Day-031-"hiding in the shed"

I want to change direction professionally and to do that I have to find a new way and expand on my existing area of expertise. I know about marketing, advertising, branding, photography and I have always 'loved' everything that involved bikes. More specifically mountain bikes. So if someone would ask me what I would love to do most proffesionally? It would be working in or around the bike industry. To me the bicycle is the best mechanical invention ever. Riding a bike even in its most simple form gives one a direct physical experience of every mechanical law in nature. In it's raw form it has no more parts than it needs to function. Using the same force as it would take one to simply walk, a bike  moves you 4 times faster. 

I was pondering on these perspectives as I was looking back on my career and I noticed that I had a few opportunities a long the way that could have been life changers but I did not use one. Not one! I kind of blocked those memories. Due to my present situation these images came up and forced me to take a self honest look at why I did not use those opportunities at the time and why I find it so extremely hard to get myself moving towards self change within these point.

Primarily it was fear. I remember the first time an advertising agency contacted me as I was just moving from on job to the other. Everything was already sort of arranged and more importantly I had a new relationship going with a girl in that new town I was moving to. Nevertheless I talked to the guys from the agency and looking back I see myself behaving cocky and arrogant. I was in a safe position to behave like that so like most overconfident 25 year olds I did. Hormones and a complete lack of humility probably.

They made me a great offer and I refused. Why?  Maybe because I already had a new job and most importantly a relationship. Relationships are the best way to distract one from reality. Furthermore their job would mean taking full responsibility for 2 brands. Two clients where I would have full creative responsibility for end results. So beneath al the bravura I was actually scared shitless, suppressed that fear and took on that cocky arrogant character. I moved away from Arnhem and landed in an office where I would eventually experience a burn out. The offer I got in Arnhem would have landed me with one of the biggest bike brands in Holland at the time. It would have given me the opportunity to meet people in the bike industry, build a network and move from there. WTF was I thinking....

This was not the first time I saw myself do this. My whole life is filled with moments where a seemingly simple decision means a different direction that completely alters ones coarse in life. Small moments big effects. A moment, that would require a little risk and pushing myself to learn a few new skills or fail within it. That's all I had to do. But I didn't and I choose to remain in my comfort zone. A zone where less opportunity presents itself. In retrospect I can say that less opportunities will start to present themselves and the route will become more dusty and less profitable as one gets older.

The past week I noted somewhere I was 'mindless' within not taking the risk of failure at the same time creating a change to grow and learn something new.

So the prime point here was taking risks... 

Interesting, in my upbringing taking risks especially those with financial consequence where considered 'mindless'. And since the first startup I was part off was not a success I sort of surrendered to that believe. But what I saw was that the way I generally use the word 'mindless' actually means the opposite? In general we tend to use the word 'mindless' when our behavior or that of someone else is not thought out. In other words someone is doing things without planning or a pre determined strategy. 

Look at how often we speak to our children like that. "Stop that mindless bullshit and so forth". However... Observing myself and my behavior as my mind and what I have accepted and allowed and decided to become as such gives a whole new meaning to the word 'mindless'.

Never in my thinking existence have I ever been mindless. In fact all my actions derive from myself as my mind even in my sleep in my dreams is it me as the mind that occupies my being. So from that perspective it's rather pathetic to judge myself or other peoples behavior as mindless because it simply never is, not even when we sleep.

I did not write for quite some time. I just didn't. Yuk! Fed up with being confronted with the vastness of these points at the moment. Normally I would say I'm depressed but what's a depression more than giving myself another reason to do nothing about it. 

I fear change and I fear changing myself. There it is. At the same time I must. The illusions of backdoors are gone there are no more exits. Like the banking system the facts are here for me to face. I'm also having these strange lower back problems. So something is happening at my base so to speak. I find it very hard to keep my back straight at the moment.

I can stabilize myself a little by doing sports so I started doing sports again and that involves a bike. My old bike was in pieces so I looked what was lying around and enjoyed building a bike from the materials I had and getting everything dialed inn. Being in my shed working with my hands calms me down. It helps me to stabilize and remain in the moment with what I'm physically doing. I also started training again on a regular basis to support my back. I have some indicators to why my back behaves like it does. Besides the psychosomatic causes there is the simple physical fact I have been sitting behind a desk my whole working life. So that's another thing I want to change. As little desk as possible.

Anyway looking back I was judging myself and my behavior in the past as reckless and mindless. Reckless-mindless. Where did that judgement come from? In sports I took risks (reckless). In my career I didn't (mindless). But isn't it strange that I use these thought constructs and eventually end up and decide to follow the path to self diminishment. So perhaps instead of mindless it's the opposite. It's within my participation as the mind I determine my actions. It's all mined from my mind.

So from that perspective there is no action in this world that can be mindless. Then it would be mindless thus without self interest. A long time ago as I sat in yoga class doing my best to become 'mindless' and enlightened it was in fact the realms of my mind I was exploring. There is no way out!

In that sense yes, being lost in and as the mind is an out of body experience but more as total denial of the body/this physical reality. If not for the fact that the same mind mines the body for energy thus holding the body enslaved thus cannot allow itself to leave. I suppose it would be possible to go nuts on purpose and become a famous mummy. Or set yourself on fire or something. History has plenty of examples of minds that do crazy shit in order to get attention.

Interesting the behavior I address as mindlessness is in fact always a point of self interest. Doing what I want to do whatever the consequence. Ego-nomics of some sort. Getting it according to my will and not take anything or anyone in consideration. How genius to call people 'mindless'. It completely camouflages my own responsibility of seeing a mind at work and instead of doing something about it I judge it. By doing so I'm in fact judging myself. Wether I'm a binge drinker, a heroine addict or an adrenaline crazy sports fanatic or soldier in Afghanistan. Calling myself or others mindless is acknowledgement of seeing the mind in action and not taking responsibility for it. 

Looking at myself I can say for sure that the most crappy shit I pull in life requires total denial of the physical reality meaning to lie to myself with absolute involvement of my mind especially in close collaboration with other minds because that makes my lies and behavior more acceptable and less conspicuous.

Eventually I find myself integrated with this bullshit to a point I start to identify with it as myself thus becoming the bullshit. And that's how I felt the last weeks. Slowly sinking back and very ashamed as part of all the bullshit and making it worse by allowing myself to sink further instead of giving myself some clarity about what I was doing. Writing it down in whatever way. I failed big time.

And it's within these small observations of using a word like 'mindless' I find a small peace of the nasty reality that I co create as the mind. True mindlessness would imply common sense and taking full responsibility for my physical reality in self honesty. I can say that that is something I proofed to myself once again how difficult this process can be at times. Ok I'm writing again but that does not change the fact that there is a lot on my list that makes me rather green around the nose. I created all of my reality based on assumptions coming from my mind. This can't be trusted meaning I have to take responsibility for it. Looting evolves from my mind that's why my evolution is nothing more than a story about robbing and steeling. I am an evil looter and I can see it because mindlessness does not exist until this reality become one as a reality that is not of mind.

The resistance to physical action towards writing myself out is really intense at the moment. It's kind of painful to see how much bullshit I'm is able to create in a few weeks. It's overwhelming at times to see that I really think and behave solely as mind not able to stop myself, completely controlled by the patterns and habits because I stopped writing. These few words kind of feel like an attempt to come out of my shed.