This twitter thread i an interesting reflection that hits me, as it is what I also think is important in life – that we have a choice of living here and now, or reflecting about it. And we cannot do both at the same time. We have a choice of living in the present, and living in the thoughts of future or the past. You cannot be happy in both of them, as they are, paradoxically, destroying each-other.
1/ The best thing you can do for yourself is to stop thinking of yourself.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
2/ Our short term memory can hold up to four objects at a time. Think of them as four doors, or four inputs.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
3/ Most people's lives are the same mental loop between thought patterns stored in long-term memory recycled through the short term memory.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
4/ This pattern we are so accustomed living through and identifying with is pretty much all we call 'I' or 'me' or 'self'.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
5/ As all looping mechanisms this too is prone to feedback. Feedback occurs b/c we drag the past into the present through limited inputs.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
6/ It's impossible to be both present and simultaneously think (of the past/future or 'yourself'). Short-term memory doesn't have the inputs
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
7/ You try to squeeze too much through a limited number of inputs, the system fails and starts a process of feeding back on itself.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
8/ This feedback results in a restless mind, anxiety, depression, which also feedback into the system creating a self-perpetuating loop.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
9/ We experience yet also want to be the experience at the same time, we want both the immediate and the conceptual simultaneously.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
10/ This, again, is impossible. Our short-term memory is limited, our attention and focus cannot be in two places simultaneously.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
11/ So we settle for a start-stop forced process whereupon we experience, then stop to evaluate the experience, then evaluate the evaluation
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
12/ This is all out of habit and largely unconscious. No one taught us how to think. We assume that's the way it is, that it is natural.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
13/ We feel the need to relate everything to a self, which we maintain by feeding it back as a filter for every experience.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
14/ "Come off it" and "Let go of yourself" is actually Sounder advice than therapy sessions/psychology practice that don't treat the cause.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
15/ There is in fact no permanent self, just the illusion of it being so. That illusion is also traditionally referred to as the ego.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
16/ We create and recreate a self in each moment. The illusion of permanence owes to 1) identification with thought 2) recycled thoughts.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
17/ Those thoughts we recycle the most we identify with the most. Those are what we come to call "I", but it's not fixed, it's a loop.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
18/ Going back to the doors example. When you break this cycle you essentially free inputs for your mind to witness itself in the present.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
19/ You free up the inputs from the pattern of recycling past into present, and projecting it into the future. You stop creating a 'self'.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
20/ You start feeling a space, and in that space you feel yourself being, without any need to define your being with thought. You simply are
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
21/ That is why all meditation practices insist on letting go of thoughts. They are there, but in the background, no input, no influence.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
22/ There are endless methods of meditation but they all essentially aim to disrupt this conditioned mind that feeds back on itself.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
23/ Some break the mind through the mind others go through the body, but the essence is to get you out of your mind and back to your senses.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
24/ In that space you realize you always were this and never anything else. You were just hallucinating. Once you see it you'll laugh at it.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
25/ Meanwhile the mind remains free & engaged w/ the present, holding on to nothing yet naturally & without interference running on full HP.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
26/ Not only are you able to think & conceptualize, but are more so than before. You keep the inputs available, and the mind does the rest.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
27/ The 'self' is a conditioned pattern. You are a process, a living organism. But when the mind is in a loop you cannot experience this.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
28/ It's one of the most difficult tasks to consciously become aware of and break free of this conditioned pattern. But it can be done.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
29/ Not only can it be done but it must be done. If not, we remain imprisoned by this condition and can't live out our true human potential.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
30/ All life, truth and possibility lie beyond this conditioned mind. The mind is infinitely capable, we've destroyed it with playing 'me'.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
31/ The tendency is to return to it for a semblance of security until we realize it's not real, never was, and is actually mental illness.
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017
32/ Remember, feedbacks will inevitably occur. And these feedbacks are avoidable if you become aware & understand your mind.
The end
— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 22, 2017