Stupidity About Good Life And Happiness
Every system has singular, basic and broad mechanism and process. That is an ‘Input-Output’ causality. This is fundamental economics that is the core critical operative principle of all systems. There is a ‘Demand’ side that may well be deemed as energy of initiation of an enterprise and very naturally, it engenders a causality of ‘Supply’ side. Most systems work on the demand-supply causality. The causalities may be complex or simple but there shall always be some ‘Cyclicality’ between the two elements of demand and supply. We all know this simple economics. We just need to extend it in its holism in all aspects of life-living.
When we talk about good life and happiness of life-living, it is crucial to understand this Cyclicality of Causality of demand-supply as most stupidities and hypocrisies of an individual as well as the humanity in general emanate out of that. Global stupidities and hypocrisies are seeded, nurtured and idolized in this domain of life-living economics. Interestingly enough, in this economics lies the seed of happiness too!
We all know by our own experience that any system that is more complex and diverse shall naturally have better optimality and excellence. However, more complex a system becomes, higher is its entropy. It is all about how simple and less stressed is a system that shall ensure less chances of it going awry. This has a simple rule – if there is higher demand on the system for performance and productivity, there shall be more complexities involved to ensure the quantity and quality of supply. Naturally, high system demand puts pressure on supply requisites, requiring systems to gradually grow complex and diversified. This in turn shall generate innate and entrenched propensities for entropy.
We also very well know and accept how every system in our milieus have become hugely complex, diversified and multi-faceted because of high demand pressure for supplies. Thanks to the unmanageable population and its demands for ‘Good Life’. Naturally, most systems are stressed and this innately unleashes entropic elements of 3Cs – Confusion, Conflict and Chaos. All human systems, be it personal, familial, societal, cultural, political, economic or spiritual; has now become complex and stressed because of over-performance and higher optimality. This is because of ever-enhancing demand pressure, requiring increased supply optimality.
Over the years, the human world is facing a calamitous dualism. The technologies of the systems have improved massively on the one hand but on the other, human mediocrity has increased too, because, the quality of education and training, which is required for excellence in the new ‘high-performance’ systems have gone down considerably. Naturally, most systems have now enhanced propensities of higher entropies. Moreover, the entropy has to increase proportionately as system excellence for enhanced performance goes up beyond a certain point of criticality. As is common in most system, there always are planned backups and support systems for higher optimality of performance but very few systems have strong structures with functional excellence to restore and rehabilitate the destabilizations and diastrophic situations caused by compounding entropy. The result is short-term gain at the cost of extinction of system itself. The best example is the environmental degradation in contemporary world.
We can understand these aspects by carefully and patiently looking at our own body-mind system. We are wired for a reactionary consciousness that is guided primarily by reward and punishment sentiments. We always wish to feel rewarded and avoid punishment. This is simple demand-supply economics. Our wishes are demands on our body-mind system and if we are supplied with optimal quantity and quality of what we wished, we feel rewarded and happy. If the supplies are not commensurate, we feel punished and irritated. A child is usually happy because his or her demands are simple and few. However, deny a toy demand to a kid and he or she shall be instantly irritated.
This reward-punishment causality or what we can accept as demand-supply relationship is cardinal to our general wellness; we are designed this way. This becomes more complex and varied as we grow and mature. Our demands get diversified and complex and it is only natural that in a physical milieu, where humans have become many many times more than what our dwindling resources can support, there is always huge competitiveness for supply availability. The growing gap in demand and supply is bound to enhance system entropy and hence our growing irritation and conflicts. This situation is worsened beyond control when resource-inequality peaks’ like in contemporary world. When 5 percent people monopolize 95 percent of moneys and wealth, calamity is inevitable. This shall lead to finality of extinction of human system itself.
Scientists have been studying the very disastrous entropic symptoms of depression in global population, irrespective of geography. It is believed that over 75 percent of global population are or have been in and out of either short-term or long-term depression. Science maintains that depression is basic entropic symptom of a stressed system, where the demand side has been putting pressure on disproportionate supplies. This ‘gap’ may be cognitive but it matters as for most practical purpose, ‘Perception Is Reality’ for a subjective self. In researches, it has been found that most lonely and depressed people complained that they loved and cared people but they were not getting back the same. It is a deficit, which may well be real but often, its perception is also disproportionate! This subject has been dealt with in detail in author’s eBook, ‘Be Lonely, Be Your Best’, available for unrestricted download, like all 40 eBooks of the author.
The ancient spiritual system in Oriental world stressed on simple and minimalist living so that there is less pressure on demand side and therefore, less propensity of consciousness for entropic feelings, assuming that supply side is always less than demand. In Yogic philosophy there is detailed explanation of mechanisms to describe how demand-supply gap is the core trouble for human consciousness and therefore, every person and society in general must have demand-moderation. The modern psychological perspective also mentions about the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle to have better poise and sanity in personal and well as societal life and living. The ‘minimalist’ approach to life-living is also a pop trend.
However, we in the new millennium have to be more aware and better endowed to handle this all. We surely do not accept to stand in ‘deniability’ of the cardinal principle of an enterprise – that is maximization-optimization of proceeds of labor and investment. As a conscious person, we surely do not have to accept the classical position that ‘A System Low in Demand is the Best Option’. Why? Because, our proposition is optimization of wellness and there cannot be optimization if we insist on ‘Low Demand’ causality of our life-living enterprise. We would rather work out a holistic model of ‘Conscious-Enterprise’ that weighs up and factors in every possible element and design and devise such a model of communication to our consciousness that shall be all-weather optimization mechanism. We would rather accept ‘Demand-Supply-Sanity’ and discretionary control over all production processes of the system, instead of a perpetual ‘Low-Demand’ system.
We have already talked about how not only our body-mind system, consciousness and milieus but every system out there is a randomized reality. Our body-mind homeostasis is always in different capacities, the milieus we live in may stand sometimes in our favor and sometimes against us and we cannot do much about it. Also, our consciousness may also be in different states. Therefore, what our conscious self shall do is first assess what is the current status of our body-mind system? How much demand pressure it can safely accept? How is the current milieus, suitable or not for a particular demand? Also, how are the elements that affect or shape up supplies? Are they favorable or not?
The simple plan is to have a very aware and consciously logical and objective assessment of all possible elements that form the ‘Causality’ of a systemic process. If things are favorable for system optimality, it shall be stupid of us to opt for ‘Low Demand’. That itself have entropic outcome on our consciousness. Therefore, what we are proposing is that we need to be very aware to assess with high objectivity and logicality the system-readiness and then suitably decide what to communicate to our consciousness so that we could attain the best possible optimum output.
For example, suppose I have a close friend with whom I am having troubles. I am feeling offended and even outraged at times because I feel that he is not understanding and accepting my viewpoint and position. Also, I feel he is being reactionary and unnecessarily critical of my behavior-action for him. There may well be other conflicting issues between me and him. So, what I do? What I communicate to my conscious self so that situation could stop going to worse and amicability and understanding could be restored. This is a very common situation for most of us. We all know, vast majority of literature, be it poetry or prose, has been ascribed to this primary human causality that we often have most conflicts and confusion with those whom we love most and find closest to our lives. So, what we should do, ideally?
This is the situation, where troubles start and deepen because very often, close relationships and their interactions become a routine of our subconscious selves and they get carried out without we seldom consciously assessing them and presiding over their optimality questions. What we need to do is apply the principles we have discussed so far. That we list here step by step.
The first thing to do is to sit back, relax and ensure that consciously, you segregate two layers of your consciousness. You summon your ‘subconscious’ to stand a trial but not before you ensure that your ‘conscious’ self is in the mode of an objective, logical and impartial ‘Judge’. This we ensure by ensuring that we have practiced enough hours of relaxed, calmed and inward reflections. The simple idea is that we realize that there were troubles in relationships because our subconscious brain states went on judging things from a ‘Media’ that probably engendered ‘inappropriate’ communication. So, we consciously change the ‘Media’ to alter and then present a fresh communication.
How we do it. We all know our neural plexus fires (connects to other neuron) in different frequencies and at the root of all our thoughts, emotions and subconscious attitude is this neural communication. Somehow, these neural firings are auto-process ‘Media’ and ‘Communication’ structures. They decide our internal thought-emotion milieu without we ever consciously being aware. The neural electrical pulses have different frequencies depending on the levels of activity the body-brain has to do.
So usually, when relationships issues confront me, my subconscious mind naturally becomes over-active; a precedent of ‘reactionary milieu’ already being there, beta waves take over, deciding my behavior and emotions. So, very consciously, I have to relax and stabilize myself to ensure that I am in conscious mind state where my brain waves are in lower Theta or Delta frequencies. These frequencies are non-reactive, receptive, analytical and amenable to reflective mode. This brain wave change comes through calm and consciously thoughtful process, which we may call meditation but it is just a conscious choice.
Secondly, when I ensure that I am in an ideal internal milieu, where my body-brain ‘Media’ is suitable for a reflective and analytical behavior, I begin with me and use a logical communication with my subconscious self, asking tough questions, whether my own behavior and actions are true, right and appropriate towards the person I have trouble with? This is never easy as always, subconscious self is prompt and prejudiced to present an advocacy and witnesses for ‘Self-Acquittal’. Therefore, ideally, I have to rely on a witness that is another objective person, who has seen me communicating with the person I have troubles with.
Then, after I have got sense of what probably I am doing wrong, I communicate with my subconscious self to suitably alter it next time onwards. I also practice this resolve many times so that new communication to my subconscious state is deep and thick. After that, I begin to assess whether the current physical, psychological and emotional milieu between me and that person I have troubles with is entropic or facilitative. We all know, between two people in relationship, there is an intangible psychological and emotional milieu that keeps changing in time and space. Our subconscious however does not always update these changes and seldom alters the behavior-action suitably. This only our conscious self can do for us. Therefore, I very logically and with high conscious content of compassion in my internal emotional space, assess the current psychological and emotional milieu between me and that person. This is the ‘media’ and if the media is entropic, it is only natural that my communication with him is also embedded with confusion, conflict and chaos.
Apart from this media, there is another dimension to the media, which is the internal psychological and emotional subconscious state of the person I have troubles with. I also have to very objectively and compassionately assess whether that person is settled in his life-living situations or is he going through some troubles – physically, psychologically and emotionally.
After conscious assessments of all possible ‘Causalities’ that stand between me and that person, I accept a situation logically and objectively about how is the current ‘Media’ around and between me and him and then suitably decide on an altered ‘Communication’ that shall help restore amicability and poise with him.
This is simple Homeostasis challenge and requirement of an Allostatic process to restore equilibrium. So, I may decide and suitably communicate to my subconscious mind that the current media between me and him is already entropic and as nothing concrete can be done in immediate time and space, I should consciously lower the ‘Level of Engagement’ with the person I have troubles with and wait compassionately for a time and space when the entropy level comes down and the milieu is right for engagement of fresh communication. This communication I shall repeat to my subconscious mind time and again in different ways of language, emotions and thoughtfulness so that my subconscious is communicated well about my new realism.
This is a broad way we have discussed here. Every person may decide on different modes of this process but the core idea is to have conscious awareness of all possible ‘Causalities’ about the current ‘Media’ and ‘Communication’ so that an altered new communication could be consciously and successfully launched to attain optimal wellness and excellence in our life-living. There is definitely no fixed position about a preferred choice of ‘Media’. There is always ‘suitability’ factor. A reactionary media is equally useful as is a thoughtful and relaxed media. It depends on task at hand. Similarly, it is not that entropy-expansive media is always bad and entropy-suppressive media is always good. If I have to take a decision about a key issue in life that requires definitive action, I have to rely on entropy-suppressive media because my decision must be logical and objective. However, if I am in love or I require to show my compassionate self or experience higher epiphany virtualism, I sure need to call upon my entropy-expansive media to lead my conscious communication.
It must be kept in mind that an empowered person shall practice consistently to swiftly and effectively switch over from one media to another. That requires repeated practice of differentiated communication in different suitability. However, in the ultimate analysis, we can say with definitive assurance that ideal it is to have a poise and equilibrium between demand and supply of our consciousness system but, this is tough in contemporary milieus. Therefore, it seems advisable that we consciously remain in a consciousness system that is relatively ‘Low In Demand’ or to say in other words, ‘more on the lower end of demands’, so that our system as well as milieus are not stressed. It is for every individual to consciously assess and decide what it takes to have a ‘Low In Demand’ system. It is discretionary as different persons can have different capacity for systemic stress.
Also, equally crucial aspect of system-sanity, which classical spiritualism has insisted and detailed in length, is the idea of ‘Self-Supply’. Thousands of years back, it was realized by humanity, which modern science confirms, that ‘Nothing Exists Outside Self And Nothing Outside Self Has Any Meaning, Utility And Worth’. This suggests, when this very conscious self, the ‘Aware-I’ has all elements of utility and worth, it is the best supplier of most happiness and wellness cognitions. Therefore, the higher consciousness has the task of not only opting for a conscious system ‘Low In Demand’ but also ‘Be The Supply’. Here comes the role of cognitive changes. Here comes the utility of the artistry of music, dance and artfulness. Here comes the worth of love and compassion in hearts. They all help in ‘Be The Supply’ artistry of consciousness.
Now, there is another idea – an aspect of media and communication, which is tough to explain and tougher to understand. This is what may be termed as Optimality of Specificity. What we mean by optimality of specificity relates to two aspects of media and communication. First, there has to be clarity and exactness (specificity) in conscious selection of right and appropriate media for specific communication. So, if I have to arrive at a conclusion about a decision in my life, which requires logic and reason, I have to ensure that my media or other person’s media, to whom I have to communicate, is equally attuned to logicality and reason. Therefore, if I am emotionally unsettled at any point of life and I am trying to reason out a decision, requiring objectivity, logic and reason, I am bound to fail as there is apparent conflict and contradiction between my media and communication because of missing specificity (exactness).
Secondly, the communication itself needs to have clarity and exactness. Even if my media is in sync with mood and modality of my communication to my consciousness, if I am not inputting exact and pinpointed communication to the media, I shall only get abstracted and confused output. This exactness of communication is tough task. It has got to do with how we have learnt our languages with good depth and command, how from early childhood we have managed our emotions well and how we have managed our thoughtfulness to exact needs.
Globally, there seems a common trend everywhere that communication clarity and exactness has been eroded and there is growing abstractness and waywardness in communication – both internal as well as external. Much of the blame for this muddled up communication exactness goes to emotional instabilities of average person and little practice of self-introspection. Average person in contemporary cultures and milieus has lost touch with the brilliant human ability and artistry of ‘self-dialogue’. In ancient Oriental spiritual traditions, there is great stress on continuous and persevered self-investigation and self-enquiry. These are essentially aimed at honing the skills of communication with self.
To make the idea of optimality of specificity in communication clear and also to emphasize its importance in life-living wellness and success, I share a true story with you. Few months back, a dear friend of mine shared with me an idea and he insisted that I do research on this issue. The issue was that in his long list of acquaintances, friends and relatives, there were large numbers of families that had only single child, be it a girl or boy. There was a growing feeling among them that there single grown up offspring did not seem sensitive enough towards their emotional and other needs and therefore, there is a common overriding wish that these families must work together to evolve and create a support structure in coming years so that they are independent and self-sufficient in their old age. My dear friend wanted me to do a research on what’s going on around the world and how we can go about it.
Not to my amazement, I found a clear global trend and commonality of causality, when I researched over this issue. Almost in most developed country, there is around 10-15 percent families with single offspring and globally, there was a fast emerging complaint among many families, be it with single child or many children that the parents felt a growing gap between them and their offspring. There were common emotional issues and conflicts of assumptions were on both sides. I wish to share my findings that may help us understand how critical the issue of exactness of ‘communication’ is.
First, there was no clarity on both sides about the specificity (exactness) of the trouble between parents and the offspring. Rather, the entire stress factor between the two had very abstracted situation and acceptance. Is there a dignity issue at hand? Are offspring treating parents badly? Are they abusive? The research seems to suggest, there is no definitiveness to it. For example, an old lady living alone complained that she was very upset with her daughter because when she came to her house on a vacation or otherwise, the daughter would check her food packets and confront her mother as why she was eating this and why she was still stacking the spices that were well past expiry date, etc. The old mother felt this as intrusive behavior and though she may not take it as a ‘dignity’ issue, she still was ruffled up by her daughter entering her space and trying to order her. The daughter on the other side felt she was doing the right things as she was concerned about her mother’s wellbeing. Now, there is no data available as which way she was telling her mother about what she was telling. There are innumerable such examples where both parents and offspring would stand to appear as both are right and genuine in their feelings, yet, trouble pervaded their relationships.
So, broadly, what is the specificity-trouble in this issue of parent-offspring communication crisis? It is very clear, if we see the broad picture. The primary issue is that two people are having a crisis in relationship, where the root of trouble is that there is a gap of ‘perceptions’. Only in few rare cases, there is an element of dignity as abusive behavior between two are not the rule. The majority cases have communication collapse or abstraction. The parents are probably not receiving the perception and perspective of offspring and the vice-versa. Both sides have right and wrong in their perceptions and perspectives. Usually, both sides have the problem of gap between ‘Media’ and ‘Communication’, which we have discussed earlier. Like, children are not sensitive to the reality that parents may not be logical about their right and true wellness concerns towards them as they may be emotionally instable. The parents may also be insensitive to the fact that the grown up child has moved away and may have his or her own emotional crisis about how he or she can handle parents’ safety and wellness. May be, both sides have emotional ‘Media’ and they are attempting a ‘Logical’ communication through it and naturally, abstractions creep in and specificity (exactness) is missing by huge margins.
So, what is the trouble? The trouble is; the specificity or exactness of the situation demands that both sides sit together and discuss ways to improve communication and weed out elements of distrust and abstraction about it between them. However, what parents are doing is focusing on how to get rid of this crisis by devising a ‘disconnect’. They are not focusing on root of trouble but the inverse of it by planning to be ‘independent’ of offspring. The offspring are also not focusing on how to alter communication so that their concerns of safety and distant-care perspectives are understood in right spirit by parents. Rather, they are also planning to fill in more vacuum with their parents by ‘providing’ but not ‘intervening’. So, the outcome is growing gap between the two sides.
The same situation happens with internal communication within an individual too. I must share with you a classical example of this conscious-subconscious gap and conflict, which is global in nature and intent. This shall help understand why specificity or exactness is so critical in media and communication optimality. It is widely accepted by most scientific thinking that working actionable structure of brain states is subconscious layer. The conscious states may opt for a decision but it is only intangible. The decision in mind always has to be converted into definitive action and for that only the subconscious has tangible structures. Therefore, there must be very specific linearity between conscious and subconscious about a situation. If not, abstractions shall creep in and hypocrisies shall usurp domain.
This is primary reason that globally, average person shall almost always mouth good and lofty ideals and words. This happens because in almost all cultures, goodness and righteousness is common. Therefore, it is always easy and prompt for anyone to think right and mouth most appropriate words. However, most people shall seldom do the same good and right thing. That is why ‘hypocrisy’ is the greatest malaise of human world. Our conscious self shall usually think great things but as it seldom is made to stand in sync and symmetry with subconscious, which carries the commensurate ‘action’, most of us seldom carry out the same and exact righteousness that we think. Hypocrisy is entropic situation of conscious-subconscious gap.
Globally, we have witnessed that in most nations, there is a gap between what the political leadership ‘thinks’ and what bureaucracy ‘carries’. The visions or righteous ‘intent’ of ‘decision-makers’ or law-makers are usually good and right. The policy-frameworks are usually not wrong and bad as they are guided by constitutions of nations. However, only the bureaucracy can carry this intent into actionable work. There is clear divide between two pillars of governance. It is very rare that decision-makers take into full confidence the bureaucracy and it is equally rare that bureaucracy stand in full cooperation with law-makers. Also, bureaucracy usually has high levels of mediocrity for any good to be delivered in optimal excellence. This is akin to gap between conscious and subconscious – the ‘thinking’ and ‘acting’ layers seldom being on one page.
Naturally, most nations, especially developing nations have low optimality of their governance systems. In contemporary times, it is rather tragic that politicians and bureaucracy has even come to open fights and abuses. The level of distrust and anger against each other is calamitously high. This crisis of governance has been widely documented by intellectuals of society time and again but still, no concrete measures are taken by governments to work on improved symmetry and synergy between two key layers of governance.
Therefore, the primary specificity (exactness) is to have both our subconscious and conscious in singular and present linearity. This ensures that entire consciousness system is in singular media to receive and execute appropriate communication. This requires practice. In contemporary world of fast paced life and multi-tasking demands, often, two domains of consciousness are usually in competing and conflicting platforms. Secondly, be very aware of the character of communication so that an appropriate media is consciously chosen for it. Third, the communication itself has to be very specific, sans emotional abstractions. Lastly, the communication has to be sustained and repeated so that conscious communication is etched deeply and decisively on the subconscious structures.
As we have discussed above, even as a decision for action is taken on conscious levels, it shall have to be translated to existing subconscious plexus and pathways for finality of action. That is why we earlier insisted on good practice of language, emotions and thoughts as communication tools. This ensures that subconscious already has deep pathways for exactness of our communication signals for effective recall and replication.
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