To quote a well known (depending on your age) New Zealand politician - I've been thinking.
Hardly a surprising occurrence if you know me or have read my blog before. Nor is it unusual that I'm up at 3.30am typing.
I'm giving my brain a rest from the Expectation versus Disappointment debate - it's a rather big beast. I thought I'd try enlightenment, nirvana, paradise, bliss - call it what you will - instead (I see your wry smile/snigger/rofl).
A couple of years ago I went on a course entitled The Landmark Forum. Of all the courses I've been on and books I've read I could argue that this one made had the largest impact.
From talking to more experienced people (than myself) on the course I came to the notion that there was a thread running throughout and that was - to kill emotion. This isn't a criticism of the course and in fact I do recommend it to you. It's just a reflection I've come across thinking about aspects of it and trying to tie them up with other things I've come across.
There were a couple of times, during the course, when I was very excited and I was surprised about the reactions this brought on. I had expected that through sharing this exuberation (that's not a real word) I might get a pat on the back or at the very least some happy smiles acknowledging that I'd achieved something. On the contrary, I was scolded for my excessive reaction, and asked/told to reflect on it. Naturally I was deflated at the time and I began to wonder if this course was right for me.
I have to confess I like my boisterousness and feel that it often brings the mood of others around me up as well. I felt that being asked to tone-down something like this seemed a bit anti-positivity in it's nature.
During the course, and afterwards on subsequent programmes, this notion kept popping up and so I spent quite a bit of time pondering the idea of being less emotive. This was about four years ago.
As you may be aware from recent posts there's often a bomb-and-bust pattern to my emotional state. This is exacerbated by the fact that life in Turkey accentuates this pattern. There's very little middle ground. People in general in my experience are either high or low, even though the usual response to "How are you?" seems to be "I'm so-so.".
I've personally felt this recently having, in the last week, experienced the feeling of being let-down by friends. In fact, so much so, that I began to loose faith in humankind in general.
Again as you may be aware it kicked off (pause for cat kneading my arms whilst typing!) this expectation thing. So I started thinking about this.
What would a life without expectations be like? Well, I guess by deduction, it would also be without disappointment.
Then I thought - what would life be like without highs and lows? And this lead me to the idea of my interpretation of nirvana. Based on what I've heard, seen, and read, it seems to me that being enlightened implies that there is no joy but concurrently there is no pain either.
Unlike what some people perceive it to be - like being on drugs the entire time and therefore in some permanent state of bliss (let's not argue this one too much) - I believe it's actually "state-less" if you can catch-my-drift.
Alternatively consider being non-attached (to people and objects). To me this would imply you don't care about these things. But of course it also means you don't not care as well.
Either way it seems to me that there's an absence of emotion.
And so if you can handle it so far - what does this mean?
To put the question another way - would you like a life absent of highs?
For myself I have to say that I'm rather (ahem) attached to them. I'd even go so far as saying I'll weather the lows to have the highs. As, of course, you can't have one without the other.
At this point the think tank has run dry...
Hardly a surprising occurrence if you know me or have read my blog before. Nor is it unusual that I'm up at 3.30am typing.
I'm giving my brain a rest from the Expectation versus Disappointment debate - it's a rather big beast. I thought I'd try enlightenment, nirvana, paradise, bliss - call it what you will - instead (I see your wry smile/snigger/rofl).
A couple of years ago I went on a course entitled The Landmark Forum. Of all the courses I've been on and books I've read I could argue that this one made had the largest impact.
From talking to more experienced people (than myself) on the course I came to the notion that there was a thread running throughout and that was - to kill emotion. This isn't a criticism of the course and in fact I do recommend it to you. It's just a reflection I've come across thinking about aspects of it and trying to tie them up with other things I've come across.
There were a couple of times, during the course, when I was very excited and I was surprised about the reactions this brought on. I had expected that through sharing this exuberation (that's not a real word) I might get a pat on the back or at the very least some happy smiles acknowledging that I'd achieved something. On the contrary, I was scolded for my excessive reaction, and asked/told to reflect on it. Naturally I was deflated at the time and I began to wonder if this course was right for me.
I have to confess I like my boisterousness and feel that it often brings the mood of others around me up as well. I felt that being asked to tone-down something like this seemed a bit anti-positivity in it's nature.
During the course, and afterwards on subsequent programmes, this notion kept popping up and so I spent quite a bit of time pondering the idea of being less emotive. This was about four years ago.
As you may be aware from recent posts there's often a bomb-and-bust pattern to my emotional state. This is exacerbated by the fact that life in Turkey accentuates this pattern. There's very little middle ground. People in general in my experience are either high or low, even though the usual response to "How are you?" seems to be "I'm so-so.".
I've personally felt this recently having, in the last week, experienced the feeling of being let-down by friends. In fact, so much so, that I began to loose faith in humankind in general.
Again as you may be aware it kicked off (pause for cat kneading my arms whilst typing!) this expectation thing. So I started thinking about this.
What would a life without expectations be like? Well, I guess by deduction, it would also be without disappointment.
Then I thought - what would life be like without highs and lows? And this lead me to the idea of my interpretation of nirvana. Based on what I've heard, seen, and read, it seems to me that being enlightened implies that there is no joy but concurrently there is no pain either.
Unlike what some people perceive it to be - like being on drugs the entire time and therefore in some permanent state of bliss (let's not argue this one too much) - I believe it's actually "state-less" if you can catch-my-drift.
Alternatively consider being non-attached (to people and objects). To me this would imply you don't care about these things. But of course it also means you don't not care as well.
Either way it seems to me that there's an absence of emotion.
And so if you can handle it so far - what does this mean?
To put the question another way - would you like a life absent of highs?
For myself I have to say that I'm rather (ahem) attached to them. I'd even go so far as saying I'll weather the lows to have the highs. As, of course, you can't have one without the other.
At this point the think tank has run dry...
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