Structure
of the Belief Overview
I will assess the following questions (this section is more detailed in the Belief Experiment #1 write-up):
(1) What perceptual points will best take me back to this belief? (2) What do I take this belief to mean?
To clarify, the first question asks, How can I recreate the perception this belief gives me? I could also state it as, What stands out when I hold this belief?
There are two parts to 2: (a) Where/how this belief logically fits into my current belief system (if it does so), and (b) If and how the belief is important to me: what I have learned from it, how it has led me to behave differently, etc.
I’ll start with (2a), then address (1), and finally (if needed), (2b).
What is the Context for this Belief?
Context for the Belief: Subjective reality: everything I perceive is a reflection of something going on within myself (consciousness).
I suppose a context supportive of free will could also be used but I do not work with that idea enough to consider it at this point (i.e. if you asked me for my views on free will right now some interesting mess of mushiness might come out).
The Belief: Things [I want] do not come to me: instead, I create them.
This means that the events of my life are not random, but they are not destiny, either. Every aspect of my experience is the result of a choice I have made.
What is the Experience of the Belief?
I’ve been concerned that I did not get to focus on implementing this belief enough because Day 2 was largely focused on beginning Polyphasic Sleep. Not only that, but I didn’t logically come to a conclusion somewhere that I ought to try polyphasic sleep: basically I woke up with a feeling that I should try it, so I took that feeling and ran with it.
With that wording it certainly sounds like polyphasic sleep came to me. I suppose I did have to decide how to respond to my feelings, but my belief system states that ignoring them is usually regrettable. Based on that, there arguably wasn’t much of a decision to make.
However, a point might also be made that because I am defying a lifetime of doing things a certain way (monophasic sleep) I must be consciously creating my experience—certainly in comparison to my past blind routines.
Perhaps it is inaccurate in the first place to consider that listening to my feelings must indicate a fatalistic worldview. This action can be directed by this perspective but it does not have to be: it seems that the creation-viewpoint (no, not Creation Science) works here as well.
Anyway, I’ll speak to what I can of the experience.
One insight that stood out to me in particular came to me (was created? I don’t know that I can say I created an insight… but I guess technically I did. Hm) yesterday. I thought to myself, I don’t think it’s the polyphasic sleep that makes me feel so alive, but rather that I have made the choice to both trust and to challenge myself so boldly. These are simply the feelings that accompany having chosen the right path.
This thought isn’t totally novel to me, as it has made basic sense for a while that the things in reality—the matter, the events, the individual people—are not the essence of reality. What matters is what the things represent to you. It’s not the money that matters as much as the freedom of choice and access to quality that money serves as a symbol for. Disease matters insofar as it limits your ability to express yourself.
Even these meanings could be reduced further: in particular, they can be regarded as representing fear or love. For example, if I view the ability to express myself as negative an act of fear (the act being my perception, “if I view…”) has occurred.
On the surface money and disease are just things that happen “out there,” but because we are conscious beings the things have meaning for us. Whether you think this meaning is pre-assigned or unalterable or all consciously chosen it still is present, and as long as we are human we cannot, it seems, remove ourselves from the realm of meaning. But meaning is the stuff that actually matters, so that’s okay (was that paragraph unnecessary and redundant? I do not know).
Still, this thought struck a strong chord emotionally. It’s a reminder to me that the stuff of life isn’t quite as awesome as life itself, and for me life is about challenging myself, learning, and doing that over and over until I reach a point of relative fearlessness. The stuff of those challenges do not matter as much as challenge in itself, though it does also make sense to me that the challenges I take on and the lessons I learn can provide value to other people somehow. So a 30-day polyphasic sleep trial will make more sense to me than, say, trying to open a can with my teeth. But, of course, this is all due to the meaning I have given these things.
What does this Belief Mean to Me?
I wanted to work with this belief because, as I mentioned in Podcast Episode Three, for a while I’ve had an approach to reality that looks semi-fatalistic. I’ve said things such as Life does this and Life wants me to do that and rah rah rah. Because of this, I was surprised when I wrote in Belief Experimentation that I do not subscribe to the idea of an objective God. Sometimes (in my mind) I will refer to life or the universe or God knowing that, in essence, I address collective consciousness. I may wonder, for instance, what they may have in store for me.
But a few weeks ago referring to this entity did not feel right to me anymore, so I stopped. In particular it felt like I was giving my power away to some magic force whose mercy I can only hope to be at on the occasion.
Now instead of asking what Life wants from me I ask what I want. I generally have been indeed creating more of what I want and have enjoyed myself more thus.
This is not to say that I have become a hedonistic slob, because I do not want that. This also does not mean that I am no longer interested in serving the highest good—quite the opposite. But I don’t have to fear being picked up by Master Hand by the scruff of my neck and dangled over a black hole if I don’t have things totally straightened out.
Fear is unlikely to produce optimal service anyway—love is a far better means. The aim of love, after all, is to serve, whereas the aim of fear is to protect the self.
It might help to say this especially doesn’t mean that I have rejected the subjective model of reality in any way. From this viewpoint there is no need to distinguish between collective consciousness and my consciousness—there is simply consciousness in itself. As long as I can listen to myself with the awareness that my identity extends beyond my physical body, then, I should do a pretty darned good job (and a crazy-looking one, at that).
I should clarify that I won’t go batty if someone mentions how cool God is. I’ve simply found that referring to an entity which sounds like it is outside myself doesn’t seem to do the best job of empowering me. For me it reflects a desire to hold back my power, and I do not wish to do that anymore. This is probably more a matter of belief than semantics, such that I could probably use the object-based terms again and still do fine, but I’d rather continue to emphasis the I for now.
Up and Onward
Each day that I go through these belief experiments I feel like there are so many factors to consider in changing beliefs (taking on new ones; tweaking, strengthening, or removing old ones) and how beliefs play out (i.e. how you act, how you feel, how your outer reality changes). I will likely save all of these thoughts for a final write-up when this 30-day trial is over.
For the next belief I shall continue with the general “I create reality” paradigm: If I want something to work, it will.
P.S. This article is a day late, so the next Belief Overview will come out tomorrow. But I guess that depends on when I feel “tomorrow” has arrived and mostly gone. Hm…