Surprise, Cult Leader Steve Pavlina is going to divorce his wife. I tell you it's just shocking! Utterly shocking that the guy who would come out and publicly announce that he will be cheating on his wife isn't going to stay married to her. He insisted that she was okay with it, including a mind numbing podcast on the issue of polyamory where HE said how she was just fine with the arrangement, and SHE would say Uh huh.
Who ever would have guessed that his marital strategy wasn't really going to work? Hmm, it's almost as if sex changes things. Steve rejected the notion that there was anything wrong with sleeping with women other than your wife, even though many told him it wasn't going to work. I figured that Erin was okay with the deal under the assumption that she must have a low sense of self worth, but I guess she values herself more than I had given her credit for. Good for her.
Steve Pavlina is a person that has some good fundamental ideas, but they are all tainted by two things. One is that he has a very poor ability to express his ideas. The other is that his only strategy is to move towards pleasure.
Moving towards pleasure is great, but having that as your ONLY strategy is very self limiting. Steve even recently wrote a series of articles about encouraging people to quit their day jobs under the premise that it's a waste of your life to do something day in and day out that you hate. I agree with that, but a better strategy is to find ways to enjoy things instead of making them unpleasant.
It's funny how it occurred to me that his polyamory announcement was entirely predictable considering his inflexibility towards making things simply be enjoyable, rather than limiting himself to only moving towards pleasure.
Here's what I mean. If you hate going to work everyday, you could quit your job and do what you love, as Steve suggests, OR... You could learn to enjoy life regardless of what you are doing. This is what I like to do with my life. I used to hate my job, but now I wake up and think, "Awesome! I'm in great health and I get to go to work and contribute to society. I wonder what will happen today that will make me laugh so hard it makes tears come out my eyes." It's the same job. I've been there 9 years. Smae job, different attitude.
By loving what you do, regardless of what that is, it gives you much more flexibility in what you are capable of doing. You are not limited to only doing things that seem fun. You can take anything and MAKE it fun.
Think about that. That means you don't have to avoid doing your taxes, or inviting with Uncle Bert for Christmas dinner. You can do those things and know that you can find a way to make it enjoyable. It's still good to aim for doing those things you love, but you're not limited by doing ONLY those things.
By Steve's philosophy, if it seems like it would feel good to sleep with a woman that is not your wife, then you have to do that, because that is moving towards pleasure. My attitude is to spend as much time as you can thinking about how wonderful your wife is and why you married her. If you compare her weakenesses ot another woman's strengths, then you're not going to feel good about her, but if you compare her strengths to another woman's weaknesses, then it is a big win for the wife.
My wife has an amazing ability to create perfect moments. We went on vacation and she insisted on going to this one restaurant that was a 45 minute drive to get to. We got there, and it happened to be the one night of the year that they had this local celebration. The moon rose over the lake, and it was big, orange and full, reflecting off the lake. The food was great, and it was a magical moment to remember. It was amazing. You can't plan that sort of thing.
And I sure as hell would never risk that for a fling with a younger girl. Fuck no. Never.
She'd probably be some horrible had that makes everything miserable and tedious. Oh, yay. But shed be temporarily more physically attractive. Screw that.
Magical memories, or quick fling. It's no contest. My wife wins every time. As a result, I continue to fall even MORE in love with her as time goes by.
You see, but I chose to do that. I made a choice to make the most of what my life IS, then move forward, rather than take Steve's approach and ditch anything that is mildly unpleasant, I make it be the best that I can make it, and then I make it better and better until it evolves into something even greater.
Instead of wishing for the perfect woman and leaving people in my wake, like Steve does, I made a choice to realize that my wife IS the perfect woman, flaws and all.
This sort of mentality simply doesn't occur to Steve. I'm not the least bit surprised he and Erin are going their separate ways.
10.01.2009
Lucid Dreaming is Stupid
Many people seem to have an interest in lucid dreaming. I see articles about the topic frequently on many personal development sites, as well as on general blogs. Personally I don't understand the fascination with the process.
How to have Lucid Dreams
The process of learning to have lucid dreams is basically this. Intend to have a vivid lucid dream, that you will realize is just a dream. Keep a dream log. Wake yourself up in the middle of the night and right down the contents of your dream to the degree that you remember them, Keep doing this night after night until you become more cognizant of your dreams and eventually begin to realize when you are dreaming.
Pardon me, but that just seems like too much work to have a fantasy. You see, there's this thing called an imagination. It's really cool. And it's totally simple to use. All you do is take a few minutes and begin to imagine something happening. As you do this, you focus in on what you are fantasizing. The more you focus, the more you see the images clearly, hear the sounds vividly, and even feel the sensations. Your brain and body don't really know the difference between something that is vividly imagined, and something that happens for real.
On the other hand, Lucid dreaming requires you to go to sleep. Then you need to dream, and realize it. Then you need to begin to take control of the dream, and hope that you don't wake up in the middle even though in all the time leading up to the dream you have programmed yourself to wake up every time you dream, so it's unlikely that you will actually succeed.
It all seems a bit stressful to me. I like to go to sleep and have a deep, restful restorative sleep and wake up rejuvenated, re-energized and ready to take on the day. In fact, that is the intention I offer when I go to sleep at night. The last thing I need is to turn sleep into work by making myself need to accomplish some task in the middle of it.
It's not bad enough that everyone structures their lives to say, "I just need to get more things done. If only I could get more done, then I wold really be able to be happy." Now you have to add to it by piling on a list of things to get done during your sleep rather than just letting go at night so the body can recharge, you have to give it more things it is supposed to accomplish.
Then you go and say: "There's not enough time. I never have enough time for myself. If only I could get more done, then I would have some time for myself." So you look at these stupid tips for getting things done until your dead. That way, you can get through your email more efficiently and pile another dozen items on your to do list just to make sure you stay frazzled about not having enough time.
Instead of trying to get more done in less time, it would make more sense to realize that worrying is a task, and it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of energy too. If you would work on ways to cut out the time you are wasting worrying about things, that would free up plenty of time right there to take 20 minutes and daydream.
Daydreaming is great. It's where ideas come from, and ideas solve problems without taking all that time and energy going:
If you would take a few minutes to daydream, you would KNOW what to do, and what doesn't even need to be done at all. You will find out what can be ignored, what needs to be done first, and what can be outsourced to someone else. And you won't have an ever increasing to do list. And you won't add to it with stupid ideas like Do shit while I sleep because my life just isn't stressful enough.
If that's how you really want to live, go ahead. It's your funeral. I really don't care, but do me a favor and when you're one foot in the grave, just finish the job. Don't go an get heart surgery and take all these medicines to lower your blood pressure, because you've done such a bang up job of killing yourself so far. Why stop now?
Or you could realize that life isn't about feeling stretched too thin, and your actually supposed to be enjoying the adventure of learning, and experiencing. Then you can begin to undo the harm that you've been doing to yourself all this time. Then you won't need the heart surgery.
Lucid dreaming is just another stupid idea in the self help pop culture. You don't usually consciously control you're unconscious processes. And that's what dreaming is. You go to sleep and dreams work out your issues that you need to work through, and offer solutions to problems you need to solve. Unconsciously, you know what needs to be worked out, and how to do it. Consciously, you may think that you would like to do something, but that may not be what you really need.
Daydreaming, on the other hand, is something that you do when you sit down and say, I am going to imagine what it would feel like if this were to happen, and then you do it, and you do get to consciously control it if you want to. You also don't have to not wake up or it's ruined, because you can just pick up where you left off. That's not so easy with lucid dreaming.
Because it's stupid.
How to have Lucid Dreams
The process of learning to have lucid dreams is basically this. Intend to have a vivid lucid dream, that you will realize is just a dream. Keep a dream log. Wake yourself up in the middle of the night and right down the contents of your dream to the degree that you remember them, Keep doing this night after night until you become more cognizant of your dreams and eventually begin to realize when you are dreaming.
Pardon me, but that just seems like too much work to have a fantasy. You see, there's this thing called an imagination. It's really cool. And it's totally simple to use. All you do is take a few minutes and begin to imagine something happening. As you do this, you focus in on what you are fantasizing. The more you focus, the more you see the images clearly, hear the sounds vividly, and even feel the sensations. Your brain and body don't really know the difference between something that is vividly imagined, and something that happens for real.
On the other hand, Lucid dreaming requires you to go to sleep. Then you need to dream, and realize it. Then you need to begin to take control of the dream, and hope that you don't wake up in the middle even though in all the time leading up to the dream you have programmed yourself to wake up every time you dream, so it's unlikely that you will actually succeed.
It all seems a bit stressful to me. I like to go to sleep and have a deep, restful restorative sleep and wake up rejuvenated, re-energized and ready to take on the day. In fact, that is the intention I offer when I go to sleep at night. The last thing I need is to turn sleep into work by making myself need to accomplish some task in the middle of it.
It's not bad enough that everyone structures their lives to say, "I just need to get more things done. If only I could get more done, then I wold really be able to be happy." Now you have to add to it by piling on a list of things to get done during your sleep rather than just letting go at night so the body can recharge, you have to give it more things it is supposed to accomplish.
Then you go and say: "There's not enough time. I never have enough time for myself. If only I could get more done, then I would have some time for myself." So you look at these stupid tips for getting things done until your dead. That way, you can get through your email more efficiently and pile another dozen items on your to do list just to make sure you stay frazzled about not having enough time.
Instead of trying to get more done in less time, it would make more sense to realize that worrying is a task, and it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of energy too. If you would work on ways to cut out the time you are wasting worrying about things, that would free up plenty of time right there to take 20 minutes and daydream.
Daydreaming is great. It's where ideas come from, and ideas solve problems without taking all that time and energy going:
Well, should I do this, or start with that. I might start with this thing, but that could be the wrong thing, and I only have 769 items on my to do list, and if I pick the wrong one, then I will only have 768 items left when I should have done something else instead, so I thing I should sit here worrying about which thing I should do first so that I can make sure that I pick the right item off the list and don't do the wrong one instead, and now another email came in and I need to do three more things so now I have 772 items to do and there's no time to do it so I REALLY had better pick the right thing to work on or I simply won't have enough time left to do anything for myself. Oh, look. 773 items on the to do list and now I have even less time to get them done, I will never get it all done. I'm fucked.
If you would take a few minutes to daydream, you would KNOW what to do, and what doesn't even need to be done at all. You will find out what can be ignored, what needs to be done first, and what can be outsourced to someone else. And you won't have an ever increasing to do list. And you won't add to it with stupid ideas like Do shit while I sleep because my life just isn't stressful enough.
If that's how you really want to live, go ahead. It's your funeral. I really don't care, but do me a favor and when you're one foot in the grave, just finish the job. Don't go an get heart surgery and take all these medicines to lower your blood pressure, because you've done such a bang up job of killing yourself so far. Why stop now?
Or you could realize that life isn't about feeling stretched too thin, and your actually supposed to be enjoying the adventure of learning, and experiencing. Then you can begin to undo the harm that you've been doing to yourself all this time. Then you won't need the heart surgery.
Lucid dreaming is just another stupid idea in the self help pop culture. You don't usually consciously control you're unconscious processes. And that's what dreaming is. You go to sleep and dreams work out your issues that you need to work through, and offer solutions to problems you need to solve. Unconsciously, you know what needs to be worked out, and how to do it. Consciously, you may think that you would like to do something, but that may not be what you really need.
Daydreaming, on the other hand, is something that you do when you sit down and say, I am going to imagine what it would feel like if this were to happen, and then you do it, and you do get to consciously control it if you want to. You also don't have to not wake up or it's ruined, because you can just pick up where you left off. That's not so easy with lucid dreaming.
Because it's stupid.
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