An Experiment called "Life"

“Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”

At some period of my life, I adopted stoicism. I was in a lot of pain. Stoicism philosophy helped me to be mentally tough, resilient, and content. I managed to go through hurricanes and battles and come out of them with minimum damage. Stoicism in so many ways similar to my pragmatism. It is just seeing the world as it is and deals with it accordingly through 4 virtues: Courage, Temperance, Justice, and Wisdom. It is summarized in the statement by Epictetus:

“For it is within you, that both your destruction and deliverance lie…..The judgment seat and a prison is each a place, the one high, the other low; but the attitude of your will can be kept the same, if you want to keep it the same, in either place.”

Stoicism believed that a fundamental key to reducing suffering and living a content life is to make a clear distinction between that which controllable and uncontrollable. To understand this distinction we can focus our energy and time on what we can influence and come to accept what we cannot. All great so far, but actually what made me abandon my stoic approach to life is that Stoicism promotes tuning down emotions.  Not getting too high.  Not getting too low.  It encourages disengaging from the exterior world because getting too caught up in things will always disappoint.  This is could be a safe approach to life, will make you content but from my personal perspective, you will never taste true happiness. The intensity of life makes us feel alive – makes me personally feel alive – and I wouldn’t give up that ever to live mediocre contentment.  Having big dreams even if they fail, getting attached to people, to concepts and to things even when we know we will lose them all at a moment is what is this life is all about. That taught me although the mysticism approach is safe yet weak because simply humans get used to anything after a while of practice, no big deal there. The real challenge for me is to stay conscious right in the middle of it all. It ain’t easy and that’s why I like it. I want to feel disappointed and hurt because these are the feelings that enable me to appreciate when I am truly happy and accomplished. But the trick is to know WHEN to disengage, HOW to tune down your attachment to anything, and BELIEVE deeply in reality as it is and genuinely embracing it. That for me was the true practice for the stoic virtues. Therefore, I created my own philosophy from everything that made sense to me and made me truly myself.

Stoicism was great because it supported my view on vulnerability. I didn’t want ever to feel or show myself vulnerable so I toughened up and didn’t allow myself to show who I truly was. I wasn’t comfortable showing that not because I was scared of judgment but because I didn’t want to remember that side of me or acknowledge it. It was easier, much much easier to behave as I never cared because to care is to feel and I didn’t want to feel. I kept a safe distance from everyone, even from myself and that was that for many years. At some point, I felt numb. I was always content and in peace. I don’t get angry but I don’t get excited either. I was not getting sad but not thrilled as well. I was observing the world through a bulletproof glass wall that made me safe through the battles I endured but taking away my real life and I decided to change that.

It was difficult, still very difficult not to run away and hide behind my glass wall. It is a challenge for me to recognize the moment when I am acting on my past trauma but I am more mindful than I ever been. I know I have an avoidance attachment style and I recognize when it is activated. I use the secure attachment part of my character to tell me what to do and how to react toward people and situations personally and professionally. That challenge keeps me motivated because I know I am challenging myself, challenging my background, and most importantly living my life to the fullest, no regrets. Believe it or not, living this way made it easier to accept reality, to move on when necessary and surprisingly enough even to have better compassion toward others. Being true to yourself is like being tidy. It requires effort and routine but very rewarding long term. Besides the aesthetic part of it, it’s functional. You know where is everything you are looking for because everything is organized in the same place all the time. So it is easier to recognize. Same with the psyche, if you are true to yourself, do things as you feel them, you are not ashamed of admitting the reason behind them and keep enough distance from your ego, you are keeping your mind and soul tidy. However, we can’t kill our ego and the sense of “I” so reality sometimes hurts, but you get used to the feeling because you know for a fact that life is a rollercoaster; once you are up, once you are down and each leads to the other.

Life is about taking risks and learning lessons. I would rather live one life to the fullest than a thousand lives safely. Wisdom created through hardship and there is nothing more beautiful to me than having enough wisdom to recognize life, people, and the situations as they truly are and accept that with a heart full of gratitude and appreciation.

As I started with Ernest Hemingway, I will end it with him:

“I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about.”

 

 

Translation: Those with volatile friendliness cannot be trusted, who expose secrets cannot be trustworthy, the ungrateful cannot be reliable, who keep breaking your motivation cannot be dependable, whoever comes to you only in their free time cannot be genuine.  If you wouldn’t be careful of all the above, you cannot be trusted for yourself.

Arabs for so many centuries known for their skills in reading body language and high emotional intelligence. Arabs were traders, their well-being and the thriving of their business depended on their ability to communicate effectively and understand the others instantaneously, and so they did for so many decades. That’s why I started with the Arabic statement. I am somehow proud of the Arab part of me, as much as it caused me so much hardship in my life, but it has given me an incredible opportunity for growth and see the world from a very unique position. Generally speaking; Arabs are emotionally intelligent, they have an activated intuition and in most cases can read a person very well. The down side of that they are very expressive and emotional, shortsighted and can be easily manipulated. They are present at the moment which make them tuned to the moment but might be a blind for the future. I took that, nurtured it, but thankfully had the upbringing to be pragmatic and think long-term thanks to my amazing father. All of that made me who I am today; a mixture of grounded crazy yet weird person.

Call it a curse, call it a bless. I am not so sure how to describe it but that’s me. I do feel everything, I can read almost everyone and I am rarely wrong. I know what is rational yet my sympathy can change my perspective. Spo usually I know what needs to be done but sometime I don’t

The Survival of the Fetish

Fetishes, kinks and fantasies reveal part of the unconscious yet need to be understood. The issue is that people rarely are honest about that part of their lives, not only with other people but as well with themselves. We lived years of mental suppression of human sexuality, which made people unable to explore or reveal their sexuality uncensored. There are layers of complexity that made this topic one of the biggest taboos to discuss. And that’s exactly why I decided to write about fetishes, kinks, and fantasies this time.

Society has condemned sexuality to hide in the shadows of life, but why? One debated reason is that during the beginning of what we know as the human culture, there was an intention to control the frequency of sex due to its biological consequence of producing babies which were a problem due to the extension of the sexual maturity and life span of women and the decrease in the mortality rate of babies. Another reason is psychological; it is said that sex was a reminder of our animal nature. We dealt with our mortality by creating values that added sense to our lives and our animalistic nature was a threat to these values, which kept us from confronting the inevitability of our mortality. Additionally, if we think about it in a psychoeconomic way, we can see that human nature craves whatever taboo; the more scarce a concept is, the more we are willing to discover it and even pay for it. There are many industries built on sex, and there are billions generated. The idea that sex sells is a fact, and many industries benefited from it, simply sex got very profitable and there is no real intention to change our modern system.

            Ancient civilizations' approach to sex was completely different, rather the opposite of what we have in modern life. Ancient India produced the first book on human sexuality, many people are familiar with “Kama Sutra” but are unaware that this Sanskrit text was more than a sex positions book. Actually, the book is a guide to the art of living, the nature of love & pleasure. The book consists of seven chapters that cover almost every possible aspect of Kama. The text discusses the object of human pursuit and mentions desire, sexuality, and emotional fulfillment as one of the proper goals of life. The text chapters address methods for courtship, the art to be socially engaging, finding a partner, flirting, maintaining power in a marriage, when and how to commit adultery, sexual positions, and even same-sex relationships. All this has been discussed openly around 400 BCE.       Ancient Chinese were not shy about sex either, the Chinese literature was loaded with many sexual references. Even the Book of Changes, which is a spiritual book, emphasizes and used sex as one of the ways to explain the world. As well, we can thank ancient Japan for eroticism. Around the eighth century AD, Japan produced the first erotic novel called The Tale of Genji. Erotica was considered as a central art form for the nobility, similar to painting, and music. Even ancient Greece and Rome had a very liberal approach to sex before the arrival of Christianity. Similarly, the Arabic peninsula was very promiscuous before the Islamic era and had the opposite view on sexuality that it adopted after the spread of Islam.

            Understanding the history of human sexuality is essential to understand fetishes and fantasies.  Similarly to sex, fetishes, kinks, and fantasies are the result of early conditioning experiences or as a consequence of strong emotional or physical experiences. That doesn’t mean necessarily that these fetishes have negative psychological triggers but rather formed by non-sexual experiences a person found arousing during early life. And that is exactly why I opened my article with the statement, “Fetishes and fantasies reveal part of the unconscious yet need to be understood.” The same fetishes and kinks oftentimes driven by completely different triggers to different people, and it could satisfy them in completely different ways. First, exploring that and then understanding it can be revolutionary to that person. It is not only about the pleasure and the satisfaction resulted from the experience but as well the possibility of conscious revelation resulted from practicing freely what a person likes or truly desires. Another aspect rarely spoken of is bonding; level minded Fetishists/kinksters couples have a higher level of understanding and trust among them. Those couples are able to share their darkest secrets and desires without fear of judgment. They built up enough trust between them to be able to exercise extreme practices or be in helpless positions knowing that their partner will know what to do when it is needed to be done. 

More and more in today’s life, we are warming up to the idea that fetishes are not deviations anymore, they are not pathology either. However, suppressing a fetish or worse trying conditioning it can cause psychological damages. Many Psychologists now believe having a fetish is actually healthy as long as it is expressed in a healthy way. Although the research and literature on this topic are very limited, it is widely believed that fetishists are healthier/happier than those who don’t have one. The reasons behind that are simple, couples who take part in fetishes are emotionally healthier because they have trust among themselves and possess a better ability to communicate their needs and desires and have to be very sensitive to the needs of their partner even without talking sometimes. Another reason that the same biochemicals in the brain released during sex like endorphins and serotonin also flood the brain during pain; therefore a little pain might improve the sexual experience and climax which promotes better healthy life ;)

            As Frank Zappa said: “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible,” and that’s what I deeply believe in life. It is important to explore life and go out of the path that was designed for us to discover new experiences, new feelings, and new destinations. These experiences might get a person closer to themselves, and if they are lucky enough to other people as well. Doing something unexpected or uncommon can be utterly refreshing. It revives the rebel inside of a person and makes them believe in their ability to reach new heights. It is one of the ways to freedom and divine. Even ancient India and China thought that sex can be a spiritual practice that allows people to attain enlightenment through pleasure. The whole concept of tantra in Hinduism and Buddhism was challenging standard religious practices similar to most of the fetishes that challenge social norms regarding sex. And similar to tantra, it focuses on “being.” However, how a person can use that focused energy and the state of being right here right now is completely dependent on their intentions. Some will use it to obtain a higher level of consciousness of themselves, their psyche, and their partner. Others will use it to distract from themselves and even possibly use it against others.  That doesn’t mean fetishes/kinks are pathological, rather the way it is used by some can be destructive, like anything else in this life. That’s exactly why we shouldn’t look at fetishes in a pejorative way.

            Fetishes are another way to rebel against the tutelage of society; it is a chance to feel omnipotent in one's life and exercise their own ultimate freedom without fear of judgment or punishment. It is an extreme act of love, trust, and even spirituality. But it remains limited to those with a great deal of equanimity and valor.

I am into what I am into, you are into what you are into. We don’t have to agree on our preferences, and if you are happy and do no harm to others, then go on and indulge yourself.

              

The Problem is Your Mindset, Not Your Flaws

We are all have some flaws, most of the time we need to explore and understand them. Even attempt to fix them but completely get rid of them, that could change the core of our being. This is a simple concept, but many of us struggle to understand it. The majority believe flaws are something we need to get rid of to be able to be better, this is far from the truth. To understand the depth of our biases & inhibitions does not necessarily mean to kill it. It means to track it down, understand the triggers, find the source of it and rationalize the cause and only then practice enough self-control and discipline to stop ourselves from falling to the same traps.

The issue is most people go to war against themselves to kill their flaws. Some understand it is something to fix not to get rid of, but they stop at stage one or two. Rarely people are mindful/conscious enough to go deeper and if they are, unfortunately, the majority of the time they lack enough discipline and self-control to say “NO” to themselves or stop themselves from repeating patterns. That gets even harder when they feel vulnerable, then there is an excuse. The issue with this mindset is getting trapped in a vicious cycle of occurrences that they blame on the world and that makes it even harder to find the motivation to break free because from inside the cycle it seems it is all inevitable.

Here we can understand that mindfulness/consciousness alone is not enough. Mindset and habits are a huge part of the process. Being mindful with a fixed mindset creates even more suffering, people under this category are suffering the most. They are aware of all necessary but they lack the attitude to drive the change. They see everything and attempt to change it but then they are unable to overcome the obstacles or have enough determination to get it over with because they tend to relapse easier than people with a growth mindset.

On the other hand, being mindful and with a growth mindset, those the rare species. Those people are aware, mindful, and conscious. Have enough discipline and self- control to push themselves to overcome the obstacles and challenges they encounter through their journey. We call those people lucky or fortunate but the truth is they are neither. Those people endure more pain than others and they have a great deal of valor than the rest, and they do all of this in silence therefore, we consider them lucky.

I always say, life is way more complex than we think of it. There are too many aspects of life that get us where we need to be. It is never about one or two things it is almost always about the combination of aspects that allow us to live happily or in misery. The only constant thing is that we are the force behind everything and that the universe is connected in a magical way. It seems too good/bad to be true (depends on your perspective) but observing the world can lead us to this ultimate fact. There is no luck, no coincidences in this life. It is all part of a sequence of actions that we consciously or unconsciously take. It is easier to think of them as arbitrary because then we are less responsible for whatever happens to us.

We can think of all this complexity as a beautiful thing which allows us the opportunity to transcend to a high level of being and enjoy the good and the bad as part of the lessons to the enlightenment. Another option is to think of it as chaos and suffering we have to endure until it is the time to depart. Again it is a choice we are to make, to live the life with a light hopeful heart or burdened saddened heart. Ken Kesey once described this so beautifully:

“It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.”