The person I am today is different from Hiva at 18 years of age. " I am my connectom" I repeated after Sebastian Seung who is trying to answer to who we are through neuroscience. He said our experiences and memories in life stored through connections among neurons.
I know more than anything I am looking for inner peace. A state of mind that wont easily be disturbed, call it wisdom, call it inner peace. I belive every person has to find a solution for their restless mind.
- one might confides in organazied religions, phylosephy, aethiesm ,...
- one might confieds in family and/or friends
- one might drown himself/herself in work or certain hobbies
- reading books, listening to music, reading poems, doing Yoga, doing extreme sport, having a baby, having a pet....
The list has no end. I belive only I know what would works for me the best. When I was 15 years old I started saying prays. I loved it. It was working for me like a magic. I had a great self confidence which helped me overcome my anxieties. I happily said prays for years till the age of 25 which it was not working for me anymore. I found my doing kind of robatic, wasnt giving me anything. I knew I had to find another solution.
Few days ago I was sitting in a bar with few friends and talking about life were we are going and stuff like that ( these are kind of topics you usually have after few drinks :))
I told to my friend, " in today's society we have big milestones to achive which keep us motivated. Motivation is a huge positive source of feeling happy. First we go to school, finish high school, finish university, find a job, find a partner. Now if you are a person who already done with your school, married and working you already achived big parts of your milestones. You reached to the plateau of your life. When you are on the plateau it's important to find out what you want. Without noticing the big source of your motivation is gone and without that you might find yourself disoriented, aimless, empty, depressed, middle age crises...."
It's like you have been on this super fast roller coaster that all of a sudden comes to this halt at the middle of nowhere. Where am I ? How these years passed? When did I grow up this much?
If you start having babies then again your plateau will start steeping upward which means now your babies life curve, affecting yours. Your children milestone becomes yours. You find yourselfe motivated again. But these days many couples having baby at older age and they have easily 5 plateau years or more. Don't be astonished if you find yourself confused, bored since the adrenalin of achieving different milestone is gone. As much as you notice this you will feel better.
I told to my friend, " in today's society we have big milestones to achive which keep us motivated. Motivation is a huge positive source of feeling happy. First we go to school, finish high school, finish university, find a job, find a partner. Now if you are a person who already done with your school, married and working you already achived big parts of your milestones. You reached to the plateau of your life. When you are on the plateau it's important to find out what you want. Without noticing the big source of your motivation is gone and without that you might find yourself disoriented, aimless, empty, depressed, middle age crises...."
It's like you have been on this super fast roller coaster that all of a sudden comes to this halt at the middle of nowhere. Where am I ? How these years passed? When did I grow up this much?
If you start having babies then again your plateau will start steeping upward which means now your babies life curve, affecting yours. Your children milestone becomes yours. You find yourselfe motivated again. But these days many couples having baby at older age and they have easily 5 plateau years or more. Don't be astonished if you find yourself confused, bored since the adrenalin of achieving different milestone is gone. As much as you notice this you will feel better.
To feel the gap we start making other excitement in our life, we define other goals, get my boating liscence, learn fishing, buy a pet, planting, partying like crazy, running for this or that cause. All good, all good. Whatever works I am telling to my self. Just find me my inner peace. Just grow me the right network of connectom. Hallelujah
8 comments:
Hi Hiva,
How are you doing..
When you said about reaching the plateau of your life, I guess that is the point where we have achieved all the goals set for ourselves - in order to find ourselves on good footing. For example, getting a good score in 12th grade will get you into good college and good course, then going for higher studies abroad or at a good institution at home - and stuff like that.. But the bottom line is - all these goals are what havvve to do . They are probably not your real goals purely as a free person - I mean how many hours of playing as a kid and just doing exactly what you enjoy, has one given up to get all these goals mentioned above..
I guess the ultimate inner goal is being able to do exactly what you want and when you want and go where you want when you want..
I guess that probably translates into being in a good country and having good enough money - to be able to do what you want..
Example of people who have reached there may include professional sports players - doing what they enjoy earning millions, or others who travel for a living - and if they dnt like it, they can always do something else...
Basically I guess, goal is to find a way and get to place where you can do what you want when you want to.. What do you think ?
Deep Blue Sea
Well said Hivaie, well said :)
DBS
I agree with your points To get there you do what you can as your circumstances let you. Back where I grew up at some point getting to university was like a big goal for every young person. So they could have decent job,make money and live better.
Reaching to the plateau that I described as you said is more fit in societies which are well developed. I know back home in Iran society every day bring up a new thing to keep people busy with it.
Behiiiiiii jooonam :):)
Hiva joon, well said as always...I really enjoy reading your notes once in a while... Believe it or not, once a week I check your book of life and you should see my face when I see the new topic.....I know why I am so much interested in your write up...I have a lot of common belief and way of thinking to life with you, but I can NOT write it down...and I find your writing as someone who read my heart and mind and put them in words on her book of chapter...Keep up the good work, I am a big fan....
Maryami thanks for your kind words my friend :):)
I write and that's how I put my mind together, you most likely have your own way of seeking into yourself
Hugs,
Hiva
Dear Hiva, since I have your blog as a feed on my website, I saw the first sentences of your post about the Connectom alreday some weeks ago, right then when you published it. I did not comment to right away, since it deals with rather deep thoughted subjects and I thought it is better to wait for a quiet moment to do so.
You said that your constant aim in life is for inner peace. This is right, and it is already deeply coined not only in the behaviour of all living organisms (avoid stress, and seek for maximum pleasure, be it food or energy or other means of well-being), but in fact in the laws of physics, since a enclosed system in equilibrium always takes a state of maximum entropy, I least possible tension. But human, and of cause all other living organisms as well are by no means enclosed systems in equilibrium. Therefore living organisms only begin to follow this phyisical law and increase entropy after their death. As long as we are alive, we will therefore never reach this perfect state of peace. But of course sometimes we wish (as you said). But this is only a temporal pleasure. Sooner or later, we have to interact with the world around us, and thats what human being are supposed to do, for the better or the worse. We acknowledge those people who influenced the world most, by what they created and what they did, as scientists, artists, writer, or any other creative skill. But in fact, those were usually people who lived in anything else than in perfect inner peace. You can read the memories of Chekhov or Einstein, Dostojevskji, or Omar Khajjam, or of Albert Schweizer or Tschajkowski or Robert Oppenheimer: nowhere you will find the notion that they managed to achieve inner peace. The great contributions they made for mankind and for eternity were results of a life of permanent battle against stereotypes and constant dissatisfaction with what they achieved.
I recently heard the marvellous song SHOW MUST GO ON by Freddie Mercury again. The first parts goes
Empty spaces - what are we living for
Abandoned places - I guess we know the score
On and on
Does anybody know what we are looking for
Another hero another mindless crime
Behind the curtain in the pantomime
Hold the line
Does anybody want to take it anymore
The show must go on
The show must go on
Inside my heart is breaking
My make-up may be flaking
But my smile still stays on
Although Freddie Mercury was obviously talking about a love in vain in this song, it could equally understood to talk about the dilemma of human life. We will never reach a state to be completely satisfied, the only solution is to carry on trying (THE SHOW MUST GO ON).
When you think your reached a plateau (i.e. to be happy without any further goals, without feeling there is still much to do and to achieve), this can lead to stagnation and a feeling of emptyness. Best examples are the housewifes in rich suburbs, who have everything but dont even know how they could fill the empty spaces in life (except driving the kids around and going shopping and cooking greasy meals). They might feel a sort of plateau, but I doubt that they are really happy with this. Therefore they need psychatrists or drugs or other "help" to stand up every morning.
But maybe we are talking about different things. I could imagine you have a different concept of this plateau of happiness and peace and satisfaction.
Michael
http://broken-radius.blogspot.de/
http://persian-cat.de/
Hi Michael,
I agree with your points. The plateau of life that I tried to describe is a state of life not mind. Of course for those who always seriously chase a purpose in their life this plateau might now happen at all. Those to me are mostly outliers. But for many of us we reach to this state that feel I need to do something with my life, "middle age crises" maybe!
I have been busy archieving my life milestone and I lost my faith somewhere down the road. I came to myself at 32 thinking why I am not quite satisfied. Maybe if I keep myself busy enough I won't notice. Maybe if I have a baby to take care of, having pet to play with, planting in my garden, then I am satisfied?
I just feel I was too busy to plan reaching to this stage that when I reached it I feel now what?
You are right Show Must Go On :):)
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