Category: Josh Feingold Blog

I have learned the secret of controlling time.  And I am going to share it with you today. Ironically, I actually stumbled upon this idea about a year ago, but didn’t understand it to the full extent until recently.

First a little background. This post will not be about universal time from a scientific perspective, since I know nothing about that.  Rather, I want to focus in on the practical matter of personal time, since it is something I know a little bit (but not much) more about, having experienced it since I was born.  However, even here, my perspective comes from experience, and guesses, and nothing scientific, per se.

With that behind us, my point. Time is in our control.

To some extent.

The reason for this is that the sensation of the passing of time, is something that is developed by the conscious mind.  It takes a conscious mind that recognizes itself to point to a then and a now and a future, then compare two of the events and create the idea of time.

This can be experienced by the fact that the time when you sleep doesn’t seem like a long time, rather a moment, UNLESS your dream had an aspect of self-consciousness, in which case you can experience the passing of time.

OK, lets bring this back to us a little, and how to control time.  The reason that time seems to fly typically, is because, our mind is not being conscious.  Rather, it is going into autopilot, due to the fact that it is not needed.  While in autopilot, we are in a similar space to when we dream (at least from a recognition of consciousness perspective) and so time flies.

Interestingly, this is probably why as we get older time speeds up, since there are so many fewer new experiences in our life.  This is also why when you are going somewhere unfamiliar it seems to take forever, but the return trip is much quicker.  It is also why when you sit in a room with nothing to do, times goes so slowly.  Since your focus in not consumed.

So the secret to slowing down time, is not to be on autopilot. It’s really that simple.  But it’s not.

To stop the autopilot take an conscious effort to experience the world as new.  At all times.  To do this successfully means using your five senses and then focusing your attention on the input they are receiving, in a real way, not a rote way.

You can try it yourself.  Look at something on the wall.  Really look at it.  See the depth in the color. Feel the color.  Experience the color.  All of this will make your mind stop it’s autopilot mode, and time will literally slow down.

Or try using any of your other senses, they all can help accomplish the same thing.  Add to that the great benefit that you will see by actually getting in touch with your world at a much deeper level, you’ll actually be adding time to your life.

Plus, its not a bad way to experience life, if you ask me.

A while back, I met a very special girl.  Successful, attractive, kind hearted; just a good person overall.  We got to chatting and as I am wont to do on a first date, I totally open up, and she was able to reciprocate.

We shared goals, enjoyed life in similar ways, and overall, I felt it was a good fit for me.

She then shared that she was polyamorous, and liked her COMMITTED relationships to be monogamish. (Side note, I just love that turn of phrase on monogamous.)  [Please remember that I am not concerning myself with non-committed relationships in this post, it is a topic for another time.  Perhaps tomorrow.]

Now this idea was not totally new to me, having met a few people along the way, and having a good friend, who is into this way of life, but it got me thinking about the somewhat scandalous topic, so I thought I would throw in my two cents about my current perspective on things.

Personally, after taking into account social stigma and religion, I think that there is one main things at play in those who would be AGAINST polyamorous relationships.  Fear.  Fear that the other person will fall in love with someone else and leave us.  Now this fear can show itself in different ways, such as the perspective that by loving someone else they love us less (perhaps, perhaps not).  But the underlying factor is fear of personal loss.

Now as you know, logically, fear is a bad reason to stop someone from doing something.  In fact, Albert Ellis, who was a brilliant mind, and developed the idea of cognitive therapy mentioned in his writings that he had an “open relationship” with his wife (I think his wife fooled around, on the whole, based on my readings), and it bothered him, but he knew it was a silly fear so he allowed it.

And Dr. Ellis is correct.

But I think he is also wrong.

As we discussed recently, I believe that there are certain base feelings, and these feelings are so ingrained in us, we can’t really change them.  We just have to accept them and work with them to the best of our abilities.

Add to this my belief in pragmatic pleasure, and the result is that a polyamorous relationship ends up being self defeating.  Yes, couples get a chance to have fun with different sexual activities, which I am sure is a lot of fun, but the core need for committed life-long protection would seem to be missing an aspect in their relationship.  Of course, if you ask them, they would tell you that it is not, but my gut tells me that it is.

Ironically, what is it that keeps a person from chasing the goal of the truly committed monogamous relationship?  Fear.  Yes, fear of allowing themselves to truly melt into the other party for not wanting to be hurt if/when the other party leaves – which is their ultimate fear.

So we have fear on both sides of the equation.  Which side do we then choose?  My gut tells me to err on the side of base need – which is to have someone so committed to you that they won’t go anywhere else.  While I will agree that this is fear based, I believe is the more truthful and impactful way to live.  At least for me.

OK, I’ll admit it.  I’m stuck. I’ve had more crazy coincidental experiences in the last  three months than you can shake a stick at.

The problem is that I don’t believe in divine providence or that there are forces working in the world that bring things together to create order.  So how do I explain this reality?

Am I just two standard deviations to the right of the normal occurrences of coincidences?  Am I more open to experience, and thus experiencing more open experiences?  Am I having more experiences, so more likely to have more coincidences? Does the world really tend towards order naturally, even though it would seem to move towards entropy?  Is there a physical reality at the cellular level that creates unification? Is there a collective unconscious that we are all aware (and unaware of) at the same time?

Perhaps any or all of those are true, but they don’t really FEEL like they answer the question fully (you could say that it doesn’t feel true), if I am honest, or the data to prove the theory is missing.

I’m not really sure what to do with dilemma, but since this is my current struggle, I thought I would put it out there since I am in search of a satisfying answer to this question and many of my current thoughts are being filtered though this sieve of experience and feelings.

 

I have been thinking a lot about life lately, perhaps too much, as anyone who has followed my blog can tell, and certainly most of my friends will attest to.

After all this thought, currently I am in the mode of following a life path of pragmatic living.  I’m actually calling it pragmatic pleasure.

The basic idea is that a moment lived with joy is a successful moment.  Moments lead to hours.  Hours to days.  Days to years.  Years to life.  However, it all comes back down to the moment, which is all we ever really have.

In general this philosophy says that if in the moment I am happy, that is the best I can hope for – and the goal of each moment is to be happy.  It also asserts, that with the exception of drugs and transcendental bliss, you are either happy sad or somewhere in between.  But when you are happy on the upper end of the spectrum, you are about as happy as you can be (this is true for sad too).

It also means that we have to accept our basic human nature, and work with it, instead of constantly trying to battle against it.   This means that I will accept my faults, and just work around them to the best of my abilities.  I’ll point to myself, and just say “There goes Josh being anxious again. Too bad he can’t just figure out how to drop that all together, since it’s really silly to be anxious in this case, but he’s wired that way.  Glad I’m not like him.  (Oh wait, I am him.)”

This does not mean that I won’t plan for the future.  No, not at all.  Rather, that as I plan for the future, my life is full of happiness and enjoyment.  It also doesn’t mean to be happy at anothers expense, since that is an oxymoron.  At least to me.  It does mean that I won’t fear for the future, since who really know what the future will bring.

So ironically, having thought about things for a year, I am back to the (not so) simple idea of just living in the moment and accepting the myself and my moment.  Life is funny that way.

This ties back nicely to the post from Monday on leadership.

While traveling around Portland this past weekend, I came upon a waterfall.  Now, I’m not one of those people that chases waterfalls; in fact, I don’t really understand the fuss about them.  However, this waterfall, taught me a lesson, that I would like to share.

I have tried to change the world in the past, but have met with minimal success.  The fact that there are an average of 20 daily readers of my blog, points to this reality.  So, for my next venture, I realized that I need to not just jump in and create change, rather strategically approach my goal of maximum impact.

Here is what I have learned so far are the core attributes.  Starting with the lesson of the waterfall.

This waterfall, called Multnomah Falls, is just over 500 feet high and sits in the Columbia River Gorge.  At the base of the falls is a note that “On Labor Day in September 1995, a 400-ton boulder, loosened by erosion, fell 225 feet from the face of the waterfall.”

Looking at the waterfall (and you can see it a little in this picture), I noticed something interesting.  If you look at the top where the water comes in, it comes from a few smaller streams, then combines into one large stream.  It was this large stream that ultimately, impacted the fall of the rock.

So too us, our impact on the world is really just one of many pieces, that combine to create large change.

Of course, having said that, I’ll point out the strategically important three ideas to consider when trying to create change.

1) Go with the flow.

Leverage the other streams that are already working towards your social change, so as to create a bigger stream.

2) Minimize resistance to change.

Further, as a friend pointed out, work with locals to define what the needs are, since that will involve the greatest impact, and have the best chances for success in the long run.

3) Identity and fix the core issue, not the symptom.

By figuring out and working on the core issue, you are able to stop the problem in the long run…

4) Make it last.

Put a plan in place for your efforts to continue regardless of your participation… and ideally even if idiots are in charge, which chances are at some point in the future, they probably will be.