observations

There's this one behavioral pattern in humans that have been bothering me for ages.

I call it "I ought to know this; otherwise I'm stupid"; train of thought.

If anyone else thinks or observes this in any other individual we deem it as lunacy. However, for most people when it happens themselves, they don't realize it happening.

Personally I'm a big fan of podcasts. They offer me the chance to be a fly on a wall, in a situation where two interesting people converse.

However often when I try to recommend good episodes to friends, acquaintances etc. I get the response that

"I feel stupid when I listen to podcasts if I don't understand everything".

This is a statement that stems directly out of their ego, why, how would they assume that they ought to know what the expert on the episode speaks of, they are often older, experts in their field of study.

And this somehow stops them from enjoying the episode. This, boggles my mind. We can enjoy music, without understanding the underlying theory of it, same with any other form of art. And in these cases it doesn't bother these people that they don't "understand everything."

When I try to dig deeper into their minds, to map the train of thoughts leading to the aversion, if, they agree to having their mind picked, it usually stems from shame.

Therefore we can conclude that, because the podcasts are intellectual, they feel inferior if they can't understand everything.



Anyhow, you get the gist.


And this same thing happens in classes in school, people are afraid to voice their opinions, they rather sit silently and nod their heads. In places for learning. What? why?

If they're not comfortable to expose their vulnerabilities in situations meant for education, where are they?

What am i?

I often catch myself observing myself in various situations, nowadays it's called being mindful.
However, when I grew up it was because of something called dissociation, depersonalization.

I developed it as a defence mechanism against rough, anxiety/panic-inducing situations, my therapists say it's because of bullying.
For me, it feels like it was a method to cope with the world itself, by observing myself from the sidelines I could look at myself as in a movie, a documentary. I often narrated whatever was happening around me, however, it also made me sad, so sad, because no matter what was happening around me, it felt like I wasn't part of it.

This picture by Shawn cross really illustrates the alienation, isolation I felt.

I was tested for autism and ADHD, I didn't, however, end up with a diagnosis, apparently, my intelligence and impulse levels are too high.

In the end, it doesn't matter. Because the point remains the same, this picture is the closest I've felt the sense of belonging.


Last winter these dissociations suddenly disappeared, instead, I started having panic attacks again which was lovely, because instead of disappearing from the world as before. I got to soak in the anxiety, which again made it feel like I was finally alive again.


Sure, it made me suddenly start crying around people in social settings, in class and so on. That didn't really bother me though since these were the same places where I before was observing myself as part of the group, yet apart.

So why would I care if they judged me, an adult man suddenly sobbing. In fact, it was freeing, it felt like I finally managed to stop caring how others perceive me.

About me

As a child, I enjoyed learning. For some reason, despite this fact, I didn’t do well in school. Some part of it may have to do with the weird class system my school used, another part with the bullying I had to endure. In high school, it got so bad that my class teacher and my student advisor both told me that I was “too stupid” for upper secondary school. They advised me to go to vocational school instead, so that’s what I did. It never felt really right. Because of what happened to me as a child and as a teenager, for a long time, I thought I was dumb. Recently I’ve started to notice that my view on myself might have been wrong. It’s a strange thing to suddenly notice that everybody isn’t smarter than me. The people I’ve considered inherently more clever, because of their different paths in life, aren’t in fact always above me. For years, whenever I encountered people who graduated upper secondary school, I overestimated their intelligence - and thus, I underestimated my own. This lead to me having really weird conversations with people because I assumed that if I knew something, they would too. They would not only know about it, they would also have a much higher level of understanding of it than I did. The majority of people also seem to be ashamed of admitting that they don’t know something because they pride themselves on their intelligence. Adding this to the situation, my conversations got even weirder. Anyhow. Around the time that I was about 23, I started to learn different subjects on my own. These were subjects where I felt I was lacking because I had been so weak in school. It wasn’t until a few months ago when my therapist asked me what my method of learning is, that I realised I had been doing something “wrong.” Wrong in this sense is related to the Finnish school system. Whenever I start to learn something new, I compare it in my mind to my old understanding of the topic and see if the previous problems are solved by adding the new knowledge. This has most likely been the problem, my therapist said. It blew my mind. To succeed in the school system, you shouldn’t try to understand, analyse and figure out ways to use new knowledge. Instead, you ought to be able to memorise and recall the information, often only for exams. After that, the knowledge is forgotten. [This, of course, is an exaggeration of how the system works, but sadly the main point remains true. Think about it. How often haven’t you studied like crazy for a test, done it, and been done with it? Not using the information, worst case, ever again? When I realised this, I got mad at myself for not understanding that this was how it had worked. I’ve always thought that I’m bad at mathematics because my high school math grades were poor. It isn’t until recently that’ I’ve been thinking of trying to learn it my way. Whilst searching for methods, I stumbled upon this talk by a woman named Barbara Oakley. That’s what inspired me to start reflecting on myself and on how I learn. For now, this weird text shall serve as my introduction to myself; and I'll leave you readers with this fascinating talk by Barbara Oakley.

What does the sheep say?

Intention.

I know I wrote about motivation earlier. The concept of how 'intention' works is similar to how motivation works, in my mind. Motivation is ’what’ makes us do things, whilst intention is 'why' we do things: the idea behind our actions.

I often think along the lines of acting and/or reacting. Are the things I do actions or reactions? How about other people? As I think of it, with an action, the intention is clear to us. A reaction, however, is when we act on other people’s intentions.

Let’s take for an example, you wake up in the morning, you may make your bed, but is it because, that’s what you grew up with?
Then it’s still most likely a reaction to your parent's wishes, whilst if you do it intentionally, it becomes an active thing.

I’m one of those lucky people who wakes up early naturally, so I don’t have to use an alarm clock, so for me the first intentional action I do, is getting up. For many, their waking up is a reaction to that terrible sound.

Don’t worry, if you’re one of the clock people, you can still change the direction of the day, by for example making the bed, as an active thing, for yourself. Or even better, make your bed, put on coffee and meditate whilst waiting for it.
Often people say that they feel like they have no control in their lives, just by small things like this, one can change the feeling, so instead of starting the day on the back foot, reacting to things whole day, try to be more aware of the things you do.



Now that we’re past the morning, let’s go into what’s been on my mind lately.

Over the years I've observed various friends struggle with addictions. Often they say "I will stop with this now", however, that rarely works out. I think that’s because the intention isn't there to really do it. Instead, it’s a reaction to the shame they’re feeling.

It's never easy. I myself was addicted to gaming for a long time. However, when I was ready to quit, I managed to do it. It was an active choice to do it, not a reaction to people around me.
That's why I think it takes a certain amount of self-reflection and understanding of oneself to be able to quit destructive behaviour. You have to understand why you do it: what's the intention behind the action? Why do you drink? Why do you do drugs? What’s the real reason behind it? For most, I'd say it's the escape. Being able to take a break.

[Sadly, a lot of us has been there. ] Observing a friend becoming worse and worse with their self-destructive behaviours, yet there's nothing we can do. All we’re left with is picking up the pieces when they hit rock bottom.

Everyone knows the thing with traffic lights. If one person crosses the road when it's red, many other will follow, without even thinking about it. The person who takes the first step makes an active choice to walk despite the light being red. The others just follow as a reaction. The lovely herd mentality of our breed of animals, hmm?

Next time you're in that situation, crossing the road even though the light is red because others are doing it, stop to think. Do you follow because you really can’t wait a few seconds more or do you follow because you’re just another sheep?

beautiful lies

On the yoga retreat I attended, we had a practice, to tell a randomly chosen person, the lies we have told in our lives, that have bothered us the most and the least.

After walking a few kilometres, and sharing our lives, we came to the conclusion, that the lies we tell other's are usually split into two types, 'white lies' to protect the feelings of others, and the 'self-deceits' which exist to protect ourselves, to strengthen the lie we live.

Personally, I think that we overuse white lies, I think we would live much less in self-deceit, if people around us were more honest to us, instead of worrying "will it hurt his/her feelings". Although I have no idea how to change this, normally I'd go with the "practice what you preach" thinking, but if I'm the only one doing it, I will come across as an asshole.


HAHA, almost got you there, I'm too blunt, I will tell my honest opinion of things, and I wish others would treat me the same way.


My pair for the practice was an older woman, she told me about the times she cheated on her partner's, and how it made her feel afterwards when coming clean or taking the lie to the grave.
What she, and I learned, was that the hardest part was accepting the behaviour oneself, realising that one is not the person one thinks;
And the anxiety from the insight that "Even I don't live up to my own values".

Does this mean that the moral principles we live by, are wrong, if we time and time again break them, or are the values self-deceits themselves?

How "we wish we would be", or "how we wish others would perceive us"

This can be thought upon from many perspectives, maybe the values one has is not one's own. Maybe they are inherited from family, or the culture one grew up in.

How many of us are even aware of the values that seem to control us? In many ways the remind of the so called 'social norms' that most people seem aware of, yet, if you ask them to list them; They are usually incapable of it unless someone breaks one of them.

I think this is a topic that should be discussed more, because, after all it often takes another person to open our eyes.

yoga, and doing things on impulse pt2

Another interesting thing was the anonymity of the place.
I'm bad with names, but even so, people just used each other's first names, nobody really told their occupation etc, since it wasn't relevant for the occasion.

So the discussions felt like back in the internet era I grew up in, people just spoke with each other, so my version of smalltalk worked.
I'm aware that my definitions of small & deep talk is 'weird', but nonetheless, it worked to just speak out whatever what was on my mind.

But after a few days of doing that, one could start figuring out their jobs etc, based on their perspective in different things I talked about.

It's kinda sad, but.. at least old people seem to appreciate talking with me, I wish more people in my own age would do it.. But, better than nothing.

Was these weird things we had to do, like me + some random person, and we had to tell the other one about small things we appreciate in our life.

My pair told me like "I've never spoken about these things with another man" (he was like 50-60 years old)

So I asked him like, "As you're about twice my age, at what point did you start appreciating the small things in life?"

This opened the floodgates, was rather amusing, how one well formulated and guiding question did that.

On the next day, it was a similar one, except this time, we had to tell about different lies we've told during our lives.

For my part it quickly went into an 'thinking out loud' how most of the lies we tell, are self-deceit.

Overall the yoga retreat was an interesting experience, I know that I wrote earlier, that I most likely wouldn't attend one in a while again.. I changed my mind on this, I could do it, if it was a different themed one.

yoga, and doing things on impulse pt1

Last saturday my dear yoga teacher messaged me, that "going to saarijärvi on an yoga retreat for a few days, you free? Got an extra ticket"

Well, my first reaction was "no, sounds troublesome", but considering I have my self-regulatory rules about yoga, that says "unless I got a proper reason, I should always do it"
So I changed my mind in an instant and agreed to it.

Soon I was on the way to Suomen joogaopisto that's in this idyllic place in Saarijärvi.

It wasn't until I sat alone in the evening outside, that it hit me "This is gonna be weird, but interesting"

Since I've never thought that I'd go to this types of things, as I didn't like summer camps really as a child.


The yoga style was "integral hatha"
Which is something I've been doing for a couple of years, currently my yoga has been rather lacking.

But it was an interesting experience, and I generally like to train it after a break, because it forces me to listen to my mind, instead of going on muscle memory.

It's fascinating when the body is like "let's do it like we did when I was practicing daily, but then I notice that I don't have to it, it's enough with less.
It may sound mundane, but for me who generally do everything to the extreme it's rather weird feeling to not do something to 100%, and instead listening to my body.

The retreat was from saturday to wednesday, but I had to leave a half-day early, as I had an appointment at Huutoniemien sairaala for the autism/adhd diagnosis that has been undergoing for about an year now.

It felt weird, to go sleep 21-22, waking up at 6, doing a morning practice from 7 to 8:30 before breakfast, but it's a nice start to the day, even if the pace of the class was rather slow for me, I would had prefered a more energizing workout.

The days had different themes based on the 'yamas'. On sunday it was 'ahimsa', so as I wasn't feeling so great in the morning, I didn't attend the meditation and pranayama class. I felt somehow guilty, and that I was disappointing my teacher who invited me, but that's the idea kinda of ahimsa, to not hurt others or oneself, to listen to what the body want's instead of what the mind thinks i ought to do.

In the sunday evening I was feeling really weird, wasn't sure why. Until I realised it was the lack of listening to podcasts, so once I did that, it all felt good.

As most people there were beginners in the style, and the focus was as an introductory course to the style, I didn't attend many of the non asana classes or pranayama ones.
Since when it comes to me, I rather sit by myself and do the breathing and meditation exercises.

Overall it was okay, I'm not sure I'll be attending one in a while, but I know that many of my friends one enjoy it.


For me it felt like I was a documentarian there, observing some type of social experiment.
For an example, the breakfast was meant to be in silence, people adhered to the rule, but when the teacher left, it was hilarious to observe a group of 20 mostly in 50-60 years ago, starting to talk and whisper, like we were 7 and in elementary school.

I really enjoy observing these different ways group's of people act, how easily some can just listen and follow rules etc without questioning them.

thoughts on motivation

Our way of thinking and using the word motivation is skewed. Often one hears that people complain “I don’t have the motivation to do this thing” What in reality is happening, is that yes, maybe we don’t have the motivation, but the more important question to ask oneself is “Why am I doing this thing?” Far too often we do things, without knowing the true reason behind our actions, are we doing things because we want to, or because it's expected of us to do? This is the first thing we have to ask ourselves. In our society we often get different expectations be it from our parents whilst we grow up, or from the society. From our parents, the expectations are usually in the line of "Do well in school, get a good degree and a well-paying job. Whilst the expectations from the society are rather similar "Become a useful citizen, work, pay taxes, contribute and multiply. Expectations for us are fine, and may aid us in finding motivation, as long as we feel like we can fulfil them; But what happens to us, and our self-image, if we for some reason can't fulfil the expectations?

Should we rethink our goals if we can't reach them? There's this perverse "anyone can become anything" thinking in our world, and whilst it's true to a certain extent, hard work alone is not enough always. Our genes, socioeconomic background and many other factors also play roles in this.