Musings

Musings

DirtySciFiBuddha55 Comments

For most of my life, I’ve diminished my fulfillment through constant justification, as if someone was ceaselessly judging my every action, thought, and urge. Then I noticed that even when I “checked all the boxes,” it didn’t make me fulfilled, despite the fact that I’d satisfied all the logical requirements. Is that why I’m here? To play an incessant game of Simon Says? I’ve to believe my logical mind is like seasoning on a dish–it’s meant to complement the flavor of an entree, not drown it out altogether. By incorporating intuition, allowing myself to follow up on something that may not make immediate sense, I believe I am permitting the use of my entire consciousness, instead of utilizing half my wit.

55 thoughts on “Musings”

  1. Several times in my life I have turned to the visible Doubt sitting on my shoulder and said ‘(Bad Word) – you. Like I cared. This is how it is today’
    The only rider being that whatever ‘it is’ will be constructive (Like the seventeenth re-launch of my next fantasy trilogy).
    Keep on keeping on.

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  2. I had a similar realization a couple of weeks ago. I had a day of relative wakefulness in which I realized many things about my personality and such and made some changes. One thing I realized is that I can give myself small credit/pride in things even when it seems irrational. For example, I was at a red light in the car with my mom, and I knew where we were by looking at the street name. My urge was to feel proud of this, but I realized my automatic reaction was to deny myself the self-gratuuty because I was only a few blocks from home and I’ve lived here for over 30 years, so *of course* I should know where we were. Anybody should. But I realized there’s no point in comparing myself to others like that and denying myself the self-esteem, so I didn’t.

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  4. I feel you, man, I was ticking similar boxes for way too long. Great equivalent of this is the differentiation between being just “busy” and being “productive”. Former one implies that you do a lot, but it lacks results. The latter gives results and fulfilment, while working on stuff that really matters.

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  5. So now you’re saying you’ve been a half-wit as well as a grunty over-thinker? 🙂 Me, too. Trusting too much in so-called ‘reason’ – based as it is on incomplete information and reducing, as it does, a very rich world to just what “it” can relate to – sounds to me a lot like “taking no risks”. And that’s a strategy that rarely pays off. When we free them from attachments, our ‘feelings’ are a much more sensitive tool for sensing the universe than is our ‘reason’. But there is also a state beyond that, in which the universe presents its _own_ logic. Then, instead of trying to ‘understand’ it, we can then just ‘live’ it. With the deepest of good wishes, I say to you, “Good luck and keep all your senses open.”

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  6. …and then comes self-appreciation for all these little things that we do. Very often we don’t give ourselves enough credit for things that seem obvious to us, while they are not so obvious in grant scheme of things and for others.

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  7. And here I thought I was alone with similar thoughts. When I was a restaurant manager I told them I would never be a decent General Manager — instead, let me be known as the assistant manager who comes in to launch their new-bosses career!

    To make my headache even worse I foolishly went through a 12-hour battery of tests, just to get told about ADHD, from a psychologist — but with it came maybe categorized and quantified picture of my cognitive abilities.

    Sure, the fire trucks and ambulances always lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce, at the first sign of a mistake are… Sorry sort of comforting.

    But they never understand just how much time, effort, and thought went into missing that one, very important.. smoldering.. possibly radioactive detail. They just don’t understand.

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  8. I often go about my day as if my every action is being observed and judged. It can be exhausting. And you’d think I’d have gotten over looking for outside validation, but I haven’t. Life often seems like a ledger with debits and credits. And yes, I can come at most things from a logical standpoint, but as you pointed out, that’s only part of the equation. Some say that intuition or gut feelings are just the expression of good observation. Excuse me please, but I’m having a hard time expressing how your Musings made me feel. I’ll just wind this up with saying that I think you are right about intuition.

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    • No worries! We all have our own methods that are right for us for a certain period of time. Being purely logical and driven by willpower worked for me for a long time, but then I was given signs to move on from that stuff. Only you know what is working for you, maybe it changes along the way, but no one has the right to tell you you’re doing it wrong if things are falling into place and it feels right.

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  10. I understand your critical self-assessment, but introspection is necessary for growth. What is done is done. Personally, I try not to think of success and failure. More to this, less of that works better for me. I try to make original mistakes. Insisting on perfection before lessons are learned can really slow progress. I remember an old Dilbert cartoon where his performance is being appraised. He got a bad review. His boss said Dilbert’s success after five tries was too costly. He should have tried the last solution first.

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  11. Well done. How often do I catch myself with negative self-talk? I used to think the phrase “picture what success looks like” was an overused cliche. Perhaps it is. But when internalized it can become actualized. Self-doubt allows for the status quo in our growth. Change is not easy and positive thinking requires change for almost all of us. I’m 70 years old and fight the temptation to go with the flow daily. Should I get up early and exercise or drink coffee in bed and watch Good Morning Football? I launched my book “Lead Like a Leader” in July. If I’m going to practice what I preach and ask myself the question, am I going to lead today or am I going to follow, then I need to strive for more every day…except on the weekends. LOL

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    • Definitely not a cliche, in my opinion. It’s got a basis in multiple domains, from scientific to mystic. For any doubters, sports psychology and the invisible gorilla experiment are good places to start on that topic. I think where many get hung up is when they beat themselves up for not thinking positively enough. Emotional management, in my opinion–the ability to feel and process negativity and get back to neutrality or positivity–is integral to this. I don’t think positivity through brute willpower or repetition is enough, and is often counterproductive. But that’s just me.

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      • Another interesting experiment is called the pike syndrome. Very old video but a good example of how past experience can influence future behavior.

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      • I think that the whole “think positive” culture is just anxiety management. Shutting down or trying to “edit out” what our ego perceives as “negative” will diminish rather that enlarge our lives. Those parts of us are real, and they are us, and they are here to stay whether they align with our anxious ego’s grand plan, or not. I prefer asking myself: “How can this part of me express in the world without harm to myself or others? How can it enlarge my being, life, the universe?”

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      • I see negativity as seasoning on the dish. We’re meant to have a bit of it, and then we can use our free will to enjoy the natural amount, or mess up the taste by dumping a box of seasoning on the dish.

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  14. Awesome. That is really deep. You are a Buddha already. F the logical mind. I did my best to destroy my logical mind. Now I am a gutted person. There’s a big drafty wind inside. Anyways it was fun.

    I like to write using irrationality/my subconscious. Maybe that’s similar to what you’re talking about where you’re turning on your intuition/whole consciousness. All I know is logic is a real party-killer, it rains on sex and just about anything else. Lolz. Somehow we can’t totally live without it though 🙁 Do you feel like the gloom of justification has lightened?

    Best wishes 🦌 Red Deer

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  17. These feelings are so familiar. I’m not sure that they’re…fixable, tameable, resolvable. They are part of the landscape you live in (as they have often been in mine). But we erode. Our doubts get worn and rounded. Not so sharp anymore. At least, this is the way it has worked for me, a born brooder. May you one day look with affection upon the Grand Canyon that you have become.

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  18. This line caught my attention ‘despite the fact that I’d satisfied all the logical requirements’. I think that a writer’s brain works differently. You start with logic and then you may go up, down, sideways, etc. If you are raised on the IMPORTANCE of logic it may cause unease? “Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” This quote is attributed to Albert Einstein but I think the origin might be rooted in the classics.

    Just a thought.

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  19. There’s a widely held belief that life is best when you find, adapt to a templated idea of what you and your life should be. Then to optimise yourself to that -Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, most unhappy people I know are trying to form the shapes of closets and whatnot.

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  21. Logic helps with structuring the many perceptions and inputs of stimulus we receive through every moment of the day. Like a ticker tape feed of old. Intuition is the wise interpreter of this information that often gets put aside in favor of “smart” decisions. It is important to make “sense” of what is happening and then make the wise choice. When working off only intuition, one can be floaty, ungrounded and therefore disconnected from this dimension. When using only logic, one is ridged and often unemotional. Both are needed for an integrated understanding for “right action”. I would say another component to this is the art of listening to the other, which we share this experience with.

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  22. Chameleon

    Let Your Weirdness Cook the Meal

    I read what you wrote, and honestly—it hit me. That constant sense of needing to justify yourself, the haunting feeling of being judged by some invisible audience, even when you’re doing all the “right” things? Yeah. I’ve felt that. Deeply.

    You described it so clearly: ticking all the boxes, following all the rules, and still wondering why it doesn’t feel like enough. And that metaphor—your logical mind as seasoning, not the main dish—that really stayed with me. Because it’s true, isn’t it? Logic sharpens, it clarifies, but it’s not supposed to drown out everything else. Yet so many of us end up flavorless, overthinking ourselves into emotional anemia.

    And reading your words made me realize—I’ve been doing it too. For years, I’ve chased this illusion that if I just structured my life properly, if I reasoned my way through every decision, I’d arrive at some destination called Fulfillment. But even when things looked perfect on paper, something always felt… off. Hollow.

    At some point, I had to stop waiting for the universe to reward me for being clever. Because that reward? It doesn’t come. Not like that.

    So I’ve started trusting the less obvious part of myself—my intuition. That gut feeling that says “do this” even when there’s no spreadsheet to back it up. Because I’ve come to believe that when we only follow logic, we’re using half our consciousness. Maybe even less.

    And here’s a truth that’s been uncomfortable but necessary: expectations are premeditated disappointments. Every time I told myself life should go a certain way, I was giving the universe a script it never agreed to perform. It doesn’t play by our plans. It improvises. Usually with terrible timing and no warning. But maybe that’s the point.

    So if any of this resonates with you—if you’re sitting there trying to make meaning out of your overthinking—maybe what you need isn’t another deep thought. Maybe it’s a break. A laugh. A little absurdity to remind you that fulfillment isn’t always found in the answers—it’s often hiding in the ridiculous moments between the questions.

    Come to Chameleon-news and the magazine. We’re not here to fix anything. We’re just the weird corner of the internet where meaning and nonsense hold hands and sneak out the back door. Because sometimes, the only way out of existential dread… is through the gift shop.

    Let your logic season the day. But let your weirdness cook the damn meal.

    Chameleon.

    Satire for the searching.

    Email: Chameleon.15026052@gmail.com

    Website: http://chameleon15026052.wordpress.com

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    • “Expectations are premeditated disappointments.” Very well said! I think even when they aren’t, they lead one down a disappointing path. It’s why athletes start to mentally struggle, even though they’ve hit their mark over and over.

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