Yoga is boring, writing about it is more boring, reading about it... well, is the most boring
I will not write about my yoga practice. The February yoga challenge is going on, I do 50 minutes of ashtanga yoga every day and that's it. I will just post my photo and video of my yoga wheel pose, being 59 I am proud that I can still do it.
Today, I spent considerable time reading about philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. I think he was close to realization of things as they are. I like him.
If you have missed philosophy lessons in high school, well, Arthur Schopenhauer is 19th-century philosopher who were writing about suffering and happiness that we experience during our lifetimes. He had a pessimistic outlook on life. He saw life on this planet as a disaster. He compared the human existence on the Earth to a prison sentence. He firmly was repeating that our lives are not naturally enjoyable but actually miserable.
But despite the blackness of his view of life and our poor existence, Schopenhauer gave advice and suggested solutions to make this life endurable by lowering our suffering. In his work: Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, he wrote how we can live our lives in such a way that we prevent misery as much as possible.
I will not write about it, those are his ideas, if you're interested you can google it. This is my blog and it is about my ideas. 😏
I found something worth of attention in the writings of Schopenhauer.
Arthur Schopenhauer said that there are three things (our views) that decide our fate. The first one is "what someone is," the second one, "what someone has," and the last one, "how we stands in the comparison with others."
I'm not interested about the last two but I'm intrigued to see that Schopenhauer's "what someone is" predominantly decides the quality of one’s well-being. And thus, within our personality, how we see ourselves, what we take who we are, hides the key to making life less miserable.
What Someone Is
...what a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has, or how he is regarded by others. What a man is, and so what he has in his own person, is always the chief thing to consider; for his individuality accompanies him always and everywhere, and gives its color to all his experiences. In every kind of enjoyment, for instance, the pleasure depends principally upon the man himself. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life, Chapter II. — Personality, or what a man is
It is an open secret of existence that you, my friend, don't pay attention to it. Lets talk openly. Forget philosophy and great words of Schopenhauer or anyone else. I urge you to sit down and decide for yourself - what is "you"? What is your life and what is the world you live in?
How you see yourself is how you experience the world and consequently how you feel. How you see yourself are glasses, the lens, through which you experience the events.
Ask yourself - Do you see yourself as a sense of presence? Do you take yourself as a simple "I AM" sense? Or do you see yourself through your possessions, wealth, and your standing with others? These are two opposite views of how you position yourself to the external circumstances.
It happens often, people gain fortune and fame but are simultaneously more miserable than when they were poor and unknown. (Matthew Perry from Friends is a great example and there are many others.) What’s the actual value of wealth and fame?
How you take yourself determines the value of your existence!
Seeing yourself as a mere sense of presence gives you unique opportunity, better to say - a capacity, of simply being happy and cheerful for no particular reason other than being so. Being happy for the sake of just being happy is the very meaning of existence.
If you feel good, mentally and physically, the most simple things become pleasurable, and no money nor fame will be required to put a smile on your face. The cheerfulness is the best antidote to misery. Money cannot buy it, nor can fame. And the more you pursue these external things, the more you drive cheerfulness away. By chasing wealth you're on the way to misery.
On the other hand, living by being aware of "I Am" sense, of the sense of presence, studying it, looking at it, knowing it well, making a friendship with your very Being and being receptive to it gives you abundance of cheerfulness.
The cheerfulness is not a "positive emotion," but rather a state of your Being (of who you are) which is independent from external circumstances.
We should add very much to our happiness by a timely recognition of the simple truth that every man’s chief and real existence is in his own skin, and not in other people’s opinions; and, consequently, that the actual conditions of our personal life, — health, temperament, capacity, income, wife, children, friends, home, are a hundred times more important for our happiness than what other people are pleased to think of us: otherwise we shall be miserable. And if people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people’s opinions. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life, Chapter IV.— Position, or a man’s place in the estimation of others
Well, that's it. It's getting late, almost 10 pm and due to Schopenhauer I did not do today's yoga practice. I will finish here the post and go on the yoga mat... I'll write about my yoga practice some other time. 😉
Category
