image: azli jamal

IF…

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust youself when all men doubt you 

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk to crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!

 

This writing by Rudyard Kipling never fails to strike a chord with me. There’s something in my assembly about dignity, propriety and demeanour that it resonates with. I used to carry a handwritten copy of it in my wallet in the smallest, finest copperplate script I could muster. I believe that we all have something for each other, that our lives can be likened to a jigsaw puzzle and we each are the custodians of vital pieces to the emerging picture that we will all eventually become.

image: yoshiko 314

Like most things, there are two states of happiness. Those that are circumstantial and those that are induced. Circumstantial can be seen as fortuitous and not really the result of any conscious process on the part of the individual. Induced is where the individual has actually taken the time and made the effort to engineer the state at a conscious level.

Serendipity may well characterise the journey that leads to the first state. It is a state of happy chance and good fortune on the part of the individual and is, I suspect, given the nature of our contemporary world, an increasingly rare phenomenon.

Take the simplest route to induced happiness, exercise regularly and as vigorously as you can. Why? Because your body secretes endorphins which are known euphemistically as ‘happy hormones’ and raise your sense of well-being. It is a quick fix and places you in the driving seat. Try to avoid making major decisions without doing some form of exercise beforehand, whether it be a brisk walk or a full on aerobic workout at the gym.

The release of endorphins into your bloodstream will colour your critical faculties and enhance your mood generally and is far more likely to result in your decisions or meditations being positive.

 Some people love the esoteric, so here’s something for you to try for size.

Two agents, serotonin and melatonin influence us in subtle yet powerful ways. They can be seen as precursors to various states ranging from tiredness to euphoria. Psychedelic drugs, the things that hippies championed and claimed lead to altered states of perception, have been found to trigger serotonin release. Serotonin is also known as a happy hormone and is cited as a cure, among other things, for depression.

Drugs such as the psychedelics are referred to as the lazy man’s way to enlightenment. And this is true, enhanced perceptions, awareness, understandings and ‘heightened consciousness’ are accessible through the effects of the drugs. The thing is that the perceptions are soon forgotten because they are artificially triggered altered states and for most people are a meaningless splash in a pool of well-being.

In esoteric lore the pineal gland is often ascribed as the seat of the third eye, a name to describe enlightened perception. The pineal gland, a small organ at the centre of the brain, releases melatonin which also regulates serotonin secretions, this in response to varying intensities of light. Dimming light leads to sleep, brightening light leads to awakening and so on.

The antecedent to these chemical releases is the mediator tryptophan which is a naturally occurring amino acid that has to be sourced externally, the body doesn’t produce it. Various foods are rich in tryptophan, certain fruits are good sources.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. Siddhartha Gautama was meditating in his usual spot beneath a bo tree, a fig, when he received enlightenment or was awakened (became Buddha). The fig is a rich source of tryptophan and being within the emanation of the bo tree would more than likely have enhanced the process of an individual upon a conscious development journey.

When exposed to bright light, melatonin levels decrease which causes an increase in serotonin secretions. Illumination or enlightenment is the way in which an elevated level of consciousness is described, with the caveat that such a state is transcendental to language and can only be suggested or hinted at. 

Curiously the cartoon character Popeye is also, knowingly or unknowingly, a reference to the pineal gland or third eye becoming active. Popeye’s method was to transfer himself from mediocrity to superhuman by eating spinach - another of the superfoods -  which triggered a sequence of extraordinary transformations that made him temporarily invincible, capable, strong and so on.

The art for the personal developer is to be able to access these different states in a conscious and self electing way rather than to be subject to the whims and vagaries of a world beyond your control.

The study of these bits of esoterica is extremely rewarding and opens up a huge territory here for those of you who are looking for clues.

  

 image: smithsonian institution

The greatest source of happiness is to be able to do what you want to do. Like freedom it comes with responsibility. The hedonist’s charter wont be found here. True emancipation is found only in the fulfilment of one’s ideals or objectives.

Given that such an option exists it is important to find out what you want, then spend your life pursuing that very thing. The defining characteristics of a life well lived are the things that you elect to pursue. They must not infringe upon the integrity of others, so no scrambling to the top of the pile and never mind whose fingers you crush under heel. No expensive tastes whose bill is picked up by those with whom you engage.

You must pass almost unnoticed and try not to leave a discordant note when you do so.

Creativity is the greatest of gifts. Try to create something worthy and strive always to create something new, not new for the sake of fashion but new because we occupy a state collectively of ground already covered. Learning is the ability to assimilate the already, the ultimate objective for anyone who treats their life with some degree of respect is to find themselves in a process that is unique. To think thoughts never before thought and to do things never before done.

 Vision is a great thing, to be able to perceive things that are peripheral to the mainstream of human affairs and to not dismiss them as trivial or insignificant. It is easy to become immersed in the soap opera of daily affairs, the bills, the neighbours, the career and so on but try not to become totally submerged by it. This way is a path to dis-satisfaction.

There is a compelling case to be made for worldly success and yet an inner emptiness. Do not become the man or woman in the fast car, the big house and the never ending wardrobe who has lost the inner compass that defines the very individual that we are. Be true to your principles and if you don’t have any then make getting them a priority, be clear about what you will have and wont have in your life, what you will do and what you wont do.

 Their have existed various codes of conduct in our common heritage. The Japanese used to venerate Bushido or the way of the warrior, in Europe there was the code of chivalry to name two. Each a coda, a pedigree, a template upon which to establish a life well lived. The objective within this was to shine, to shine magnificently in the darkness and to be a pinprick of light within the murkiness of confused human dealings. This should be your objective, not to become a warrior but to have a specific mien or demeanour, an address about your life that separates you from the herd or the crowd.

What is wrong with the crowd? Nothing, they live their lives according to the vagaries of fashion, the instant gratification their undisciplined senses demand of them and they are played by the world like a fish on a line. To escape that requires a particular kind of focus, a particular and rare kind of desire, to explore the hidden continent of one’s inherent capacity for growth or development.

If these words resonate with you then good. Know you’re not alone. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter, you wont have read this far anyway.

image: buck forester

Wrote a phenomenal post. I was so moved when I re-read it that I almost cried. It had pathos, gravitas, humour. It was well paced and sure to make the reader wiser by the time they’d read it. Then I pressed some button and the thing disappeared into cyberspace, it’s probably whizzing around there even now.

So I’ve written this one instead. Just use your imagination to think what that lost post was about.

image: photosecosse

It’s the holiday season. I’ve spent various weeks in England marvelling at the inconsistency of the English weather. Flash floods, heaviest in generations. Beautiful sunshine and lush, verdant woodlands. Bitter cold and stifling heat. Fog in the middle of August? What’s that all about.

There’s always so much to do and so little time to do it.

Back soon.