December 8, 2012
-
Poem and Reflections: Habits
Man in the Mirror
Descent, into the unknown depths causes my Dissent
This lack of resonance, concordance, why, why, WHY?
Must this shattered mirror project me so BROKEN?
Disfigured, and Ugly?
Who is this man that stares at me with Malice,
This fake thing I see before me, this hollow man.
Who is this rotting thing I see, who is this?
Is it me? but why, why, WHY? Am I... so broken?
Why is this mirror so broken? And when I touch it,
Why is it so smooth? As if it weren't in the pieces I see,
But it is, IT IS, it has to be, for if the mirror were not,
Then... I am, am I? I am, the one who is falling apart?
I am the one who is in pieces, I am the one?
The one who stares at this reflective surface,
And I am the one who sees, someone I don't...
I don't recognize, the Truth, here, the Lies, here
Help me to understand, this, this, travesty
Travesty of Reality, so grim and uncompromising
Damn this hurts. Why does it hurt? to look
Look at the man in the Mirror.
Reflections in a Mirror:Habits play a fundamental role in our existence, they are essentially inescapable, as something as simple of walking is done out of habitual subconscious patterns. When we engage in nearly any activity, we begin to form routines, or mini programs that run in response to your cues to do so. Take typing for instance, that is an excellent form of habitual behavior that functions very much like running a program. At first, when you start out, you have to think very hard about exactly what it is you are doing, as you slowly teach yourself how type each of the keys from memory, so you are not constantly looking, you get better. Eventually you learn how to do that, then as you continue to type, you start to teach yourself words, and pretty soon, just intending the word to appear on the screen, produces that word on the screen, with very little to no conscious effort. That is achieved entirely by the same mechanism we use to form habits. Like mini computer programs, we spit out words on the screen.
Our ability to form habits is both fortunate, and unfortunate. After all, the brain is gray matter, and its many inner workings are a mater of grayness, meaning we can use it to both help and hinder ourselves. On one hand, it takes complicated physical tasks, and makes them simple, walking for instance, is not something you were born knowing how to do, and over the years you have learned how to take all the complex data that is involved in moving with intention, and simplified it to point where the mere intention runs the required program. But this gift comes at a high price sometimes, as our capacity to function on autopilot also extends itself towards many mental behaviors and conditioning as well. Failure to recognize that our thoughts and actions are not innately reactionary, that we have the capacity to replace poor patterns of thought with better ones, can often lead people to circle the drain. Because, you can not change, what you can not see or comprehend.
Take for instance the Law of Attraction, even if it does not hold any metaphysical truth, it definitely holds some psychological truth, and one can benefit from understanding its true nature.
“In accordance with the Law of Attraction, you attract into your life those things, circumstances and conditions that correspond with the nature of your dominant, habitual thoughts and beliefs, both conscious and subconscious. Every area of your life, including your health, your finances and all of your relationships, are influenced by this.”
Excluding any Metaphysical aspect of this law, psychologically, your mind loves to strengthen its patterns and viewpoints. As with any activity, the more you engage in it, the easier it becomes the next time, until it seems so easy, it is as if there is no thought in it any longer. Thus the negative thoughts and mental conditioning you hold onto, only serves to feed itself, as you subconsciously or through ignorant consciousness, set about cultivating the circumstances to have your habits of thought reinforced.
This leads me to the concept of Karma, it is not a metaphysical principle for the most part, Karma is a scientific concept at its heart, it is the understanding of the complexities of how our current thoughts and actions affect our current and future experiences. Breaking out of unwanted karmic patterns, and cultivating desired karmic patterns, is how one consciously designs one's life.
Lets take a person, we will call her Girl. Girl has been raised with the repeated exposure to the idea that guys only want one thing, sex. She has also been raised with the concept that being wanted for just sex is an undesirable thing. With the exposure to these two concepts pervading most of her thoughts towards men, she sets the stage for developing habitual trains of thought, that feeds on itself. She has two experiences with men, that for one reason or another, lead her to reinforce her views towards men only wanting one thing, and because of the concept that this is bad, it provokes a fear response inspiring a need to find someone that wants her for more than just sex. Catering to this fear response, which developed out of habitual one track thinking, causes her to test the future men she enters into a relationship with. This testing puts undue strain on the relationship, and causes all the men she has been with since, to think she is fucking nuts. Only further reinforcing her view point, because in her habitual thought process, the blame for them leaving, is because they didn't want to be with “her” just her body and she proved it because they left, rather than understanding that the act of her trying to prove something that may have been false, was driving all of the people that had the potential to add true value to her life away (because she was nutz).
An over simplification, but the premise is sound, and something I have seen and experienced. How people become trapped in mindsets that reinforce their own self limiting thoughts and behaviors, guiding situations towards the worse possible outcome by picking the same type of man over and over, or picking the same type of girl over and over, or overreacting out of some fear of something, causing the stressors and climate for the very thing they are obsessing over, to manifest.
The mind is our filter for our perception of reality, if you train it to perceive things a certain way, it innately suppresses the knowledge that things could function any other way. Because of this, the more you become entrenched in your feedback loop, the more difficult it is to see how your behavior, thoughts, or perceptions, are not actually being productive, and are in fact, generally bringing more of what you do not what into your life.
Training yourself to become more conscious of your life, more mindful of your thoughts and actions, is the primary method of countering this, developing the habit of not having habits. I always find, that almost every thought or conclusion I come to, someone has already come to it, and probably expressed it better, so regardless of the fact that I may have come to it from my own root thought processes and observations on the nature of reality, I always seek out YouTube video's and articles of people who have arrived at similar conclusions to myself, because, they might be able in the position to get the actual scientific data, thus having more credibility, or they might have a different or better way of explaining a concept I am having difficulties expressing, they might be further along the same path I am already traveling, thus giving me insights I have yet to experience, so that I might be able to look for the evidence to support it. Many many reasons, let me leave you some of the better aritcles and videos I have come across.
This video is truly worth watching, so that you understand the difference between habits, and living consciously, and in how to begin the process of deconstructing habits, because despite what some of these articles claim, it is possible to erase a habit, not just transmute it, transmuting it is just easier. Two key aspects are mindfulness, and learning to be comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.
And the rest of the links:
HERE
HERE
and HERE, they are all one article, spread across three pages, on how to deal with negative thought patterns and habits, both from a Buddhist perspective and from a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy perspective, with a comparison of the similarities.http://suite101.com/article/habitones-greatest-asset-and-liability-at-once-a217447
http://artofmanliness.com/2012/11/20/power-of-habits/I wrote the poem after the Article this time, instead of the other way around, it is inspired by how I see the people in my life unable to face the reflections they see, when they look to deep within. If you truly don't like the man in the mirror, change it so that you do, the only one stopping you, is yourself.
Comments (11)
You are definitely a deep thinker. Thanks for visiting the gate earlier and you are welcome to join.
[Link]
I've just read it...I think you write pretty good=)
excellent poem
@yle85 - *Smiles* Thank you.
@godfatherofgreenbay - ArigatÅ
This reminds me of a piece that I wrote some time during your absence. How often do your reflections take into account another's perceptions? I think it is important to isolate the mirror others see from you, as well as the mirror you see from others.
@SasGal - In short, often. At length, I may not be able to experience the world through the mind and eyes of another, at most I can place myself in the same or similar situations. I have lived a very varied life, and it has afforded me perspectives that just wouldn't be possible otherwise. There is something to be said for the power of direct experience. That being said, I will never truly understand all the different perceptions that are out there, at most I can gauge them from a psychological perspective, figuring out the building blocks that lead to their current experience, and perform thought experiments to try to imagine myself in their place.
I try to be highly aware of the perceptions of those near me, both inside their own head, and the ones they project toward me/think of me. The world at large is just one giant mirror we see ourselves in, and look at others through. Sometimes we see something we don't like, often times it is because it is an aspect of yourself you may not like playing out before you. For instance the people who hate drama the loudest, are usually the people that attract drama by creating drama. *Smiles* That is a generalization that tends to be true more often than not.
@SasGal - Why do you ask?
Wow! I read mostly all of this. I do have to come back and read it in it's entirety. You blew my mind. But I agree with most of this as is. I do have to check out the video however. Thanks for sharing. Wonderful!
I enjoyed reading this poem! Great poem =]
"Training yourself to become more conscious of your life, more mindful of your thoughts and actions, is the primary method of countering this, developing the habit of not having habits."
This is key.
But then I don't usually write poems for serious purposes haha
One of the techniques I've tried to adopt, with varying success, is trying to "debate" my fears and insecurities. When you actually hold up your fears to a reasoned, skeptical inquiry, they tend to fall apart or be exposed as inherently irrational.
Another technique is trying to force perspective into my mind by asking myself, "Does it matter?" Part of that involves constant reinforcement, repetition, as a way to jar the brain into making that a habit.
I will come back later at some point and watch that vid. Btw, I liked the poem very much. Most of the time my poems involve farting and pooping and other equally immature concepts
@QuantumStorm - *Smiles* Thank you for taking the time to read my reflections. I enjoy writing poetry, but I generally only write them in conjunction with one of my Reflections in a Mirror posts. As for your observations and own methods, unfortunately, I have seen people debate their fears, and have their irrationality win out. I mean actually watched them debate, out loud, their fear, and decide to engage in behavior that served as a feedback loop. Having clear goals in mind helps immensely, because their unstated goal in mind, was to overprotect themselves, and they actually "rationalized" the need to test the men that entered into a relationship with them, and used that rationalization to behave in a manner many would consider cruel, because anyone who would put up with that, "really loved them". Some minds just are not as discerning as others.
Comments are closed.