Question everything

When you “know” something, question it more.

Why? How could you have a sense of stability if you’re always questioning everything?

There are two vital functions that are served by questioning everything.

1. You may think that by questioning everything, you lose stability, but I find the opposite to be true. Through continuous inquiry, what’s “real” sticks around. You don’t lose stability, you gain it by uncovering a greater understanding of the “truth.”

2. Conversely, by always questioning, you increase the chance that you find out something isn’t the way you thought it was. By virtue of having this habit, when this happens, you can rejoice. It becomes easier to let go of “false” concepts without clinging to them; without identifying the self as being the thoughts.

It’s a filter. Like panning for gold in the mind.

Concepts undergo the process of stratification, the gold stays in the pan, while the dirt is loosened, lifted, and washed out.

It’s destructive towards errant thoughts and behavior, and constructive towards truth and authenticity.

You can develop conviction about things while maintaining flexibility to learn and grow.

You can be relaxed and calm when presented with opposing viewpoints and be able to examine them with honesty without taking them personally.

With this frame, when your views are opposed or questioned, they won’t be fragile, they’ll be informed.

You can avoid the trap of “being stuck in your ways.”

But— for all this to work the questioning needs to remain honest, it needs to be applied evenly, even when it’s uncomfortable, and importantly, it requires an acceptance of self-accountability.

There are many elusive ways to get stuck in life, having pride in thinking you really “know” something, and inadvertently allowing that pride to stifle your development is one of them.

Part of my concept of questioning everything is derived to facilitate being comfortable holding the magnifying glass to yourself and taking a closer look.

To be able to uncover and let go of the heavy weights that you may be carrying with you through life without realizing it.

This can take time, and often, actual experience is needed to move things along in that process, but progress is surely possible.

It’s all risky

Risk is always there, whether we’re conscious of it or not.

Every time you get into a car, or a bus, or a plane, or a train— any vehicle, you risk getting into an accident.

You can try to avoid risk by sheltering yourself in a box and not doing anything, but there’s also bountiful risk in inaction.

You can plug in any scenario and quickly realize that in actuality, there’s risk involved in everything.

Even if you don’t pay attention to risk, or are aware of the stakes, you can’t avoid that it exists.

Yet, despite knowing that risk is practically omnipresent, it’s easy to develop a strong aversion to it.

Consider that risk is always there. Why try to escape it? Is that a productive habit or a worthwhile pursuit?

There’s great risk involved even in simply living our regular, mundane, day to day lives.

Does it actually make any sense to allow risk to impose anything upon you? To let it stop you from being bold?

Why not use this understanding of risk to find strength in taking the big swings?

The risk of inaction can be difficult to identify, but it is surely there, and you may not realize just how much you’re putting on the line because of it.

To be seen

I was recently asked:

“What’s your relationship with visibility / being seen by the outside world?”

I’ll start by establishing a general understanding of how I’m interpreting “being seen.”

If we’re talking about merely being perceived with the eyes, then it could be said that being seen is simple. It’s mechanical. It’s a binary yes or no. There isn’t too much to it in the way of a relationship— you’re either being seen or you’re not.

On the other hand, if we’re talking about perception beyond the visual, if “being seen” also includes experiencing and understanding someone, then it gets interesting.

In this context, who really has the ability to see? Can you say that you have ever seen the entirety of anyone’s being? I can’t say that I have.

I may have seen aspects or glimpses of someone, but to what extent are my perceptions of others ultimately accurate and trustworthy anyway?

I can’t even say that I fully know my own being, my own self. How well can I expect to see others?

From this perspective, I am indifferent toward being seen— in and of itself being seen doesn’t inherently carry any weight.

But somehow, there is a time where being seen does become meaningful to me.

It falls within the outcome, not the act itself.

If I am to be seen, to be perceived, to occupy space in one’s mind, I aspire to have that presence be something that is of benefit to them.

It’s irrelevant if I am being fully seen, or if what others perceive of me aligns with what I perceive of myself— I have no control over that and wouldn’t want to either.

At the end of the day, I am imperfect, and that’s okay. Knowing that I internally hold an altruistic intent is enough for me.

I am content.

Dissection of self

Someone dear to me was reflecting on their experience with therapy and likened it to “dissecting yourself with someone else.”

This struck me as being a uniquely apt metaphor. It was a seemingly simple statement, said casually at a lunch, but carried much depth in my eyes.

It’s far more difficult to distill the essence of something into a short phrase than it is to use long winded exposition.

I appreciate those with the ability to be comprehensively concise— it’s a skill I aspire to develop.

Pith.