Focus on Life™

We focus on growth—it’s everything. Our current economy is based on the ever-expanding growth paradigm. It does not work without it. Our monetary base grows every year. Valuations need to grow, as well as profits and revenues. The society is driven by this growth mania.

And how do we do this? By producing and consuming more, or should I say evermore, ever-expanding. And by consuming more we feed more needs to expand the business and acquire new resources to fulfil the needs of the growth. And so the cycle goes on and on—but not forever. Sole expansion is not natural, it pairs with contraction, in nature that is.

Seldom we start to question the basis of the assumptions and thinking underneath. What is the purpose of the growth and why is it needed? Some would say that it is because of money. And in many ways they are right. The fiat money system is built upon a hypothesis of ever-expanding promises of debt that are not paid back but rolled over. It requires more units of money to survive. As a result of this there are only raising prices and continuous inflation (expansion). For example US dollar has lost over 95% of its value since 1913 when the Federal Reserve was established. Does this create wealth for all the citizens using the legal tender?

But coming back to the question why the growth and what’s the purpose of it. More money does not answer the question; it only explains the way the current system is working. Actually money has nothing do with the real issue—it’s only a poor middleman that is often misunderstood to be the purpose when it can only be the means for something else. Money is used to obtain goods, services, or intangible needs such as security. We would not consume more simply because our monetary system requires so. There is something else underneath that feeds the requirements and keeps the wheels turning. And once again we are getting back to each and every one of us, individually. No company consume, buy, sell, manufacture, or invest—only people do. Structures are mere tools and vehicles for our purposes, ignore them long enough and they disappear. There is no one to blame but us. It’s not the economy, stupid—it’s us, the people!

We have bought the idea and assume that more is better. More money means something better, more consumption provides with something more and so on. Having more is the key and this having is the cause of the ever-expansion in our needs. But if you never consider why you need to have more you will never approach the real issue, you simply will act to gain more of something—forever and ever more.

Wanting is easy. Also having more is relatively easy, even though it takes its toll. But being happy has nothing to do with wanting or having. Confucius once said: “they must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” It looks that buying happiness does not seem to work despite all the consumption and material well-being. Maybe it is time to reconsider our assumptions and beliefs that define our current growth paradigm, individually?

Have you ever considered what dying means? Often we are
very shady and quiet about death. It is something we do not
want to consider or think about. It is a taboo. It is something
that only happens to somebody else—not to us. In other
words—we are afraid of it. But why?

What exactly are we afraid of? Something we do not know
anything about? Maybe.

Dying means that we are departed instantly from every-
thing we are attached to and have. We have to give away
everything so familiar and “natural” to us, something and
everything we have taken for granted. Our health, physical
body, friends, family, wealth, possessions, lifestyle, habits, and
so on. This is death. It is detachment.

Clinging and attachment do not have to be physical in
nature. We can have obsessions, desires, needs, and cravings.
Suddenly we cannot satisfy those by physical means anymore.
We are forced to be without them. This is death.

We have to die in order to live. What does that mean? We
think that we are alive and kicking when we are driven by our
lower qualities like desire, lust, obsession, and so on.
Satisfying and fulfilling these consume most of our lives. We
call this living. We are in a never-ending circle where old
needs are fulfilled and instantly new ones arise. How liberat-
ing and happy!

Being truly alive means that we are free to live, not
obsessed or forced continuously to fulfil something. Free to
be.In order to achieve this, we have to set ourselves free from
our attachments and desires. They are strong and we cannot
win them by force. The more we resist them, the larger they
become. We can beat them only by ignoring them, by learn-
ing to live without them, by detaching ourselves from every-
thing in a similar manner—as death will do to us, finally, but
this time we do it voluntarily, gradually.

It is a misunderstanding to believe that detachment will
mean literally dying and living without anything interesting
or fun. On the contrary, how much fun and freedom do you
have when you are obsessed by something? Detachment does
not mean giving up living—only giving away all the attach-
ment and clinging. You can still enjoy the sunrise and have a
delicious meal, but the difference is that those do not bear any
utility value for you anymore—they simply are. There is no
need for anything. One is not lacking anything because need
implicitly declares a lack of something (i.e., the object of the
need).

Clinging and attachment are based on ignorance, and de
facto the only thing to give away is the wrong understanding.
Greater wisdom liberates. Always.

When you want something you also state that you don’t have
something. Your object of wanting is the very thing you’re
missing. In other words, you’re declaring your imperfectness.
There is something in you that still requires and is in need.

The person who is at peace and has achieved a state of
calmness needs no thing. He or she has everything. What was
it that you needed?

As long as there is something that changes, the quest is not
over. Anything that is not permanent and independent is still
becoming; it depends on its external circumstances and,
therefore, more or less reacts to these.

A constant state is independent of any outside events or
situations as well as any temporal fluctuations such as day or
night. How stable is your consciousness?

(To) Be.
We are just becoming.
As long as we have to become, we are not. When we only are,
there is nothing else. A pure state of existence.

We live in a state of constant longing. The current moment
seems never to be enough. When we’ve reached one thing, we
immediately long for something else. The grass is always
greener on the other side. The main idea here is that we are
wanting: always and for something. But what are we longing
for?

Our yearning is a sensation we have a hard time describ-
ing. It is something that surrounds us but still we are not able
to explain it exactly. Longing is something formless that
encircles us. It is a notion in us that seeks existence and
expression through us. One could say that longing uses us as
its vehicle for material existence.

In practice, this means that we project our yearning for a
physical or tangible form. We attach our desires for some
objects or objectives. Depending on the circumstances, it can
be a person we are missing, a better job, our own apartment,
our spouse, wealth, or an occupation, to name a few. No mat-
ter the subject, the important point is that for us, it is some-
thing concrete. We have a hard time separating the object
from the subject. We mark the object of the longing and start
to regard it as the means of improving our state of being (i.e.,
our inner condition).

We are all familiar with the results. The instant we have
achieved that something that we wanted, we are after some-
thing else. We are not satisfied, which was the whole purpose
of the issue. Now we are after something else. So, what actu-
ally happens?

Longing makes us active. It drives us to experience and
face different challenges in life. What would happen if we
would not long for anything? Nothing. But there would not
be much progress either. If no one is either after or lacking
anything, because longing implies a condition where the sub-
ject is incomplete and seeks the missing component, nothing
would improve or change.

It is important to identify this continuous process we are
going through. One should realize that longing is not “us”—
we can never become fulfilled by any means outside of our
inner being. Therefore, if we can see through this longing and
ignore its quest, we are already closer to being “complete.” We
are not running around and reaching for something illusion-
ary. All we need to do is to identify our behavioral patterns
and make conscious actions instead of commit blind obedi-
ence. How about reaching for nonlonging?

Often we want something—we want to learn new skills, get
rid of bad habits, or change something in our behavior. We
are continuously in a state of wanting or becoming. Are we
ever getting anywhere?

Wanting (or becoming) states loud and clear that we do
not have something. If we had the “something,” we would no
longer want it. Therefore, wanting is always related to time. It
is a declaration that asserts that we are lacking something,
and in the future we would desire to change or gain some-
thing. But we need time. Or do we?

Unfortunately, we are in a loop. This loop is just the steady
state of wanting. The object of wanting changes, but we are
always looking at the future. Never is the right time “to be”
the something. Instead of wanting, we should act. It is easy to
postpone and only want something. And time is our greatest
excuse. If we do nothing, it does not just get better with time.
If we want something, it requires action right now—never in
the future. Every moment we want something means that in
that moment we declare that we are not something. How
could we be something else if we are saying that we are not?
This contradiction results that we are just wanting and get-
ting exactly what we desired—purely want.

The first step is to stop wanting and start to act. For
instance, how do you become a gentleman? You simply be
one. It is often hard to instantly change your behavior, but the
mind-set can be changed immediately. When we stop repeat-
ing that we want (i.e., “I’m lacking something”) but start to
act we are already halfway through. We declare who we are by
our actions and then we are.

“I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” like the Rolling Stones used to sing. Still we are after the pleasures of life endlessly.

In a way it’s funny that we are after the image in our mind we have perceived in the past. We got satisfaction from an occurrence and now we cannot get it back. We have the memory, the snapshot, of the feeling and that’s what we are after—reproduction of the image. We are in the illusion business.

When we get satisfaction from something we want it to last. Forever and ever, to be reproduced again. Finally the similar occurrence is not providing any pleasantness anymore. The illusion is gone. We have to try to find something else. We are after the great feeling—the perception of the memory. How tiresome.

Why do two people live together? This question came up
today when my friend had some issues with his spouse.

The framework Martin Buber created in his famous book
I and Thou in the 1920s is one way to treat the subject. Most
of the time we are living in an I—It relationship with our
world. The world around us has some purpose for us. We
have created names (labels) and categories for various items,
things, and actions around us. We have a perception of them
and we think (i.e., we think we know) what they are. This
works OK with ordinary functions and items but not so well
with people. Still, most of the time we treat people like
things. They serve a purpose for us.

Another relationship is possible and this is I—Thou way
of being in the world. We do not try to categorize or label the
other. We admit that we cannot know the other person
entirely, not even talking about changing him or her. In addi-
tion, we are constantly changing, which means that nothing is
static (i.e., our thought model will not be realistic). In an I—
Thou relationship, we do not have any purpose, function, or
“image” of the other person in our mind. We simply take the
other as “fresh,” how she or he appears and is. We both are
what we are and discover each other every moment. This rela-
tionship can be achieved via a dialogue. In dialogue, both par-
ties share and contribute by creating something between
them that has no preconditioning or any expectations.

Quite a lot of marriages end up in divorce nowadays. We
often hear couples explain the reason for the split as the other
party changed or the couple just drifted apart over time. This
could not happen in an I—Thou relationship where someone
is not trying to get something from the other party. Nor is
there any attempt to change or try to define the other person.
When we create an image of the other person in our mind, we
also instantly create expectations and relationships. We create
an object that serves a purpose for us. Everything is fine as
long as the “image” in our mind matches with the reality. But
it only takes a few moments before the other changes and
shows some parts of his or her existence that do not fit to our
“perfect” picture of the other we had created earlier on. When
the illusion is broken, we get angry. We are disappointed or
frustrated. Our image of the beautiful life together did not
materialize. We had thought it through already (i.e., lived) in
our mind and then we just should have had to live according
to our predefined plan (i.e., imagination). When this does not
happen, we blame the other. We did not expect this. We did
not want this or we did not expect this to happen. The other
has changed—how unfair! Is there anything or anyone we can
rely on or trust anymore on these days!?!

Did we ever know the other? Did we actually have our own
needs and illusions and dreams we wanted to fulfil? The other
was just an object for those purposes. He or she came into the
picture because I needed him or her to fulfil my
dreams/needs. Maybe I was lonely, or needed to improve my
self-esteem, or I was after wealth or security, wanted to fulfil
others’ expectations (e.g., relatives) of a socially acceptable life
or I wanted to have a beautiful wedding or a family. Maybe I
was after happiness because I was unhappy before. Being
together was not enough in the first place. The question was
not even about the other person. We disappointed ourselves.
We failed our own expectations. The other person was just a
vehicle for our own needs. Were there any possibilities for a
lasting relationship after all—maybe everything went wrong
from the first impression (thought)?

Relationships can work out only when we are not expect-
ing anything from the other, ever, and when there is no need
to be fulfilled or anything that is lacked. When just being is
enough and no expectations are laid out, we can find love and
happiness. A true dialogue.

Actors monitor their performances by watching the dailies.
The best dailies are watched by no one We just live them.

We would learn so much by being able to watch our own
dailies each evening. Weekly review, not even yearly or
decadewide appraisal, would be sufficient. Most of the time
we are so busy, so occupied with something to do.

The TV is on, the radio at least. If we have a free moment,
we catch up on the unread papers or magazines. While we
await the next meeting or appointment, we spend our few
spare moments talking to someone on the cell phone. We
have got nothing to do at home? Start cleaning. Arrange your
record collection. Go for a coffee. Never stop. Fill your life
with action and noise.

Feel important. Feel loved. Feel experienced. Feel busy.
Feel balanced. Feel secure. Feel happy.

What happens if we stop? Can we stop? Most of our lives
we are hiding, escaping, filling the blanks by occupying our-
selves. Refusing to face ourself. We look for easy fixes.

We’re after feeling good. We’re after happiness. The prob-
lem is that our perception of happiness changes the minute
we achieve what we were after. Our object of desire and hap-
piness shifts from item to item, never stopping. We’re like
hamsters in the wheel—until we decide to step out of it.To
do that, we need to see the dailies first. Not many of us have
found those. They are hidden to the world we know nothing
about. They are too close to us. We just live them by spinning
the wheel.