

The old Tina Turner song ' What's love got to do with it', had an interesting , and quite knowledgeable, take on this topic.

It may seem to you that I'm acting confused when you're close to me
If I tend to look dazed, I read it some place, I got cause to be
There's a name for it
There's a phrase that fits
But whatever the reason, you do it for me

Oh-oh-oh, what's love got to do, got to do with it?
What's love, but a second-hand emotion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

Generally, there's a lack of clarity regarding the difference between joy and love. While they're very similar flavours, they're not the same, and nor is their source. This is a whole new topic, and depends on the definitions one attaches to those two words. For example, someone loves a burger, someone loves their child, someone loves their friend, someone loves their boyfriend/girlfriend - they're not referring to the same emotion/flavour, so this has to be untangled first. But generally, we want to be orientated towards joy. Do that, develop the capacity to experience joy, and the rest is very easy. Again, given they're very similar flavours, people often confuse the two, but all who knew - Buddha for example - pointed to joy.

Obviously, many recoil from lifting the colourful veil we typically drape over 'sacred' emotions such as love, as they prefer a more noble and glorious, even if childish, understanding. Therefore, we humans are collectively, and individually, motivated to pretend. This motivation to look away is completely normal given we're motivated by pleasure and pain - our emotions naturally instruct our brain to believe what feels better to believe.

Which is why, without some foundational knowledge about ourselves, we cannot resist just believing what feels pleasant to believe, or whatever is the current 'right' set of beliefs to have. While it's our emotions that are important, our emotions are blind. They just feel, they just like and dislike, they just move towards pleasure and away from pain. But they have no understanding of context, no understanding of anything. Understanding is our brain's job, and we evolved our brain to enable more sophisticated, and therefore more potent, behaviours to achieve the same ultimate objectives. These days, we have many ways to escape pain and many ways to obtain pleasure - there's a wide range of flavours available - and so we have to decide which ones to prioritise.

The world offers us a buffet of flavours, but they're not all equal, and some have a high cost attached to them. It's easy to fill our 'cup' with mundane flavours, just because they're readily available. We can gorge on the 'fast food', and never make it to the other end of the table to sample the higher-quality offerings there, even though that's what we really want. The rat traps are filled with soul crusaders....

Our brain tries to understand our priorities and juggle it's understanding of reality with the demands of our emotions. If our cup of motivations/emotions is confused and contradictory, the brain has an impossible task, even if our brain has a reasonably accurate model of reality by which it's orientating itself. Our brain has a job to do, and tries to do it, but it's dependent on being fed quality, reasonably accurate information about the reality it's trying to navigate, and it requires some sort of clear and cohesive emotional instructions. Put junk into the brain, and we can only get junk out. Give it a wildly inaccurate map to navigate by, and that's what it will do...

Again, as it's all beliefs anyway, all just recipes, as no one has the truth and so we're all inevitably wrong to some degree or another, it doesn't matter what our beliefs/recipes are if they deliver an enduring taste that is pleasurable - if our recipe/beliefs deliver the experience we call happiness. But, if we're struggling to experience happiness, then we have to take ourselves to a different, better reality. To do so, we need to be orientated, otherwise how do we know what direction to take ourselves?

By understanding ourselves and the context within which we exist, including what our core emotions/ wants actually are, we know what we're actually wrestling with, and can stop wrestling ourselves. We accept ourselves, celebrate that we have this life adventure to experience, and we realise that we can select from many different rivers and streams to dive into. But to swim in the most desirable ones, we need to get out of and climb above the swamps. Perhaps Buddha took himself all the way to the source spring before he stopped climbing and relaxed. Maybe, but he was exceptional, he had exceptional motivations and abilities. The likes of me and you don't have to climb anywhere near as high, as we'll find our beautiful little niche long before then. But, but the point is to head towards where Buddha beckoned and away from the swamp. Understand this, do this, and the rest just happens as the landscape will change for the better as the lowlands are left behind. Plus, a big positive change is happening within as you're weeding your inner garden, and in that freed-up space, you're planting fruitful seeds.

In practice, typically we don't even have to plant fruitful seeds, as it's the space we need. Create the space for joy, and joy will flow in automatically.

We cannot experience joy if we lack the capacity. If our 'cup' is full of trash, joy cannot enter, and even if there's space for it, it struggles to be experienced, and thus appreciated, given all the ugly flavours it's mixing with. It's screamingly obvious that we need to empty out as much of the randomly accumulated trash as we can first. Do that, and the rest becomes very easy, as joy and love can now enter, and we have the capacity to experience them undiluted. Experience the difference, and we now know what is real gold, and what is just fool's gold. Obviously, it's this metamorphosis that both frees us from negative, painful emotions and motivations while simultaneously providing us with a set of fresh, new, delightful positive ones. The hard is now ridiculously easy as our overflowing shopping list of contrary wants has shrunk down to what is very easily obtainable. Go far enough and you'll get to Buddhas reality: ' by doing nothing, I do everything' but, again, that extreme is neither realistic, nor even desirable for the likes of us. Instead, we walk the 'middle path', and we stop and enjoy at the level that fits us comfortably.

Levels:

A pyramid has levels, it has different heights. So does a mountain, and it's important to visualize ourselves existing on one level or another and that our level of happiness rises as we climb. While Buddha was at the very top, there are others who have taken themselves to an unusually high level, and one such example I know of is Bruce Springsteen.

Born into a struggling working-class family, the path he was deposited on was bleak, but he wanted a much higher quality of life, and he knew what 'quality' actually is: it's experiencing happiness, and that, in it's purest form, is swimming in joy. He was able to take himself to the exact reality he sought, and at the age of 73, while he's obviously slowed down a lot, he's still doing concerts around the world. He's still in his version of heaven, singing in front of sold-out stadiums, or composing his music while at the same time being in the midst of a loving, happy, and joyful family.

Judged by almost anyone's set of values, the guy has had a great life and is hugely successful. I see he just sold the rights to all his songs for 500 million $$, so he must be a billionaire by now, and simply by doing what he loves doing. As he said about the 1/2 billion deal;

'I've bumped into the greatest job in the world, because they pay me a fortune for what I would of done for free'.

Of course, the guy is just being modest. He didn't 'bump' into that reality, he took himself there because he knew what he wanted from life, and he knew it all starts from within.

The dogs on Main Street howl, cause they understand

I can take one moment into my hands

Mister, I ain't a boy, no I'm a man

And I believe in a promise land.

Keeping it simple, without spiraling off too far down another tangent, his music reflects his orientation, his attitude, and shows us his recipe. We can't see into other people's brains, so we're typically not aware of the above, but in his case, we do get to see as he lays it all out through his lyrics and his life. Given theories are just theories - everyone has their beliefs/recipe - obviously it makes sense to learn the recipe that someone very happy uses.

The core of his music revolves around getting from 'A' ( the reality we're in), to 'B', ( the reality we want).

But then, why do we want what we think we want? Who is me, and what is it I'm actually seeking?The answer is obvious - a high level of happiness.

Ok, what is happiness? Clearly, it's an experience , it's something we feel. It happens on the emotional level.

Ok, so what are the emotions I want to prioritise? There's many flavours to choose from, which ones do I avoid, and which ones do I climb towards to put in my 'cup'. We have to make choices - we choose our hard. It can be hard to keep climbing, but it is also hard if we just give up and stuff our cup with the readily available, but mundane.

He takes responsibility for his reality, you'll never hear him, in either his lyrics or his words, ever criticise someone else. He'll criticise himself readily, and he's very honest with this, but never other people because he's far above that level. Obviously, others do as they do, it's just morbidly silly to judge others by our own subjective values. They are as they are, if someone is not to our taste, ok cool, don't hang out with them, but hanging out with them and then complaining about them is just stupid. If you didn't know they are as they are, then maybe you don't have enough relevant knowledge about humans, and who's fault is that?

He's very humble. Again though, it couldn't be otherwise, as it's screamingly obvious that he's just doing as he's motivated to do - just like everyone else. Sure, his path to his oasis is more complicated, but it's not 'better', as 'better' is dependent on one's particular tastes and then values. It's all subjective, and he's well aware that there are millions of people who are just as happy as him, but are poor and living very different lives.

'What I do is not better, it's just noisier'

Many people struggle accepting this orientation, as we're programmed to believe happiness comes via things or achievements. That's true, if you believe it's true, and so you must jump those hurdles first.

We're just trying to survive,

but what if what we do to survive

kills the things we love?

Fears is a powerful thing

It'll turn your heart black, you can trust

It'll take your God filled soul

And fill it with devils and dust.

Springsteen did things the other way around. Focus on hunting what's actually most precious, even though it's invisible. Hunt the invisible game that are the desired emotions, and then build on that - find a way to make a living doing what you love and what is wholesome. 'Game' in this context = something we hunt.

'Truth is fantasy, time is illusion

I feel u breathing, the rest is confusion

Your skin touches mine, what else to explain?

I am the hunter of invisible game.

There's a kingdom of love

Waiting to be reclaimed

I am the hunter of invisible game.'

Of course we need to survive, make $$ etc, and not many of us have the inclination, nor the talent, to make a living from just clambering onto a stage, telling stories, singing a few songs and acting the fool. He's an extreme example, but extreme is useful because the components that make up the whole are more clearly defined.

At his level, his 'problems' are many people's dreams.

'If you've got to have a problem, too much money is a good problem to have'

So, most of his music is filled with the above themes. Not all, as he, like all of us, has his different dimensions and sometimes he's just having fun, but theme of moving from 'A' to 'B' run through his music. For example, his first hit way back in 1975 was 'Born to Run'.

'Someday girl, I don't know when

we'll get to that place we really want to go

and we'll walk in the sun

But till then, tramps like us

Baby, we were born to run'

'Dancing in the Dark'

Message keeps getting clearer
Radio's on and I'm moving 'round my place
I check my look in the mirror
I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face

Man, I ain't getting nowhere, just living
In a dump like this
But, there's something happening somewhere
I just know there is

And then 44 years later 'Hello Sunshine'

'Had enough of heartbreak and pain
But I had a little sweet spot for the rain
For the rain and skies of grey
Hello sunshine, won't you stay?'

Actually, the song 'Hello Sunshine' points to a lot. The imagery is just a car -us - moving through the environment. Obviously, we steer that car to one place or another. We make decisions, and we make those decisions based on the existing equilibrium of motivations currently within us. If we don't question our motivations, if we just head towards what we happen to like - habits- and away from what we currently dislike, we're steering blind. We're on autopilot, responding to simple pleasure and pain as it currently translates within us. We choose our pleasure - this pleasure now or that pleasure later, and we choose our hard - a bit of this pain now, or a lot of that pain later. So we have to understand ourselves to gain a meta-view - a bird's eye view - of ourselves. We then see the bigger picture and can navigate much more effectively.

You know, I always liked a lonely town

Empty streets, no one around

But fall in love with lonely & you end up that way

Hello sunshine, won't you stay?

& miles to go is miles away

Hello Sunshine

And in-between those years, he chronicles his journey and his struggles.

..So when u look at me

u better look hard, and look twice

is this me, baby?

or just a brilliant disguise?

Tonight our bed is cold

lost in the darkness of our love

God have mercy on the man

Who doubts what he's sure of

But anyway, he's got hundreds of songs...

He knows what is just weeds, and much of his music revolves around the struggle we all have to differentiate gold from fool's gold and then align our motivations accordingly. The guy found/built his niche, one that fit him snugly after overcoming his struggles within, and his example and recipe, inspires many to do the same for themselves. Ultimately, it's an emptying process, getting rid of the negative or useless beliefs and templates we've had installed by others. It was easier for him as he got out of school while still young (16, same as me :) ), so he wasn't programmed as thoroughly as most. Many do not even realise the path they are on is just one of thousands available - they're so cooked they think it's the only one. k

No Surrender

'We busted out of class

Had to get away from those fools

We learnt more from a 3 minute record than we ever learnt in school...'

Probably, this song best encapsulates what I'm trying to point to here:

I could keep adding song after song and, just as importantly, shine a light on his personal life to show the validity of his recipe, but you get the idea. Obviously, music is different things to different people, and we all have different tastes. That this music resonated with me, doesn't mean it will for others....

And it did resonate with me. Exactly how much his recipe and example influenced me, it's impossible to know, of course, but I repeat the general themes in this 'poem' thing I wrote in Alaska about 30 years ago.

Actually, I'll throw these lyrics from Springsteen in as well, as they show his orientation and understanding

'Cynthia, you're not the best thing

I've never had

& when you leave, the pain that remains

Well it ain't so bad'

Firstly, he understands it's all just pleasure and pain. The potential pleasure 'Cynthia' offers is what motivates, and ok, if he doesn't pursue down that particular path, he feels a stab of pain as he has now 'lost' that pleasure, and pleasure and pain is relative. But he's willing to forgo that pleasant flavour, as he's prioritised other pleasant flavours over that one, and sometimes we can't cram everything into the one path - our 'cup' can only hold so much.

On his level, this is obvious. It's got nothing to do with morality. He doesn't think in terms of childish 'right' and 'wrong', 'good' and 'bad', as obviously that's all subjective. He's the Boss, he makes his own rules, and if you're really the Boss, there are no rules. He does what he wants, slaves do what others demand of them, and others demand what they want.

It's not about 'Cynthia', she's just one of the potential delights the environment offers. It's about his ultimate destination and the path to that destination. The path we take comes back to motivations, and motivations acted on develop into habits, and then they decide the path automatically.

So, from his understanding of the dynamics involved, he makes a decision that is his habitual decision when faced with such temptations. To make his walking away easier, as then there's less pain experienced, he uses his thoughts to halt the gathering instinctual momentum by framing the situation in a way that it matters less. ' Ok, she's hot, that would be pleasurable, but she's not the hottest girl I've never had, so what does it matter?'

At base, our battles are with pleasure and pain. That's what's fighting over our steering wheel. If our brain doesn't gain control, we're not on a coherent path, instead, we're driving in random directions. We gain control, in part, by manipulating the intensity of our motivations through how we frame the situation, which includes accepting and welcoming pain sometimes. If a given pain is 6/10 on the pain scale 'organically', how we think about that pain shifts it's intensity. Wallow in it, 'OMG, this is so painful..' and we've moved it to 7/10. Accept it, ' I'm tough enough, and ugly enough, to handle this bit of pain no problem' and it's now just 4/10 and we can just shrug and move on. We can do this with anything. Next time you're cold, say to yourself ' it's fine, it's not so cold' and it suddenly won't be.

We choose our hard, and if we can't choose hard sometimes, we can't take ourselves anywhere worth going.

"It is not by prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.“ - Bertrand Russell.

This should be reasonably obvious. To obtain the desired outcome, we need to understand cause and effect.

Recently, via my twitter/x feed, I've seen some interesting tweets from Ricky Gervais. Yes, I have twitter, as it's a good source of information, but I've never posted or commented, as I've never felt the need to add my 2 cents. Obviously, I'm writing a bit here, but that's just to help my wife with her new business.

Ricky Gervais is likely the world's number 1 comedian at the moment, as well as having written, starred in, and directed a number of very popular series and films. For example, 'The Office'.

Out of all his productions, I've only ever seen a few episodes of 'The Office', as I don't have netflix, or anything like that. Though I do know he's funny, as I've seen a few clips via twitter/x and youtube.

Without him mentioning it, no one would realise that behind his somewhat buffoonery front, he's obviously got a lot of relevant knowledge because he put the time in to learn it when he was young.

This then leads to a very good understanding of himself and his audience, and he doesn't take himself too seriously. It's a potent mixture, as his success proves.

We often don't realise it, but we can be playing checkers - got a range of very limited actions and simplistic strategies - while others are playing chess - they have a wide range of tools they can select from and they're thinking 5 moves ahead. We tend to think others operate similarly to how we do, and then put their success down to 'luck', because we don't understand it.

After reading the Naked Ape, and being exposed to the basic biological realities, I was a bit frustrated that I had sat in a classroom for 10 or 11 years and no one had bothered to teach this core knowledge. Again, obviously and understandably, the educational system's priorities are not aligned with our own. That kids pop out of that indoctrination wanting to spend their lives working is testimony to how powerful it is and what the system's objectives are. Tell anyone prior to 100 years ago that you want to spend your life working, and they'd look at you in horror. 'What??, slaves spend their lives working...'

Ok, in most of the world, the option of getting some slaves to do our work in return for some food and shelter is no longer available. Nowadays, we give them a wage, which they then use to organize their own food and shelter. Whether this is a better system depends on who is asked - the slave owner or the slave. Anyway, it is as it is, and so most of us need to work sometimes as we have food to buy, bills to pay, etc.

The difference is whether we're working to live - to enjoy life - or we're living to work. If we're living to enjoy life, then we stop wasting our time working and start enjoying our time as soon as we're able to, instead of accumulating more digits on a bank printout. Some, like mad squirrels, can't stop accumulating even when they have more than they could ever consume. In part, the drive is status - the belief that there's a connection between material wealth and success - but also because they know nothing else and, like cart horses who have only ever known the coal mines, they continue to go up and down as that's all they know. Of course, for those who enjoy their work, then all is good, as it's not really experienced as work for them - they enjoy it.

After writing 'The Naked Ape', Desmond Morris looked at how humans adapted to living in cities and called that book 'The Human Zoo'. As the curator of mammals at the London Zoo, he was perhaps uniquely placed to understand how overpopulation and unnatural environments impose stresses on mammals that don't exist in their natural environment. A lion in a zoo is still a lion, but ...

If someone doesn't understand evolution, and has no real grasp of history, they cannot understand the context within which they exist. They see the lion's existence in the zoo as normal, and similarly, they understand swarming cities with people, living in boxes on the 20th floor, as also normal. They then seek to be happy within environments that are fundamentally compromised, which makes experiencing happiness hard, instead of moving to a much more appropriate environment and making the hard a lot easier.

We, like all life, evolved for a particular environment, and while we, with our relatively potent intelligence, are very adaptable - we can survive within a wide range of environments- surviving and thriving are two different things. The 'rubber band' of our adaptability stretches only so far, and the more it's stretched, the more it's stressed.

The industrial revolution - the discovery and need for coal - after Europe's forests, and thus the easy, ubiquitous source of energy, had depleted, overturned the natural extended family, and introduced the nuclear family. When populations were low, and wood/energy plentiful, people stayed in their villages, surrounded by others they had known their whole lives. This reality, especially for children, is a very different landscape than the nuclear family, which is isolated and thinly walled off from masses of strangers. But, once populations were dependent on coal, and as coal deposits were only in some locations, men had to relocate to make $$ to survive, and, in time, they took their wives and children with them. Now we had nuclear families living in impersonal cities. At first, it was very hard to find workers for the coal mines - who wanted to leave their village, family, and friends to spend their time doing that? But, in time, it became a necessity and then normal, until 100 years later, coal miners would go on strike for their right to work in the mines.

Point is; we collectively, and then individually, live in a reality that's been shaped by forces that are effectively beyond human rational control. While it's simplistic, and largely inaccurate, to look at the distant past with rose-tinted lenses, the fact is there's no rational hand at the wheel, as is evident by the increasingly sorry state mankind finds itself in. While this is lamentable, it can also be considered inevitable - apes be apes - and all species rise and fall. It is what it is.

This inability to understand that the culture one exists within is just one of many that exist, have existed, and (possibly) will exist leads to us readily slap the label 'normal' on whatever happens to be around us. We can't see the forest for the trees and thus lack any orientation.

This is often seen in the field of psychology, and the Freudian models are a good example. Once I had given myself a reasonable foundation as regards the species I am and so I had a fair idea what instincts/motivations are innate and what their intentions are, I went to the next level and dug into psychology. Starting at the 'start', and in the days when science was less muzzled, I read some of James, Adler, Jung, Freud, Skinner and his behaviorism, etc.

What was apparent from Freud's models, and that is kind of relevant here, is that many of the 'complexes'/struggles he identified and tried to understand -for example his Oedipus complex - are not innate to our species, but was actually a common by-product experienced by children raised within nuclear families as opposed to the extended family. The dependency on it's parents that the nuclear child feels is very much diluted within the extended family environment as the child receives emotional nourishment from a much greater number of readily available people. Within the extended family, even the mother's death is not so traumatic to the child, given that what we consider the mother's role to be, was shared among many. What Freud was witnessing were manifestations of the dependancy, and therefore insecurity, that are largely inherent to the nuclear family model, but that didn't exist prior.

Many of Freud's theories are good examples of psychological conflicts that, viewed through an evolutionary lens, can perhaps be more readily explained as the result of childhood stress experienced due to the relatively anemic emotional environment inherent within the nuclear family.

Even if not in pure volume, the variety of emotional nourishment is inevitable limited, and the sense of security and identity ( Tv/internet present many models, parents another, and teachers yet another) is not solid and enduring. Clearly, this is all very different from what our ancestors experienced. A child raised within an extended family receives emotional nourishment from myriad sources - aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents etc -the child's cup is overflowing, there is no lack experienced, and therefore no insecurity nor conflict.

Simarily, Freuds Id and Ego concepts, can perhaps be better understood as arising from the inherent conflicts between emotions, instincts, and our rational brain, and that struggle is amplified the further we find ourselves within an environment that doesn't naturally fit us. We, via our relatively impressive intelligence, develop an understanding about ourselves, but our brain does not operate in a vacuum; instead, it's subservient to our emotions. What really matters is what we feel, not the thoughts bouncing around inside our heads, and so there's always conflicts between what we'd enjoy more in the moment - instant gratification - and what we deem 'right' and 'good'( how we assign status ), along with what we rationally believe is beneficial for us long term.

There's a lot going on within us that we are trying to simultaneously juggle, which is why less is more - much easier and more relaxing to be juggling 2 or 3 balls than 9 or 10. Understanding that our version of 'right' and 'good' is largely a self-serving illusion formed to give us a sense of status allows us to not bother juggling those balls and so we can more competently juggle what we actually need to be happy. Less is more.

In practice, as it's too painful, few can step away from their make-believe hierarchy 'cold turkey', which is one of the values of detoxing every now and again. Via a detox, our equilibrium of motivations changes so much for the better that we're now in a position to forgo that status dopamine, as we no longer need it. In other words, it happens naturally, as happy people are much less judgmental than unhappy people, simply because the unhappy need the pleasure from their 'superiority', whereas the happy don't, as their cup is reasonably full regardless.

If someone told Buddha he was a loser, which, viewed from some people's hierarchy, he probably was, he would keep smiling. Tell him he's fantastic, and he would also keep smiling, as it makes no difference to him what others think or don't think about him - he's beyond that as he's experiencing 10/10 happiness - his cup is overflowing regardless. As it makes no difference to how he feels, he's not motivated to juggle those balls.

We're motivated exclusively by the polarities of pleasure and pain, but there is a limit to how much pleasure our 'cup' can contain, and from there - rare- the joy overflows. If you or I were hooked up on an IV drip fed heroin, what would we seek to do? We'd not do anything, not have any desire to do anything other than just lie there, because how can any motivation register within us? We wouldn't go to work because it just wouldn't matter to us, as all our normal motivations could no longer be felt, and if they're not felt, they no longer exist. So when Buddha said, 'By doing nothing, I do everything' he's relating reality - we do something because of a lack we feel or a need we feel ( same thing), just as we go to the bathroom when we feel the slight pain prompting us to do so. Delay, and the pain will increase, and therefore, so will our motivation. No pain means we have no motivation/impulse to go to the bathroom, so we don't.

Buddha was not sitting under the tree to achieve anything, he'd already achieved everything, so what more was there to do? He sat, smiled, and watched the world go by. What motivations he had within matched exactly with what he had = 10/10. Obviously, it's easier to obtain less than it is to obtain more. If we want 2, but we have 3, our cup overflows. If we want 6 and we have 3, our cup is half empty, and we experience cravings/frustration/pain from what we lack, so we're motivated to chase what we feel we lack.

This theme, that knowledge is what allows us to free ourselves, while ignorance chains us, is recurring in 'spiritual' literature, but people often put 'the cart before the horse' - they confuse cause and effect.

For example Osho was one of the world's leading 'spiritual' (' ' because how is 'spiritual' defined? people throw that word around but can't define it ) leaders until his early death a few decades ago. Long ago, I visited his Ashram in Pune, India, although unfortunately, he had died by then. Anyway, this was his perspective on knowledge and religion. I copied this from one of his books I read at the time. Obviously, I don't expect anyone to read that - I struggle to, and I wrote it.

' Ignorance can make you irreligious, knowledge will never make you irreligious'

And I say:' If knowledge can cause irreligiousness, I still prefer knowledge. But, of course, this is not the case. Knowledge is religion, and ignorance is irreligion.'

'And remember, religion is nothing but another name for the search for sublime knowledge'.

In other words, he's saying, it's knowledge - understanding reality to the extent we can - that drives religion. If a religion is not motivated by this, then what is it motivated by? If some people know a God exists, then they do the rest of us a great favour by sharing that knowledge. Depending upon how 'God' is defined, it seems likely that God does indeed exist, but given there are so many definitions of 'God', it would also seem unlikely they can all exist. Anyway, such knowledge is far beyond my perception and/or IQ, so I leave this realm to others.

But the idea that knowledge, for example, evolution, negates the possibility of there being a God, doesn't seem logical to me. Does anyone believe God micromanages everything? Does God make every car and decide what colour it's painted, or did God make humans, who then make cars, and then some people prefer one colour over another?

If God made humans who then act as they're programmed to act on a core, instinctual level with variation - obviously we're not all exactly the same - and then layers of personal preferences from culture, etc, are added on top of that, then surely it's probable that God made the universe, and the universe acts as it's programmed to act but not right down to the micro level. In other words, evolution is part of how the universe manifests. Often, the written word of 'God' is simply the human author's understanding at the time of writing, and maybe some of the authors got some aspects wrong. That God made humans 6,000 years ago could just be human error stemming from a lack of relevant knowledge at that time. Evolution doesn't contradict the notion of a God; it just contradicts some people's understanding of God.

The word 'good' is pretty close to the word 'God, and the word 'evil' is pretty close to the word 'Devil'. Maybe this is not a coincidence, and maybe religion points to those poles and warns that some paths lead to heaven and some to hell. This, as I understand things, seems to be accurate.

Also, it seems to me that societies with religion are healthier and happier (in general) than societies without. Therefore, if we judge beliefs by their usefulness, it can be said religion is good and right, no matter that some of the beliefs might seem illogical and inconsistent to our very limited brains.

One of the practical benefits of religion is it gives a community is a common set of values, which greatly aids the cohesiveness of that group. That these are meta values - from a higher authority than mere humans - also provides a buffer against the whims of the very powerful.

By its fruits it shall be judged.

While the slice of my model that is presented above is not orthodox, it's far from unique, and coincidentally, one of the psychologists I follow on Twitter posted this thread today titled 'Ugly Psychology Truths No One Wants to Admit. The 'truths' he's learnt from long experience dovetail reasonably well with my model. His thoughts are here for anyone interested; https://en.rattibha.com/thread/1676925337194704897 His intro is; 'I worked for many years as a licensed psychotherapist, and these are some of the harshest realities that people refuse to talk about. Let’s get in some trouble.'

Some interesting tibbits, that are relevant here;

The male suicide rate is not about wanting to die. It’s about feeling powerless, hopeless, and helpless for way too long. To fix it, we have to make life more appealing than the peace of death. We have to give men power over their lives.

Male depression is nearly always a result of learned helplessness, but health providers treat it like female depression and try to make men feel loved instead of powerful.

Daycare has been shown to harm the ability to bond and feel secure, especially for small babies. Their mental health outcomes later in life are impacted. Research proves this, but saying it out loud can get you fired.

Most people don't want to hear the truth. They want to feel good about giving up. They'll even pay for it.

People are more likely to take a pill for years that they don't understand and don't think will actually help than they are to attempt even one uncomfortable conversation that could save their life.

Most cases of depression are a natural response to our broken society. We gain much of our sense of worth, purpose, meaning, and joy from our relationships. But those relationships have never been more systematically destroyed than they are today.

Most men don't know how female communication works. They provide solutions, which is what THEY would want, when a woman wants VALIDATION. When this is pointed out, most men assume it's untrue. Because they'd hate to receive only validation instead of a solution.

Depressed men need purpose, a mission, and the power to accomplish that mission. Give a man those 3 things and he can crawl over broken glass with a smile.

Most women are disgusted when they finally learn how the male sex drive works. Then they test to see if it's true, and when it is, they start to like the new power they hold.

Most therapists are not trained in attachment theory, which explains where mental health problems come from. They're trained on how to diagnose and treat, but not how to fix the core issue. This is why your diagnosis is probably viewed as lifelong instead of fixable.

Many people reading the above tweets about men needing to feel powerful will view that as a negative. The ability to feed your children and keep a roof over their heads no matter what the economy is doing - that's power.The ability to achieve a mission - that's power. Many people today are terrified of the idea of men having power because their only frame of reference is abuse. Even men feel this way, which is why they shy away from building the sort of power that would save their life. Become an abuser or commit suicide = their only choices.

Most mental health systems will never tell people this, because the system is mostly built to address symptoms.

Nice guy issues come from anxious attachment style. He grew up afraid his mother would abandon him, so all he knows is how to earn good-boy points and approval to avoid abandonment. That's never going to make any woman happy. Which is why nice guys finish last.

Most people use therapy the way humans are meant to connect with our 5 safety net systems, which we retained even up to 100 years ago:

Immediate family

Extended family (kin)

Family friend network (kith)

Local community

Religious community

All 5 are now broken.

Chronic pain is often correlated with low oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone that (among other things) is released in large quantities inside our good relationships as we interact, feel loved, and embrace others.

As the above illustrates, knowledge, over time, inevitably becomes institutionalized and morphs into the 'truth'. It becomes rigid and ritualized as the 'high priests' and their disciplines resist changes to the model that they're emotionally invested in and upon which their status depends. Completely normal, given humans are humans, but the upshot is that bubble of ideology drifts away from, and eventually ignores reality. Throw vested interests - those that pay the band, decide the playlist - into the mix, and science inevitably becomes blinkered and eventually blind. The fate of those societies is not pleasant, given their dependence on accurate knowledge in the decision making process. This is one of the reasons civilizations have a shelf life and that our western civilization is clearly already past it's use-by date.

One of my half-baked theories, as I'm on this topic now, is that while colonisation is obviously normal, possibly the waves of European colonisation, post-normalization of the nuclear family, were uniquely destructive due to the malign materialism that spread with it. It's possible this hyper-focus on material wealth is an attempt to fill an inner void, as it's very clear that individuals raised within traditional environments are not motivated to exchange their time and energy for piles of stuff much beyond what they actually need. If one is already very happy, what does it matter the size of your house or model of car? It doesn't really, so it's not worth the time and effort involved. Conversely, if one is less than happy, there's ample motivation to act to raise one's level of happiness before we put down our tools and relax, and an accessible way of doing so in many cultures is via increased status, hence the desire for status symbols. Meanwhile, within the traditional environment, not only is there no void, but they also already have a solid sense of identity/status - their place in the hierarchy is not going to significantly shift via material goods.

When we meet new people, we have to know how to act toward them. We're going to react differently to the angry man with a machete walking towards us than we do to an old lady walking towards us, to use an extreme example. So we're constantly judging others to give us some orientation, which is needed to determine our actions. Completely normal, and unless we've got an IQ of less than about 50, we're all doing this all the time. Few of us have sex with just anyone who wants, for example, instead, there's a whole series of filters we apply to anyone who puts their hand up.

In practice, and to save brain power, we quickly and effortlessly categorise people, and then respond to that category. Out of the many people we meet, some we get to know better, and with this additional information, we may refine, or even change, the initial category into which we automatically threw them. But, for 99% of the people we meet, our first impressions and the 'ballpark' category we put them into give us enough orientation to navigate effectively enough. This is why the saying 'first impressions matter' has a lot of truth to it. The relevant point here is that, when it comes to strangers, we have very limited information beyond what we can see, and therefore we're very dependent on that narrow information.

If we've known 'Paul' all his life, Paul in an expensive car is still Paul. But, if we're surrounded by strangers, and we don't really know Paul, then Paul is , to a much greater extent, his car - what it sympolises. In other words, while we all have the urge for status, it manifested in a more relaxed, and less malignant form, within our ancestors, as status symbols are superfluous when you already know everyone. Therefore, given we all now live in such a world, we're much more materially motivated than our ancestors were. Materialism forms the backbone of our values and our hierarchies, and so we trade our limited time and energy for things, even far beyond the point where we have plenty. Often, after decades of working, we want to stop, we planned to stop and begin 'smelling the roses', but now we're firmly in that rut and in the grip of the strong habits built up over that time. Also, the higher we climb, the higher the hierarchy climbs. $1000 is a lot in some groups, but a million is nothing in other hierarchies, and so we keep accumulating as we exit the top of one tier and into the bottom of the next level. We can feel we never have enough, but that feeling is largely driven by status and deeply entrenched habits.

I wrote this decades ago, and while I would not write it exactly the same now, it tries to encapsulate the above.

The white man came from Europe

Armed with gunpowder and the Christian spirit

In the land, he saw only the crops it could grow

For the hides, they killed all the buffalo

You reap what you sow, didn't you know?

Today, bodies are weak

Minds don't know how to think

Souls hide in shame

Microscopes search for something to blame.

This post getting longgggg. I just want to add one more concept.

We can understand that knowledge is power, that relevant knowledge is relevant power, and we get to decide what is relevant. Ok, but how does a slice of knowledge - an understanding of cause and effect - that we didn't previously possess generate positive change in our reality?

The short answer is that it changes the status quo equilibrium of motivations we're acting according to. Let's say we have a favorite food; we can call it x, and we eat this food often because we get pleasure from the taste, plus it's readily available and affordable, so we see no reason to not eat x. In other words, our existing balance of motivations pushes us to consume x. But if we learn, and believed, that actually x has a negative effect on our health, a contrary motivation/force has now entered the calculation.This force pushing us in the opposite direction will, if it's powerful enough, change our actions - we'll no longer consume x, and therefore we'll act more in our own interests. We originally understood x to be yummy 8/10, cheap 7/10, easily available 7/10 ( +++). But now there's a big minus added, and the equation looks more like this +++- which reduces the attraction. This change means we're now motivated to find an alternative that doesn't contain the negative.

This is likely pretty obvious, but less obvious is that we're motivated towards pleasure and so often resist learning that which threatens to interfere with the pleasures we're currently dependent on. Again, our brain is subservient to our emotions, and if we're blind to this, if we do not know ourselves, we cannot 'hack' our primitive system and drag ourselves away from the random low-level instant gratifications we're currently ruled by. We then struggle to take ourselves to a much higher level of happiness. At base, it's really a simple case of misunderstanding - the assumption that the us at that moment is us, full stop. The misunderstanding is the belief that what we currently like, and are motivated towards, is somehow solid and unchangeable. We struggle to understand, because we've never experienced it, that we can easily be very different, and when the motivations within are different, we no longer want what we currently want. I.e., we don't lose anything worth having or that we still desire.

Have the power to swap out beliefs and motivations, and one has the ultimate power. How can that person ever be unhappy for long?

This is how I see it;

In the game of life

The winners are the happy, the losers the unhappy

Yet

There's no opposition, and we can decide the rules.