On Self-Mastery

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said: “Let there be light.” I guess He was talking to Himself.

It is these same light waves, spoken into existence by God, that are reflected into the back of my retina. These waves then meet up with photoreceptors that turn these reflected light waves into electrical impulses my brain will use to produce images of the environment surrounding me.

It is said that I will use acquired knowledge from previous experiences in conjunction with these images produced by my brain to make sense of the world around me. This knowledge will help me to journey through the physical world without causing harm to myself while doing so. In fact, it is a scientific fact that the one and only reason we have a brain is so we can navigate our way through this world.

Take the koala which used to be a land dwelling mammal. After it became a sedentary animal that only ate eucalyptus leaves and slept 20 hours a day it eventually started losing some of its brain size. But I don’t wish to dwell on this and chase rabbits. It is just an example.

Also consider the sea squirt. As it develops into a sperm-like creature with nothing more than a spinal cord attached to a simple eye that can only detect light, it will use this very primitive brain to travel through the ocean to find a place to live.

Once a nice neighborhood with a low crime rate and a variety of nearby restaurants has been found, it will set up a permanent shop at this location. If the HOA dues are affordable and there are plenty of nearby parks, the sea squirt will never move from this spot again. Next it will do the unthinkable; it will eat its own brain (nice little pun there in case you didn’t catch it).

So the conclusion is that if you are not mobile your brain will begin to die. It will literally begin to disconnect and slowly wither away neuron by neuron. Thus, the learning process and the health of an individual’s brain is all directly tied to the very mechanical processes of locomotion. Have you told your sensory organs how much you appreciate them lately? If not, you can do so by going for a brisk walk or getting a gym membership. I belong to three gyms: Planet Fitness, Corepower Yoga, and TOS Boxing. You thought I was going to say Vasa, Chuz, and Anytime Fitness didn’t you?

I am not entirely sure why I seem to be having a hard time with the “make sense of the world around me” part of the aforementioned equation. Rather than a display of peace, love, hard work, and kindness to others I see multitudes of people day and night who are just good enough.

They are the most sorrowful and ignorant of people with no hope. They battle against the struggle instead of realizing that an embracement of the struggle will carry them farther. It reminds me of watching someone pull tightly on those Chinese finger traps which are made of bamboo. They are pretty cool but they represent the metaphor that most problems can be solved or worked through if one will just relax. I think I read something about acceptance and commitment therapy as well.

All religions and philosophies teach that there will be suffering. If people could learn to accept these challenges the world offers up instead of fighting to avoid even the most temporary moments of pain and suffering, could not mountains be moved?

These recalcitrant idiocracts fill the drive thru at McDonald’s, they don’t work on holiday’s or after 5 pm, they drink garbage and smoke cigarettes, they are burden free because they are told that they are fine just the way they are. They are told God dwells within them and they are a lighthouse for His message.

(16) Do you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you?

(17) If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy and you are that temple. (1st Corinth. 3:16-17).

Lots of people on Substack write about absolutely nothing. I don’t mean that it is something that I necessarily disagree with. I mean that it is a conglomeration of the most senseless, useless, baseless words all strung together about how you should feel, because we all know that how you feel is the most important thing in life. Be yourself and don’t worry about tomorrow for it is promised to no one. You are good enough the way you are. Three ways to love yourself. Engage with your strong points. Remember, you are stardust so be amazing.

Just dose after dose of platitudinous babel with a focus on quelling any idea or hope in favor of hard work and self-sacrifice for the pursuit of a greater good. Cognitive dissonance now disassembled, they will continue onward with their silly slogans written on their semantic stop signs held up by folks of so called wisdom who end their debates and walk away with a win for bumper-sticker logic; hard work and responsibility have now been put on the back burner. Stop! Don’t think past this point!

It sells more and generates higher click through rates thus prompting the algorithm to promote this poison. People who write this toxicity become wealthy and famous by telling people that it is ok to accept a life of doing and being nothing versus writing about how people are worthless and should accept some responsibility. I wish you knew the hours that go into writing the things I write, the editing, and rewriting. That is why I don’t publish everyday and yes it hurts my stats but I couldn’t care less. But look at how easy it is to post three times a day about "keeping your head up.” Click!

It is also much more terse, like a haiku juxtaposed to War and Peace. It feeds on the laziness of these sloths and ironically, considering the audience, it is extremely nihilistic in that it is a rejection of all religious principles with its cynical proposition of a meaningless life that it proposes one should live. Anyone who knows that all the meaning we have in life can only be found through responsibility will see what I mean. The less responsibility one has is directly equated to a loss of meaning and purpose one feels they have in life especially in men.

What is worse than seeing someone who is paralyzed from injury or sickness and is unable to do anything for themselves? What is worse than the fear of being old and unable to clean ourselves? What is worse than a drunk man whose only responsibility is to his bottle? And we say of them all, “what a shame,” as we try not to look because we act like it pains us to see the suffering of others. The real reason we don’t look is because we don’t want to see the suffering we are not so far away from ourselves. Nobody cares about starving Africans but they are all willing to pay good money to keep it out of sight and out of mind.

Then we squint our eyes and our sad little faces begin to take shape, then we think about God for about one or two seconds, shake our heads in pity, and throw our cigarettes out the window at the McDonald’s drive thru only to get sick to our stomachs with rage about some fucking pickles on our burger!

You are not good enough the way you are. If that is true then when was it that you started being ok, just fine, or good enough? In high school perhaps? Are you going to go through life being a tenth grader? They don’t know the significance of anything much less do they recognize our obligation to one another and how to fulfill that societal contract. Love is great but action is always greater. And why would you focus on your strengths when it is your weaknesses that are burdensome to those around you? How about using your strengths to make yourself better, turn your weaknesses into strengths, and decrease the net amount of suffering in this world? This is not a novel message. It was probably the first message that was ever taught by mankind to his peers: don’t be a burden.

It is the ambiguous, ubiquitous, and vague language that leaves you unable to gauge success against failure. When that is the case you can decide if each and every day is a success or not. These ear-ticklers are popular no doubt. But what about the journey that involves you waking up earlier by two or three hours and running a difficult course for three miles? Or cutting back on sugar and drinking water? Or taking up a martial art? What about that journey? No?

Because it is a well-defined journey where you can see your failures more easily. Your failures and successes can actually be measured and observed and with your current heightened level of self-confidence from all these Substack soothsayers I suppose that hard work and responsibility is not what you are looking for. You want your diet soda and a light or capri cigarette, or maybe the ones with the Native Americans on the front smoking a pipe with all its bold flavor, and your tv clicker because you are going to accept you for who you are today.

The complacency these hocus-pocus writers push on their readers, the idea of you being you, the journey of you becoming comfortable in your own skin, focusing on loving yourself first, is all muddled with mumbo jumbo. It is full of needlessly obscure language so your failures can’t be observed so easily and your successes are only measured and determined by you and how you feel. And there are no guidelines to follow. Only you can determine if you loved yourself enough today. Only you can determine if you are comfortable in your own skin. Only you can determine if you are being true to yourself. Just remember that this was your preference when you are old and gray.

I don’t think you should love yourself. I think you should respect yourself and push yourself through the parameters that you have placed around you right now at this very moment. Work harder, get up earlier, be kinder, accept more responsibility. Love is poison and makes one attached and weak. Loving yourself only makes you weaker than you already are because you become soft and take it easy on yourself. I don’t hate myself but I hate the weakness that lives within me and I punish myself every day. I punish myself every day until a small piece of that weakness is replaced with a little more strength. I literally fight for my life each and every day that I open the front door at 5:05am and walk to my vehicle for the first time.

Observe two grape vines in your backyard that are both given the same amount of nutrition and care. One produces a multitude of grapes as the other shows no grapes at all and is barely able to be considered a vine. We call the latter one worthless albeit still a grapevine. We say that it has no value. But the other grape vine has branches which need to be tied up because of the heavy burden placed on itself from the weight of all the grapes. We call this a good grape vine. This vine, in a manner of speaking, has accepted the most responsibility that it could and brought forth a great yield. As a human being your meaning in life can be found through doing the same thing; accepting responsibility.

A farmer went out to sow seeds for a harvest. As he scattered his seeds, some fell on the hard pathway and were quickly trampled down and unable to grow and became nothing more than bird seed. Some fell on the gravel, and though they sprouted, couldn’t take root; it withered for lack of moisture. Other seeds fell where there was nothing but weeds. They too were unable to grow to full maturity, for the weeds choked them out.

Yet some of the seeds fell into good, fertile soil, and they grew and flourished until they produced more than a hundredfold harvest, a bumper crop.

And lo! Success finally has a name. A bumper crop!

I refuse to look back in my old age and wonder what could I have been if I had only tried harder. And there is no doubt that a time will come for self-reflection and introspective observations regarding the results of the life I have lived till that point. You better believe I contemplate this matter seriously every day. Sure, I have failed miserably and done things I am not proud of but I read somewhere in my early 20’s that the person who crosses over makes the greatest and most enduring changes. And never let anyone tell you that failure is the opposite of success. It is just as much a part of success as winning.

The whole notion of self-esteem is one of the oldest in the field of psychology going back to William James in the 1890’s. It wasn’t until the sexual and psychedelic revolution of the 1960’s that it took hold as a fundamental area of research within psychology.

It was a booming industry full of psychologists telling their clients, friends, and neighbors that they are fine just the way they are; beautiful on the inside and the outside. Be sure to note that the 60’s and 70’s were also a time dominated by women’s movements. It was a time when the field of psychology began to recognize women as important professionals in this field of study. I could harp on some serious correlations, however.

So if we are all just fine, then why bother? How about bothering so you and those around you don’t suffer any more than is absolutely necessary? How about so you don’t have any more regrets than you are already going to have when you are older wondering about what could have been if you would have applied yourself? What about so you don’t wonder at some point or another how could you have improved the life of those around you if you were just a better human being in general? Just start with being a little cleaner and more organized. Try being a little more kind and understanding.

The problem with telling people that they are fine just the way they are is what do you tell them when they want to know why their life is not going the way they think it should? Study harder? No, that is clearly not the answer. Lower the standards and tell everyone they are fine just the way they are. And if they are obese? Adjust the metrics and tell them they are beautiful on the inside and the outside. Oprah and Adele have made themselves a fortune doing this. Tickle me some more.

Ever notice how Adele only puts her face on her album covers while telling obese girls and women to stay “body positive?” By working out and doing physical exercise, however, she did lose 100 pounds (which she probably did to increase album sells) but it is just too bad she didn’t teach that message about hard work and self-sacrifice to all those obese girls and women buying her albums. Rather, she told them to be comfortable in their own skin. She sang about inner beauty and self-love as the money covered with donut sprinkles came pouring in. For that reason alone I have no respect for her at all. Poison.

There is so much lost when people just want to get through the day without any applied effort. And all the responsibility that they should be carrying as a human being with moral and ethical obligations to their self, their family, and their community will be displaced and burdened on someone else. It is like having two work horses on a farm and one breaks his leg.

If you want to master yourself you cannot look to others when gauging your success. It is the hardest thing to do in my opinion because even when you are working diligently to master yourself completely, people will see that you are doing more than they are in the arena of self-improvement and they will tell you that you are fine or that what you are doing is good enough. It is not enough and it never should be enough. You have the rest of your life to improve. When someone says, “don’t rock the boat,” make sure you push them over.

You can start by telling your drinking buddies that you don’t drink anymore and see how long they stay over the next weekend. They will come over one or two more times to try to lift your spirits and coax you into drinking rather than applaud you for being sober. Then they will start calling on the phone as opposed to making a wasted trip all the way over to your house to see if you are back in the swing of things. When they see that you really are not drinking anymore they will not be your friends like they were before. Soon enough they stop coming over and then they stop calling. Finally, they stop answering your calls. I have seen this when my grandfather quit drinking.

What does self-mastery mean to you?

Socrates lived in a time where teaching philosophical ideas to those around him, especially the youth, was a dangerous thing to do. There eventually came a time where the high courts let him know that in several months he was going to be put on trial for “poisoning the youth” with his teachings coupled with other charges which were punishable by death. It was a warning from the city council and courts to leave town. But Socrates decided that he would not leave.

Oneday Socrates told his friends and countrymen who were preparing his defense that he was not interested in their help any longer. He also said that acceptance of an offer for escape went counter to his commitment to never do wrong and escape would only show disrespect for the law and harm the reputation of his family. He said that he had always listened to the voice in his head and that the voice was telling him not to leave nor should he defend himself. This is where Gandhi would say that if one receives a ticket for speeding they should rejoice in a system that works as a force for good in the world. I myself am long overdue.

We all have several voices in our head. One tells us when we should be studying or that we should not be smoking cigarettes, etc. One tells us that we should drop out and smoke cigarettes and just say fcuk it.

I am pretty sure we also have that voice that tells us what we want to hear and it is not like the other voices. It is clever. It knows who we are and what we want to hear. It knows how to deal with us so it tries to speak to us logically: “Look, yesterday was a great day. We finished a good long week of work, completed our duties on time, and we didn’t waste nary a moment that was giving to us. So why don’t you sleep in just a little longer today? It will be ok since we don’t have any work to do.”

This is the voice I hate the most. The way that it uses logic to speak to me means that I have to at least listen to it in order to determine if it is trying to help me or bamboozle me. This is where self-mastery comes into play.

When I have mornings where my brain is telling me to do things like sleep late and ignore the 4:45 AM alarm because I have earned that right or otherwise deserve it, I make sure that not only do I get up quickly but I try my hardest to accomplish more on those days then I did on the previous day. This does a couple of things: one, it tells my brain that I am in full control and I will decide when we will take a break. Two, it shows my brain that there was still much left to do and that it was wrong for telling me to sleep late or stay home and relax. Sorry, Judge Judy.

I have always believed that if you wake up early and go to bed rather late, within reason, you will always have more of a life than those who sleep late. I see more and hear more from being awake at 4:45 ante meridiem each day than those who are much older than I am, yet they wake up at 9 AM and take a nap at 2 PM. Then they are back in the bed by 7:30 PM watching tv. My brain is more active and I learn a lot more as well. I have plenty of time to think about things, write, and draw conclusions; to be creative.

We have to learn to master the way our brain communicates with us before we can master ourselves. When we learn a new task not only do we gain new experiences that help us to navigate our way through the future challenges we will face but also it keeps our neural pathways active. It will also make existing neural connections stronger or weaker depending on our goal.

For example, we may learn that if we do a certain task a new way we will receive better results than from the previous way in which we were doing it. As such, the neural pathways that were created when we taught ourselves the wrong way will begin to disconnect and fall away as the brain begins to adapt to the new information. Also, new neural pathways will be created and the brain will continue to stay active and alive. You can literally create a new person.

I can say that honestly I don’t have very many days where my brain tells me that it will be best if we sleep late or ignore the 4:45 AM alarm. In fact, believe it or not, when the alarm goes off my brain begins planning out exactly what it is that we are about to do. I can’t possibly get you to believe how many times a week I grab my phone to check the time and the alarm goes off in my hand. It’s like clockwork. I begin setting my goals for the day and after breaking them down into their subcomponents I methodically begin to accomplish them with systematic precision.

I can plan out my day with such precision that it would be hard for anyone to believe me unless I could prove it. This means even down to the conversations I will have, what times they will be held, in what order, and the body gestures that will accompany those conversations as well. Yes, I have my part in several conversations well-rehearsed and ready to be delivered with the utmost practicality at this very moment. I must confess, my beloved lectiophile, that if such were not the case then it is those very conversations, left unrehearsed, that might not end so favorably for yours truly.

I generally like to start my day by rubbing my dog on his belly as he stretches and moves around the bed. He wags his tail because he knows we are about to get up and start the day. Then I feed him and put his lunch in the fridge. Then I get dressed for my yoga class. I grab my yoga mat and a cup of coffee and several bottles or water. After my practice, if I have time, I will stay for one more session. By then it will be 9 AM and I have spent three hours exercising not only my body but also my mind. On a typical day I will make it back home by 9:45 AM. At this point I have been awake for 4 hours.

“What story are you telling yourself?” Kavita, one of my yoga instructors.

After yoga on the days where I am pushing beyond my normal limitations, I may go to the gym and work out or run a 5k or 10k race somewhere with hundreds of other people, usually on a Saturday or Sunday. Such days as this I like to try to build muscle, core strength, and increase my body’s overall ability to utilize oxygen (also known as your VO2 Max) with intense training and exercise. This helps me when I am boxing or trying to increase my speed for the races.

Likewise, I may go home and change clothes and get ready for work. The self-mastery is working because I am doing what it is that I want to do, not what my brain wants to do, and it is being reinforced as I make sure that I constantly do exactly what it is that I say I am going to do. True, if anything hinders the day that I have so well planned out I can get bent out of shape. But I work really hard on not letting this happen by doing two things: careful planning and slowly and meticulously dealing with the interruptions as they occur. This teaches me that even with minor to mild upsets I can deal with them methodically and intentionally and still be where I need to be and do the things I set out to do.

When a young man begins to learn the ways of the warrior monk he may first be taught that what he searches for lies down a certain path. As the young man begins to follow that path eventually he will see that it is not the correct path. Having faith in the teacher he will ask for more guidance and the teacher will show him a new path that he must follow. After following this path the young man will see that this path also does not lead to the way. After several more times the student will eventually learn that what he is searching for was inside of him the entire time and not down any path at all. It was within the self.

So many people will remain poor or working class individuals and they will have only themselves to blame. It is the path they chose and not because of destiny. They will pay almost $15,000 dollars every ten years for a cell phone because they want to feel like they are part of a network. They will drink diet drinks instead of water and work only 9 AM to 5 PM leaving out so many hours of the day with which so much more could be accomplished. They will take off on the weekends because they worked 40 hours that week and are now entitled; what else can be expected?

They will succumb to the addictions of porn, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, television, and poor eating habits. They will claim that they know so much about politics because they simply have an opinion from watching tv but can’t tell you the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They will rewrite history to serve their ego.

They will believe that they need a million dollar home and a $70,000 vehicle in order to label themselves as successful. They will stay up-to-date with all the latest in consumerism and fancy gadgets, shoes, clothes, jewelry, and cell phones. But something will always be gnawing at them as they continue to purchase their happiness and raise the bar for the things they think are needed for a happy, successful life.

A day will come when they are older and they realize, hopefully, that diet drinks didn’t give them the body that they wanted. What an aggravating thing it must be to ponder on when you are older; whether or not you could have had that sculpted body with obliques and abs when you were younger. Not that it was necessary, but could it have been done?

The average married couple will spend over $330,000 on cigarettes in their lifetime. The average person who drinks 14 drinks a week will spend almost $5,000 a year on alcohol because they saw Snoop Dogg or Tony Romo holding a Corona. Throw in the latest in fashion, $1,200 a year per cell phone plus the cost of the $1,200 phone itself, makeup, nails, outrageous car payments, etc. You don’t need my permission to do all these things and to love it while you are doing it, just don’t tell me you are not a bi-product of Western consumerism. The tv is winning and your brain is dying.

What a disgusting thing to see as women go around dressed like they are in a constant state of sexual excitement and sexual flush. Men who can’t stop staring and gawking at them believing that the only way to have a woman “like that” is to have a big tv and a huge saltwater swimming pool. And of course the walk-in closet for all the high heels that she will wear for her friends and her boss, yet the husband hardly gets a “thank you” for a hard days work.

Rather, he gets, “I don’t belong in the kitchen,” for all his sacrifices and then during sex she just lays there because it is more or less just part of the payment plan at that point. But don’t worry that too will get taking away and they will spend the rest of their lives miserable sleeping in separate rooms because of her lack of appreciation and his lack of interest. He will blame her for snoring and she will say he has sleep apnea or stays up too late.

The only interactions they will have is when she fusses because he acts like his day is done just because he is home and not at work. She dropped off the kids at school and then 9 hours later had to go and pick them up and buy them chicken nuggets. She just has too much on her plate and no help. However, through analyzing data from diaries and personal interviews, the University of Michigan found that the average house wife does 17 hours of household chores a week. Women with more than 3 children did as much as 28 hours of household chores a week. Yet they still complain about their lack of help even with house cleaners, a yard guy, and dad taking out the heavy trash. I say we should get them a time sheet and make them clock in.

But he will have to work twice as hard so they can afford to eat out every day. And on his days off they will go out to dine in at a posh restaurant so they can indulge in their fantasies of being a well-to-do middle class family from their all-white neighborhood as the Mexican cleaners come and clean the house for $300 a week because she’s not gonna be tied to the stove all day, or something like that. Then she pauses at the restaurant entrance while texting on her phone so he can open the door for her.

Why should men make more than women? Because when they are 65 years old and there is no money for retirement guess who has to go back to work? Just another reason why you should be nice to people working at Home Depot.

And when they look around and see that they are doing exactly what everyone else is doing, the almighty network, they will not be able to see that they are actually not the master of anything. For what happens is a void is created when one fails to master themselves. The human being is not the master at all but rather they have become the puppet to a system that has mastered them. Women will blame men for having all the money and just wanting sex all the time and men will blame women for just wanting money and using sex to get what they want. It shouldn’t be blamed on anything or anyone but a lack of self-mastery; failure of the individual.

Did you hear the one about the monk?

So, there was this monk who liked to talk a lot because he thought he was being helpful and insightful. He constantly reminded the other monks that his willingness to give up all his material possessions and search for truth was a greater sacrifice than theirs because he came from such a privileged lifestyle. It really irritated the other monks because whether or not they gave up the same amount as he, they still gave up all they had, including family.

One day all the monks were giving a task to accomplish over the next month by the abbot. Some would find their task simple while others would find it extremely difficult. The abbot told the one monk who liked to talk so much that his task was not to say a single word for the next month.

“Why have you giving me such an easy task? Do you not have faith in my ability to accomplish so much more?”

“You may accept or decline.”

So with this the monk accepted his task of silence for thirty days. He started right then and there. The first day was not at all difficult. The second day was not so bad either. But the third day he noticed an overwhelming urge to correct a few others he overheard speaking at the monastery. He found that all he could do was walk away angrily and let them be wrong. It was extremely heavy on his mind.

After a week he became ill and began to tremor. He was not sure he could continue to remain silent in the face of so much that needed to be corrected and straightened out. He just could not stand hearing others say things that were not true or otherwise grossly incorrect.

After two weeks of silence many of the other monks had already forsaken their tasks that were assigned to them, however, the monk who was known for talking remained steadfast in his silence. It was becoming a sensation as no one had heard a single word from him in fifteen days.

Eventually, not being able to tolerate the other’s conversations, the monk journeyed into the forest to finish out his task alone. When he disappeared into the forest and did not return for several days the monks began to worry. After several more days all the monks were able to talk about was what might have happened to the monk who disappeared into the forest?

The monks began to worry that perhaps he had been overtaken by predators or sickness. As they voiced their concerns to the abbot, he would just smile and nod his head.

After the month long assignment was over the monk who was known for talking so much could not be found. The next day came, then another, and finally two more weeks came and went, yet the monk never returned from the forest. It was assumed by all that he must have met a ghastly fate.

Then one day a strange man appeared who paced quietly throughout the temple. When the monks asked who the newcomer was the abbot said, “don’t you recognize your brother?”

The talkative monk had returned and what a transformation had overcome his whole demeanor! The way he walked and even the look on his face and around his lips had become soft and gentle. The monks at once gathered around him to question him and, believe it or not, to hear him speak. The monk had not spoken for six weeks now.

“Why did you stay for so long in the wilderness after your task was completed?” they asked.

“After only a few days of silence all I could hear were my thoughts yelling and screaming inside my head. They were constantly telling me things I needed to say. These voices were not happy that they were not being heard, so I left the camp and went into the forest. After a few days the voices became quieter and quieter.

“Finally, and for the first time in my life, I was left with a deep peace which I had never known. I decided to stay on and enjoy the silence and to teach myself that it is not important nor is it necessary to always share with others when I agree or disagree. What is important is the peace that I have made with myself. The more we talk the more our thoughts demand to be heard. But when we practice silence we also practice patience and gratitude.”

After the monk spoke these words the entire monastery agreed to practice complete silence several days a week. And to think it was all because of the monk who talked too much.

“What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“We are all born with the same fight inside of us. We are all born with the same desire for the satiation of hunger and pain as the next person. We are all born with the same potential inside each and every one of us. Nothing is ever gained by one human being over another. It is only what is lost by some along the way.” Jason Holliman (Think Dragon).

Thank you for reading.