Another mindfulness day, another pithy meme and another animal video. Mindfulness seems to have replaced schemes like ‘the secret’ for people in the motivation market.
Looking through my timeline, I am drawn to the conclusion that ‘mindfulness’ is ‘success technology’ for people who have given up hope and are suffering from anxiety and depression.
So, I wonder, does this mean that I could actually draw a correlation between trends in motivation and the state of the American economy? The idea that everyone who isn’t making money is an unemployed millionaire in the making seems to be fading somewhat in favour of navel gazing.
I can only see this as a good thing for America. The days of Ayn Rand taking the piss out of American culture with her stinging Soviet backlash are really quite far behind us now. When I look at motivational material now compared to then, with the aforementioned (previous posts on public speaking) respect for speakers having been replaced by a kind of grazing mentality.
Basically, the message is, you cannot do anything about external forces, so quiet your wandering mind and just be. Frankly, fuck that. You don’t achieve anything by taking that attitude. I may be a creature of extremes, but I always have something to achieve, big or small. If people actually discussed taking action in relation to the external forces rather than sat around being mindful, we would get on a lot faster. Even I spend too much time watching animals, reviewing memes and generally wasting time on living in the moment.
At this moment I am addressing my apparently dodgy liver. My friend, who seems to be on a permanent binge as he is dying, has gone now, and so I am safe to return to my healthier eating habits. It was very interesting that in the course of his gaining 14lb, I gained ten times as much eating much the same thing, so I can now say with confidence that eating normal food just causes me to continuously gain weight. I have lost the same 150lb about eight times now, so I am at least happy that I can safely ignore all the areas of the supermarket I was ignoring seven years ago.
I have employed the strategy of pretending that I am going to see Wolfe in October, for the sake of an initial goal. I have no actual intention of doing it, but I am using it as a pleasant thought. (I am of course aware that I would not enjoy or get anything out of it as he would probably have me thrown out, going by past experience) This unrealistic and rather empty goal is working wonders on my liver however, some of the symptoms were calming down just doing that.
Maybe that is my version of being mindful. Rather than living in and experiencing/wallowing in the moment, I am escaping to somewhere I regard as more interesting. The internet seems to be hidden behind a wall of mindful bullshit. I much preferred the days of Dale Carnegie. Life was much simpler and more innocent then.