Facial Expressions - A User's Manual

After years of exhaustive research, countless experiments, and a few strange looks from people, I bring you...

Facial Expressions - A User's Manual

(Or Socially Acceptable Responses)

Have you ever found yourself unable to find the correct facial expression in response to someone's news? If so, this manual is for you. I've taken great pains to learn these lessons. And these are the fruits of my labor.

1. I'm having a baby!

Luckily for us all, this one's a little more straightforward than the ambiguous "I'm pregnant" because that one can go either way, but "I'm having a baby!" clearly indicates this person is excited that they're having a baby. And they want you to be too (despite the inevitable vaginal tearing and life of drudgery that follows).

Don't stare blankly at them and then remark "Oh. Nice." This is not a socially acceptable level of enthusiasm. People are excited about procreating. Also, bear in mind that their hormones (assuming they're already pregnant) are running rampant and therefore exaggerating all their emotions. You are expected to match those levels. 

Do say "Wow, that's amazing!" followed by "I'm so excited for you!" Then you can always throw in "When are you due?!" or "Is it a boy or a girl?!" Or, even more personal (woman love this one), "Do you have a name picked out?" Aaaand... end scene.

Here's a sample face for those of you who learn better through visual cues:

Photo by Julia Roy

"Oh my God, I can't believe it, a baby!"

2. Death in the family (pets included)

I'm not kidding about the pets. For many people pets are like children. Unless you were raised in the wild, in which case they're probably more like parents to you. In any event, it's a painful experience that needs to be handled with the utmost care. Tact and delicacy are your friends in this situation.

Don't say things like "We will all die one day" or "Everything is impermanent." These responses will be met with looks of horror and/or confusion. Sadly, I know this from direct experience.

For example, this is a wholly inappropriate face (unless your intention is to implicate yourself in said person's death):

Photo by lukexmartin

"Impermanence. Am I right?"

Do give a look of quiet concern (if you're unsure what this looks like, check out the sample face below) and say something along the lines of "I'm so sorry" or "I can't imagine what you must be going through." Then you can always pull out the big guns: "I'm here for you if you need anything." It's a proven winner.

Sample Face:

Photo by Gisela Giardino

"I care deeply about everything you're saying right now."

3. I'm gaining weight/I'm fat

This one's tricky. And although there are several Do's there are some very specific Don'ts. 

Don't be honest. Don't say "Yeah, I've noticed" and especially don't say "You look like a whale, haha!" These remarks will not be appreciated, regardless of how true they are. After all, people don't want truth; they want consolation. This I've learned after years of blood, sweat and tears. Even a "Hmm..." will be taken as an insult.

Do try to change the subject. This is the best way to get around this uncomfortable situation. But first you may need to toss them something like "You're beautiful." Notice how this comment neatly evades the question at hand. But be careful not to say too much, like "You're beautiful... no matter how many chins you have." Less is more. Remember, the key words are divert and exit. So make your compliment brief and then quickly change the topic. And you're outta there!

4. I lost my job/partner

Don't go the "impermanence" route with this one. In fact, impermanence - one of the greatest truths of life - should never be spoken of under any circumstances. People just can't handle that shit. So keep it to yourself.

Do make a pity face. People want you to feel their pain, and not in some sadistic kind of way, but in an empathetic way. Of course, maybe these two are friendlier than meets the eye. But I'm not here to make such connections. I'm just here to help those who are as socially retarded as I am.

Here's a sample face. Note that you can be a little more expressive here than with the "subtle concern at death" face. In fact, the general rule of thumb is, the less serious the news, the more dramatic the facial expression can be:

Photo by Nicora Family

"I feel your pain. And it effing hurts."

On a side note, you may have to gauge the person's own reaction to their loss before responding, as sometimes a face of rage would be more appropriate. In short, try to match the subject's facial expressions. It's simple. Just remember that Rage = Rage and Despair = Pity.

5. You suck

Clearly, you've angered someone. Perhaps due to an inappropriate facial expression. Perhaps due to some general form of assholery. Here's some ideas on how to cope:

Don't make excuses. People aren't interested in why you stabbed them in the heart/back; they just want satisfaction. And satisfaction comes in two flavors: (a) Simpering Subservience, and (b) Ravenous Revenge. People will usually accept subservience as payment for your evils. But if they don't get it (i.e. if you fail at the following faces) they will resort to Plan B - Revenge!

Do make a sad puppy dog face. If your face is not capable of contorting in this manner, you just need practice, that's all. The bigger the screw-up, the droopier the eyes should be. If you put some work into it, you'll be expressing various levels of shame in no time!

Sample face for a minor infraction: 

Photo by Eunice

"I ate your sneakers. Then I pooped on the stairs."

Notice that this look could also be used when you're completely oblivious as to why said person is upset with you. It conveniently doubles as an "I'm sorry but I have no idea what you're talking about" face. But whether or not you're aware of the charges against you, this look says "I'm sorry." So in my book it's a keeper.

Sample face for a felony:

Photo by marlene moore
"I killed the cat."

Beware: this puppy is a professional. Do not try this at home.

This puppy has mastered the look of innocence. In fact, he's so good he could cause you to question your own accusations against him ("Maybe he didn't kill the cat after all. Maybe I left the window open.") And if he's really good he may even - brace yourself for this one - execute a 180 degree shame reversal ("Man, I can't believe I blamed Spot for something so horrible. I'm a terrible dog owner.") Impressive, huh? 

You will never achieve this level, but you can at least shoot in this direction. Notice the subtly lowered head, indicating shame and subservience. People eat that shit up. Make no mistake - this guy's an expert.

If you're not a puppy (or a child) then this look will require a considerate amount of work. But once you've got it, you've got it. It even works on cops, especially if you're a young woman. Tried and tested on both sides of the Atlantic!

Lastly, let me say do not - I repeat do not - open your mouth if at all avoidable. I cannot stress this enough. The less you say the better, especially since anything you say can and will be used against you (and I don't just mean in a court of law). Anything you say at this time will be perceived as flippancy and it may even come back to haunt you years down the road. I think it was Confucius who said "Silence is a friend who will never betray." So save yourself the trouble, and just stick with the face.

Final Words

Be aware that these suggestions are only for those wishing to blend into society. If you're perfectly content living like a sociopath, then these faces are not for you. Or, if you really want to confuse people, you can play a game of mismatch - try using the puppy dog face in response to the death of a friend's loved one. Or put the look of subtle concern in play when faced with baby news. It'll really throw people off!

Disclaimer: Please note that if you are at any time a lucky recipient of any of the above faces or comments by yours truly, this in no way indicates a lack of empathy on my part. Studies have shown that you can in fact feel empathy while maintaining an expression of indifference.*

*May or may not be true.

Ode to Kofola

Please don't take me too seriously. I don't. After all, I'm as ridiculous as they come. A person of no consequence. Isn't that how the narrator in Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground describes himself? I'm not certain. But here's something he did say: “Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It's by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I'm human.”

On that note I present you with...

Ode to Kofola

Sweet-and-sour child of Opava,

Neither coffee nor Coca-cola.

Syrup of the Nation,

You've passed through many hands,

Yet you remain tasty and refreshing

As you did back in 1960.

How do you do it, Kofola?

You have less sugar than Coke or Pepsi,

But more caffeine.

You are the soda pop Queen!

Plus you got that unexpected zing

Of citrus. 

Is that what it is?

Carbonated caramel caress,

Your bubbles dance on my tongue

Like children in the sun.

And I am in bliss.

The End

You Don't Deserve Happiness

That's right. I said it. You don't deserve happiness. When did we decide we deserved happiness anyhow? That it was our God-given right? That it was an entitlement?

Americans will no doubt argue that the Declaration of Independence entitles them to the "pursuit of happiness". First of all, note that the right to pursue happiness is different from the right to happiness itself. Further note that happiness does not refer to an emotional state or some other form of self-interest, but that it has a much broader sense. If you have a longer attention span than I do, then you can read this wonderful article on the topic.

"Freedom for everyone! And by 'freedom' I mean fried chicken and prostitutes."

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's continue.

Over the last several decades, people have come to interpret this "right" in the most selfish way possible. You have the ability to be happy; it's not a right. If you want to be happy, go ahead, be happy. Right now. Do it. What's stopping you? 

I'll tell you what's stopping you. It's you. There's nothing else there. I don't know where we got this idea that there's someone or something standing in the way of our happiness, or the ever-popular notion that we're missing something but that once we get it - oh boy! - we'll be happy at last! It's probably a myriad of factors, but heading the list are trends in psychology and marketing (which are so closely related that they should not be in bed together, but they are).

If you don't feel something's missing in your life, what will urge you to climb the corporate ladder, go to the gym, buy a new car, a new pair of shoes, a house, an iPod and so on? If we all just sat around on our cushions meditating, eating unprocessed foods and wearing the same clothes year in and year out, the mega-corporations would be out of business. And allegedly that means the world economy would collapse. I'm not saying we shouldn't buy anything or do anything. And I'm certainly not saying we should all renounce our possessions and join a hippy commune. What I'm saying is, most of the shit we buy we don't need and most of the shit we do is completely unnecessary. Speaking of shit...

Finally, a fuzzy toilet seat cover! No more cold-ass bathroom breaks for this gal!

What's devastating is the depth of the delusion that happiness is something to be attained rather than something that can be cultivated in oneself. Advertisers have gotten so good at this, you and I don't even realize we're being fooled. Everybody likes to think he's immune to advertising. We all like to think we're "smarter" than that. For example, nobody (or at least nobody with a modicum of common sense) will consciously equate a fuzzy toilet seat cover with personal fulfillment. But it has nothing to do with intelligence. Advertising accesses parts of your brain that function on instinct and over which you have zero control. You may end up buying this leopard print toilet seat cover out of shear boredom! And I wouldn't judge you if you did. Because we're all in the same proverbial boat (or toilet bowl, as it were).

There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I don't have a TV, I don't read the news, and yet that smelly garbage seeps in there. Despite living in a Central European country, I can't walk down the street without being bombarded by ads - at bus stops, on the sides of buses, inside buses (the transportation authority is a filthy whore), billboards popping up everywhere (the only way to avoid them would be to gouge your eyes out), not to mention the Supreme Master Internet (I can't let go of this one - I just can't). The list is endless.

So what's the solution? A famous Buddhist monk (as "famous" as a monk can be) once said:  "If you have something bad smelling in your pocket, wherever you go it will smell bad. Don’t blame it on the place."

Ajahn Chah

Seems obvious enough. Whatever you have inside is what you experience. So, for example, if you hate your job because your boss is a dick, or if you hate your boyfriend because he's a dick, go ahead and try getting a new boss/boyfriend (hopefully they're two separate people) and see just how satisfied you are after one year. I say one year because you can't base your satisfaction on the first few weeks or months because, like everything new, that time has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi quality to it (a.k.a. the honeymoon period). But eventually your habits (your dick vision coupled with your innate desire to surround yourself with dicks) will get the best of you. But instead of thinking "Gee, I'm struggling with the same problem here. Maybe there's something about myself that needs to change," you will likely feel sorry for yourself and say things like "Why does this always happen to me?!" or the classic "Life is so unfair!" Sound familiar? If not, congratulations - you're more mature than the general population.

Happiness is something you can cultivate. And it's entirely an inside job. Entirely. This is assuming your basic material needs are being met. Just to be clear, by basic I mean you have food, water, shelter and medicine available. If you have these things, consider yourself lucky (because most of the world doesn't) and try some meditation. Most people don't look to meditation for happiness. It seems like the most useless thing you could possibly do with your precious time. But if you ask me (which I realize you haven't) it's the best investment you can make. It's a long-term investment but with guaranteed returns. That's right, guaran-fucking-teed! You can't lose!

So why are we all still chasing the next thing if everything we need is right here right now? Because modern society is geared towards making us go, go, go! In fact, this is one of the reasons it's so difficult to stand still. Everything is against you. Not just society, but your very own Brain! Yes, I know you thought he was your friend. But he's not. He's a wolf in sheep's clothing I tell you!

Oh, Internet, what can' t you do?!

Your Brain will work against you. Hell, he's working against you right now! He wants instant gratification, not long-term satisfaction. Quick fixes, not reliable solutions. Results without the requisite toil and trouble. I'm sorry to break this to you, but this is a Fantasy (with a capital F). Except we don't believe it's a Fantasy because we've been fed otherwise, ever since media threw ethics out the window (or should I say boob tube) because, you know, ethics just get in the way of making money.

I've noticed my own attention span diminish over the years. Granted it could be due to age. But I think it's fair to say that the over-stimulation caused by omnipresent advertising and other flashing lights and pictures (which, let's face it, are all just forms of advertising) has contributed considerably. Of course, my dream of living in a shack on a mountain with a husky, a goat and some chickens will likely never be realized. And it doesn't have to be. Because like I said earlier, I can cultivate happiness right here right now, despite being surrounded by monsters of every creed and color (including the ones that live in my head). Wow, I'm glad I realized this before I ran off into the mountains, never to be seen again!

Happiness not guaranteed. Goat sold separately.

Yes, I can make a mountain shack in my own mind. It may sound like I've crossed the line into crazy town, and maybe I have, but I don't have any better solutions. This is it. Me and a mental mountain shack. Forever. Or at least for the time being.

And I've never been happier. Case. Closed.

Feeling Pretty a.k.a. The Bad Buddhist

This morning I woke up four and a half hours before I had to be at work. I did some half-assed yoga, followed by thirty minutes of meditation, then I made some coffee and oatmeal for breakfast. So far so good.  But there was still time left over, which inevitably lead to Facebook. And then, for reasons unknown, face painting.

A touch of mascara and we're done!

I hadn't put on a full face of make-up for at least a year (save for that one night at the ball). When I was a teenager, make-up was mandatory. It was partly fun and partly a form of self-expression. Or so I thought (it's really just another gimmick advertisers use to get us to buy their shit and feel good about ourselves while we're doing it). But I didn't care about those kinds of things back then. As an adult I only wore make-up to work. Working in an office required me to look the part (or so I told myself). But eventually even that got tiring. I couldn't get away with wearing jeans to the office, but doggone it, there's nothing they could say to me about refusing to put on some mascara! It was my quiet protest. Against beauty. Against advertising. Against blindly accepted ideals.

But enough about this fascinating history. I didn't intend this story to be concerned with social conformity, although that plays a big part in pretty much everything we do. This story is about something quite different. It's more of a Man vs. Himself story than one of Man vs. Society. Or should I say Woman vs. Herself. Let me start over.

Upon seeing my subtly painted face in the mirror, I felt... well, pretty. Dammit! This feeling was immediately followed by a sense of shame. But why? I was raised atheist, not Roman Catholic (although, to be fair, the Catholics don't hold a patent on self-loathing). In fact, the closest I've ever come to anything Catholic was my trip to the Vatican a few years ago. And even that felt more like a trip to Las Vegas than to a holy place (you guys really need to tone that shit down; remember, less is more).

Yep, these eyelashes are a one-way ticket to hell.

What's wrong with feeling pretty, you ask? Well, I'm not exactly sure; you'd have to ask my subconscious mind for an answer to that one. I hate that make-up makes me feel anything; I hate that it makes a difference. Why am I so concerned with this, you ask? Is it a neurosis? Maybe. I don't like feeling controlled by something or somebody, even if it's my own damned Ego (I'm just going to go ahead and capitalize it because... well, quite frankly, it's earned it). Why do I feel that "feeling pretty" is akin to "being controlled"? The fact that I haven't worn make-up or been to the hairdresser for over a year should show me that I can certainly live without these things. And yet, that's somehow not enough. Not only do I want to be okay without them, I want to be completely unfazed by their existence.

I've been calling this equanimity, but here's an actual definition of equanimity: "Neither a thought nor an emotion, it is rather the steady conscious realization of reality's transience. It is the ground for wisdom and freedom and the protector of compassion and love. While some [like the author of this post] may think of equanimity as dry neutrality or cool aloofness, mature equanimity produces a radiance and warmth of being. The Buddha described a mind filled with equanimity as "abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill-will." So there you have it folks. I'm wrong. Again.

Is it possible that I have an aversion to non-equanimity? But if there is no "self" or at least if self is not the five aggregates which create a sense of self (i.e. body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness), then why do I care? And more importantly, if I'm not a Buddhist, why am I talking like this? On a side note, if I was a Buddhist, why am I flagellating myself with the Roman Catholic rod for failing to live up to some "Buddhist" ideal? Am I Catholicizing Buddhism? If so, my guilt and shame have just doubled. God damn it, it's like a perpetual shaming machine! 

This is me this morning - flanked by Shame (in red) and Guilt (in the fetching hat).

How to reconcile these forces? It's not that I feel different with or without make-up. I'm not spending my day looking in a mirror after all. But when I did catch a glimpse of myself today, I thought "Damn!" Again, followed by shame. But if it's the Ego that's saying "Damn!" then it's also the Ego that's saying "Shame on you!" Luckily, because I have a degree of equanimity (however small), the scene playing out between my ears was more of a formal debate than a battle. A curiosity if you will. Albeit one shrouded in shame.

I admit I'm exaggerating a little here. The truth is when I take care of the essentials (the spiritual side of life), then these peripheries don't matter much. I guess I just had higher expectations of myself - apparently ones that involved being completely unmoved by anything beautiful or ugly, painful or pleasurable, or even anything neutral. Nothing to be ashamed of. Just goes to show that I, too, am human. Or at least not a rock.

Although the resemblance is uncanny!

Judgment-free awareness. That's where it's at. But just go ahead and try it. It's near impossible for any unenlightened being. And if you were raised Roman Catholic, good luck to you my friend! So in the end, the only thing that this morning revealed to me, the only insight I had, is that I'm (slightly) neurotic. But that's technically not even an insight. That's like looking at the above rock and saying "Hey, it's a rock!" But then again, isn't that the essence of "judgment-free awareness"? It's almost too simple to wrap my neurotic neurons around.

I wanted to end things with Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols, but alas, YouTube will not allow it. Correction: Universal Music Group (which bought all the rights back in 2006) won't allow it. Thanks UMG. Anyhow, I remember hearing this song for the first time as a kid (it was also the first Sex Pistols song I ever heard) and it instantly resonated with me. It's at once trite and profound. And perhaps most importantly, it's straightforward. Johnny Rotten may not be a Buddhist. But he's one hell of a frontman. And maybe that's enough.

Chasing Tails and Hunting Unicorns

Are you a dog? If so, you're probably not at the computer reading this right now. But if you're not a dog, then why are you chasing your tail? Capturing this elusive tail has no benefits. More importantly, what do you plan on doing with it once you catch it? There's nothing you can do with it, other than let it go. Just some questions to ponder.

But enough about chasing tails. Let's talk about hunting unicorns. Is your everyday existence so tiresome, so boring, so meaningless that you feel compelled to hunt unicorns? If this is you, keep reading. Although if this is you, you will probably hate the words that follow and do everything in your mental power to dispel my arguments. You may convince yourself that I'm insane. Or stupid. If you've decided not to read any further,  then let me at least leave you with a parting gift:

"Catch me if you can - heehee!"

First things first. There will always be a gap between the real and the ideal. This means that even if you had a real unicorn, it would never be the ideal unicorn you had in mind. And this is not merely about expectations. It's not that simple. In fact, your unicorn could meet each and every expectation you had - it could even exceed your wildest expectations - but this will not close the gap. Why? Because you cannot make a dream a reality; you cannot make the ideal real. That, my friend, is an oxymoron (pardon my language).

You see, the joy experienced by the unicorn pre-possession is completely different, and in fact unrelated, to the joy of unicorn possession (assuming you found one and assuming he wants to come home with you).

This may all seem self-evident to you. But on the other hand it may sound like complete jibber-jabber. So let's put it another way. You cannot simultaneously be the actor and the viewer. If you're starring in a film, you can't be watching that same film at the same time. You can watch the recording, but then the "you" you are watching is no longer you but an image of you. Not to mention that the "you" on the screen exists in another time and is therefore not really you. This may seem to have nothing in common with the previous paragraph, but it does.

Imagine you're driving through the country when you spot a quaint farmhouse off in the distance, surrounded by golden canola fields and baby blue skies. You sigh, take a deep breath, and think to yourself how lovely it would be to live there. But wait: your projection of the future is being distorted by present conditions. This means that if it's a beautiful sunny day (external conditions) you're more likely to view farm life as positive. This is further compounded if you're in a good mood (internal conditions), say, for example, because you're on your way home from a fun day at the beach. Make no mistake: these things are coloring your perception. Considerably.

Our projections of the future are distorted. Depending on your conditioning, you will either tend towards projecting negative outcomes (resulting in anxiety) or overly positive outcomes (resulting in repeated disappointments). See? You can't lose! In the same vein, we distort the past with our memories. And I'm not just talking about selective memory, such as that people will generally recall primarily good things about the dead. Or about their youth. Regardless of how shitty it was or how annoying those people were when they were still alive. No, it's more complex than that. Or more simple. Depending on how you look at it. 

Does this mean we're delusional? Absolutely. Reality does not (cannot) exist in the past or the future, whereas ideals can only exist in the past or the future. Right here right now is just not exciting/pertinent enough for us. But when the future becomes the present, as it inevitably will, it too will become mundane. Unicorns only exist in the past and future. There are no unicorns right here right now. And don't even bother trying to smuggle one into the present. The present has some heavy-duty border control. In fact, even if you somehow managed to get one across the border, it would implode instantaneously. Here's a fun song about this phenomenon (imploding unicorns not included):

"The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never jam today."

And now for something entirely different. Or not.

Projection

You cannot experience your life objectively. The very idea of experiencing something objectively is an oxymoron (there's that dirty word again). I can't describe it any better than that. The only way this might be possible would be to have an ongoing out-of-body experience. But even in this scenario, although you'd simultaneously be the viewer and the viewed, you wouldn't be experiencing the viewed subjectively. It would simply be an empty object you were viewing, albeit one that had all your physical features. In this sense, it wouldn't be that much different from viewing yourself on film or in a mirror. So again, you cannot become a projection. Sorry to burst your unicornucopia dreams.

Adding to the problem is that when we view something we desire to have or become, we project certain qualities onto the object viewed. For example, we assume that a beautiful woman feels beautiful. Or that a man with a lot of money in the bank feels financially secure. But we couldn't be more wrong. These are qualities that we are assigning to those people/situations, not the inherent qualities of those things themselves. In fact, the only things we can logically assume about any person, for example, is that they breath air and feel pain (among other things). But that doesn't stop our minds from weaving intricate webs of lies. Tempting lies. No wonder we often want what we don't have - there's an unspoken promise of fulfillment which is literally nothing more than a mental projection (much like a mirage in the desert). It's an axiom that you will never have what you don't have. Once you have it, you no longer "don't have" it. Make sense?

It's like we're stranded in a desert running from mirage to mirage instead of just digging a well where we are. Because that would require some back-breaking work. And we don't like that. In fact, most of us abhor that kind of work so much that we're willing to die of dehydration instead. But who cares, so long as we can go on believing the mirages - those precious mirages! Seriously, it would benefit us to not believe our own BS so much. Except for one problem: we love BS. And not just our own either.

Sometimes tail-chasing has some harmful side-effects. Consider that when you feed a craving you're only making that craving bigger. It's like feeding a fat kid and then despairing at his getting fatter. Or like feeding a Mogwai after midnight and then being shocked when you wake up to a houseful of Gremlins, despite ominous warnings from the Chinese shop owner. Of course, if we're never here and now, we never really see the results of our actions. We're already off to the next thing. Or to a solution to a problem that never would have existed in the first place had we been paying attention. And the tail-chasing continues...

Going Places

It's exciting going places. Society tells us we must be going somewhere, we must have a goal, a dream. And if you don't meet this criteria, you're a lazy bum. A psychologist might even diagnose you with depression. But society doesn't just have a direct influence; it indirectly affects our own perceptions of what life is. So, for example, most people "go" not only because society deems it necessary but, perhaps more importantly, because they themselves are bored out of their skulls sitting still. If you don't participate in the trap of becoming, you will be labeled apathetic, pessimistic, or just good old-fashioned crazy. In addition, if you don't "go" you will hate yourself. But that's just more conditioning.

What is sane and normal is determined by the majority. If your thoughts and ideas are thunk by less than the majority, you are in effect a crazy person. Society has agreed that it is "normal" to chase dreams, that it's normal to become something or want to become something, that it's normal to use our own minds against us for profit (a.k.a. advertising) and that it's perfectly normal to chase your own tail and to do so for the entire duration of your life. In fact, it's quite normal to make that tail the Holy Grail (I just love it when I rhyme by accident!)

For someone who isn't chasing his own tail, the tail-chaser seems utterly absurd. Buy hey, maybe even the dog is fully aware of what it's doing, fully aware of its conditioning, but is merely participating in the tail-chasing game because - what the hell - it's a fine way to pass an afternoon. It's as worthy as any other endeavor, including sitting on the couch or curing cancer. What's the difference really? Yes, this probably sounds like apathy to most of you. So let me just defend myself by saying "whatever."

When I say you will never achieve your dreams, it's not because I'm some kind of pessimist. You can in fact achieve the contents of your dreams, but in that case it ceases to be a dream, doesn't it? It's now become part of your everyday mundane existence. And what's our answer to this apparent dilemma? Why, we dream even greater dreams, of course! What else is there?

It's perpetual insanity if you ask me. If you want to chase unicorns, go right ahead. Maybe you need to do that in order to feel your life has meaning. But consider that maybe there is no meaning to anything. At least nothing beyond what we choose to give meaning to. Of course, the idea of choice itself can be debated because much of our "meanings" are directly (and indirectly) manipulated by advertising, television, news and other media (not to mention parenting, schooling and countless other factors). But once you observe and penetrate the conditioning, you do have a choice. You can either act in accordance with your conditioning, or you can choose to act differently. How liberating!

Purposelessness

Hunting unicorns can only result in failure. Obviously. But your mind cannot allow itself to do something purposeless (i.e. hunt something that doesn't exist), and therefore it will hallucinate unicorns for you to catch. Of course, based on this premise, you could catch ten unicorns a day. After all, they're merely constructs of your imagination. But again, your mind is craftier than this. It will only hallucinate as many unicorns as necessary to fulfill the optimum level of satisfaction/achievement while still maintaining a sufficient level of anxiety/lack. So you will always hallucinate more unicorns than the ones you capture (the capturing itself being a hallucination, of course), thus ensuring the chase continues ad infinitum. Are you going to let your mind get away with this?

Let's return to this idea of "your mind will not allow you to do something purposeless." The fact is that everything we do is purposeless. But our minds attach meaning to things because otherwise they would implode. I guess. I'm not exactly sure why our minds do this; I'm not a scientist. Of course, doing something precisely because it is purposeless is the same thing. Acting on something because it is purposeless gives that act purpose, even though in this case that purpose is purposelessness. So, why do anything?

Well, the only sane reason to do anything is for the simple sake of doing it. Nothing more. If you act based on a desire to achieve or gain anything - whether that's happiness, security, prestige, and so on (basic material needs excluded) - you are doomed to fail. Because the entire process is founded on delusion. It's akin to hunting unicorns. Now, if you're hunting unicorns not to capture a unicorn but for the simple fact that it seems like a fun game to play, even though you know full well that the unicorns themselves are delusions, then go right ahead. It sounds like a good time after all. But the key is not to forget it's just a game. Of course, if you spend your whole life playing a game, how do you know it's really a game and not reality? Well, what is reality? Maybe reality is a game.

Finally an excuse to use this Dramatic Cat video!

Great philosophers have been philosophizing the idea of "reality" for centuries. If you ask me, reality is what's left after you chip away delusion. Kind of like a sculptor chipping away at a hunk of marble. And if history has taught us anything, inside every hunk of marble is a naked man.

We don't need to add more shit to our lives; we need to get rid of it. What you do with "reality" once you've chipped away all or part of the delusion - well, that's up to you. And that's the freedom. You can choose to imagine unicorns. But you will never be able to believe in unicorns again. And here a problem arises. Because we like our actions to have purpose. And if we're just imagining all this bullshit, then that means everything is empty and meaningless, doesn't it? Yes and no. Yes, everything is empty and meaningless. No, that is not horrible news and we don't have to jump out the nearest window. In fact, it's the ultimate freedom!

Well, now that we're nearing the end, you're probably wondering what the purpose of this post was. Or maybe you're not wondering that at all. I'm not a mind reader. Truth be told, I'm not sure it has a purpose. I just wanted something to write about. Why? Because I like to write. If you think that's too simple of an answer, I feel sorry for you. It's more than enough for me. Is it because I'm a simpleton? Maybe. But one thing's for sure: I'm a satisfied customer. You can attach to that whatever meaning you deem necessary or appropriate. In conclusion, here's a picture of a pineapple:

Whatever could it mean?