If not anger…
In my last post First Principles & Horseshit, I wondered about whether my penchant for having to get angry at real problems before I could effectively solve them was a sustainable way of being.
After thinking about it for awhile, I came to focus on another way that I’ve been slowly buying into more and more as I’ve gotten older - ’the way'.
Stoics call it the logos. Taoists call it the dao. Hinduists call it Ṛta. Basically the idea that there is a natural logic or flow to the universe, and the accompanying notion that the key to a happy and prosperous life is to simply listen to, and live in accordance with, it. This guy’s youtube videos are a palatable way of learning about it all, I have found. Slightly less click-baity than some of the alternatives, and I find the accent comforting.
For most of my life, ideas around “surrendering to the universe’s will” (a) sounded a bit hippy-dippee, and (b) threatened my feelings of agency and free-will, which for a privileged A-type personality was troubling. But as I get older, I get a lot of comfort from it.
I have struggled forever with ego and anxiety. That doesn’t make me special in any way - it just is what has caused me the most pain and trouble. I’ve always had a penchant for seeing life and all of its activities through a lens of whether I’m ‘good at it’, or ‘bad at it’, and what that says about my value as a person. Which, as I say it out loud, is obviously an issue. Trial law was a particularly tall lightning rod for this, when I was in private practice.
The problem with seeing the world this way is it exaggerates my role in things. We certainly seem to have the agency to make choices, and we can’t sit around passively doing nothing. But our choices do not completely determine our outcomes, the way that other A-type control freaks like myself convince themselves they do.
That used to bug me. Now it’s the thing giving me peace.
Most of the biggest decisions and events in my life were not in my control. Looking back and realizing that is liberating. It takes a lot of the pressure off.
It’s also the case that during the times in my life when I flowed, listened to my circumstances, and surfed them accordingly, I tended to prosper the most and be the happiest. Unfortunately I’ve spent a giant chunk of my life struggling against, rather than surfing with, the tide. Trying to force what I’ve convinced myself I should be, or should do, or should become. I’d like to think I’m finished with that now.
So that’s where I’m at. Giving in to a broader sense of determinism, taking life and opportunities as they come, and focusing less on my worth as determined by what I’m doing or making happen. Instead, I do what life clearly requires, and otherwise find activities that let me shut my brain off like tetris or ping pong or spending time with my daughter.
I think peace of mind is a lot like golf, in the sense that some days you’ll inexplicably have it, and some days you won’t. But for now, focusing on this stuff has me in a good place, and I’m hoping it can last.