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But What About The Real Life?

Or how our self-limiting beliefs discourage genuine thought patterns and human connection

It was almost midnight and I was walking home from my usual late night workout at the gym, which is conveniently (or not?) located at a 2 minute walking distance from my apartment. I have a love/hate relationship with this fact because on days when I’m lazy I cannot use the excuse „well it’s too late now and public transport sucks and blablabla”, so If I don’t go I feel guilty afterwards. Yep, first world problems.

Anyways, so I was walking home and there he was, my neighbor David, sitting on the stairs outside and smoking a cigarette. I tried to avoid him politely as I indulged in the usual „hey David what’s up?” without really expecting an actual engagement from him. It was one of those half-assed „what’s ups”, one of those „you can clearly see I’m going somewhere but I don’t want to seem rude and self-important as to not even notice your presence so I’m going to say what’s up.”

My most vivid encounter with him was a while back when he asked me about my vlog:

„I saw you on Facebook on some feed, there was a video where you were in the washroom sniffing the toilet and there was also a politician but I didn’t understand anything haha.”

Well shit, where do I begin? I explained to him then that I have a Facebook page which is a political satire that I’ve been doing for the last few years, and the sniffing of the toilet was an exaggeration of the absurd bullshit coming from that politician’s mouth.

And did I mention it’s all in Romanian? So now imagine seeing a video of your neighbor sniffing a toilet and eating toothpaste while a guy in a suit talks some gibberish you don’t understand? Yeah, totally normal.

Well, to my surprise he was open-minded enough to have a laugh at it and said that it’s cool that I do that and asked a bunch more questions about it. Also, I have no idea how he found that video because I never added him on Facebook, so that kind of gave him a weird stalker vibe. And since then I never really had a real desire to have a genuine conversation with him, so I just kept to my routine „what’s ups” here and there.

But this time he noticed my „Gojira” shirt and asked me if I listen to that metal band. That caught me by surprise as he looked more like a Hispanic guy that would listen to Despacito all day, so I was pleased that we shared an acquired taste. (+10 hipster points)

And then I told him how a few years ago I went to their concert and went into my first mosh pit and he told me about the times when he went to see The Offspring and caught a few elbows in that mosh pit and we both agreed that mosh pits are a bit crazy and he said he’s a bit too old for that now. I took a closer look at him, noticed some gray hairs by his ear, but he still looked young to me, maybe 35 at most.

I relaxed a bit and even forgot where I was going, the late night summer breeze helped too. A relief after a hot day. I put my bag to the side and leaned back on the handrails, listening to him.

„So, are you still creating content?”

„Yeah, but lately i’m putting more effort into a podcast I started a few months ago, it’s supposed to be more serious, not comedy, more like psychology, philosophy, and social issues”

“Oh, cool. I’ve been trying to work with some ideas and websites of my own, but… I don’t know…”

“You’re worried about?”

“I can’t explain it, it’s in my head… I doubt myself too much… like when I record my own voice and then listen to it I just hate how it sounds”

“Yeah tell me about it, I used to hate my voice too when I started”

“Right? And then there’s these people… when they don’t like my stuff it gets to my head”

“You care too much about what other people think… I know that feeling, I still fight it sometimes, but it’s much easier for me now than in the past. You just have to realize that everyone’s busy with their own anxieties and thoughts, and no one truly cares about you as much as you do. It’s in your head”

“That’s probably true, but I often don’t have motivation… I’m lazy”

“Honestly I think motivation is bullshit. It’s an excuse you’ve created for yourself that what you lack is motivation. It’s just about doing, that motivation comes from doing, and you know what? Most of the time it sucks, the process of creating anything sucks ass, it’s frustrating, it feeds anxiety and self-doubt, and that’s fine, I’ve accepted it and it became much easier to do something. Look, from the point of view of evolution our brains are a survival machine, it only cares about how your body is now, it wants to be comfortable because that means you’re alive, secure, and stable; and if you want to create anything, it means getting out of your comfort zone and experimenting, challenging your mind, and that’s not always pleasant in the moment, but that is fulfilling.”

His eyes lit up a little. But he still had that defeated look on his face.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But it’s hard to fight it, back when I used to live in Mexico I used to be very vocal about my opinions and I lost a lot of friends because of it. I saw everyone sharing stupid articles that supported a corrupt government and no one was thinking, everyone was swallowing the information they were given by the media, which was also corrupt. I noticed how bad it was there when I came here in Canada where the internet is much less filtered.”

“Reminds me of my country, Moldova. Same shit man. When I went back there for the first time after emigrating it didn’t feel like home anymore. It was a strange alienating feeling.”

“Yeah, I know…”

Then we went on a ramble about how giants like Facebook and Google have all our information and how that’s scary and fascinating. I shared with him something I’ve learned in one of Sam Harris’ podcasts about how all these algorithms in apps are made to be addicting and a lot of behavioral psychologists are hired by these giants and every design decision is made to feed our addiction to these apps.

The conversation flowed, we rarely interrupted each other, and we were both patient to listen, to truly listen. I’ve lost the feeling of time for a while. A short silence ensued as he lit up another cigarette. I continued:

“I remember I’ve read a quote recently… from Blaise Pascal, a French author from the 17th century I think… It really resonated with me,

All man’s troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room.

And I think it’s so true for the human species. I think the reason we make movies and art and create all this stuff is simply because we would be bored otherwise, and that’s sort of beautiful and scary at the same time”.

He was nodding and agreeing. I looked up in the sky.

“I bet the night sky looks much better outside the city. There’s lots of light pollution here” I said.

A man was approaching the stairs, it was Scott, another neighbor. I remember him when he showed me how to use the coin laundry in the basement. (I didn’t know you had to use specifically 1$ coins) We all exchanged the routine “what’s ups” and Scott joined the conversation. He wore some lazy shorts and a plain t-shirt. He was older than us, probably in his 50’s.

The vibe changed a little, as if his presence affected the wavelength on which I and David were speaking. It took some time for it readjust. He had this manner of speaking where he’d look to his side, and in his eyes I’d see a sparkle, but only for a moment, because that sparkle of enthusiasm was wrapped by a subtle cynicism that I’ve noticed in a lot of older aged people. Or maybe he was just tired and I’m imagining things. But he did have that hesitation before any thought, as if he was saying it in his head first and only after presenting it to the world, in a filtered shape, stripped down to “normality”.

In periods of silence we all glanced at the sky, as if trying to catch the dim light of the stars, struggling to see them clearly between tree branches and city lights.

I went on, “I don’t think we have a static identity. I used to think people don’t really change, and I think I was wrong. People can change, if they put an effort, but they tend not to change because it’s comfortable and less scary to stay the same. I’ve found that out mostly from reading psychology and philosophy and struggling with my own self-identity throughout my life. Think about it, we all create a story about ourselves. I’m lazy, I’m this, I’m that, and slowly over time, you identify with that, you embody that, and you feel like that. You don’t want to wake up every morning and wonder who you are. You want to be sure you are someone, even if that someone is a lazy and unmotivated dude. That is still an identity.”

Scott added, “Yeah, but you can’t really control most things, everything is down to circumstances and chance.”

“Well we’re talking about free will then” I replied. “I remember there was this research were they did brain scans on people before they were making a decision, and it clearly showed that there was activity in the part of the brain responsible for decision-making-“

“3 seconds before they made the decision?” Scott finished my sentence.
I was surprised that he knew about it. Not so boring after all.

“Yeah, exactly. So in a way we can’t really know who makes these decisions. Is our brain a separate entity that creates the illusion of the self? And does it really matter since we all feel like we can make our own decisions and the illusion of free will is enough for us in order to function in society?”

He didn’t seem as curious about the idea as I was. He had that “yeah I know but it doesn’t matter kid” look on his face.

David shared my view, saying, “Yeah we think it’s all circumstances or higher power or whatever it is that controls everything in our lives, but if you look at the small scale, even a bee could affect the course of a few lives.”

As he was going to go into a ramble about the butterfly effect I was smiling inside and just let him talk. I was always fascinated by how people ramble, when they get in their “zone” and have this monologue exploding outside their heads, lacking logical continuity but being abundant in insight and passion and personality. I miss that sometimes. The saddest sight to see for me is a defeated, lifeless person. And I wouldn’t say that it’s unjustified. Most of the time it probably is. Life circumstances beats a lot of us down and it’s really hard to get back up with joy and intention. So most of us are left drifting, year after year, squeezing the last drops of our lives, without replenishing the well, without feeding our innate curiosity.

I added, “Our world is fundamentally chaotic. Yes, there’s certainties, determinism with its cause and effect, but all that is heavily overshadowed by chaos. And everything we know, everything that’s around us, are attempts of our species to create certainties in life, to create stories, and meaning.”

They both seemed to be deep into thoughts, even Scott has let his mental guard down for a moment.

I continued, “There is no real now. Like the now that we experience here doesn’t exist in another galaxy. Scott, did you watch Interstellar?”

“Um… no”

“Well basically it’s a science fiction movie but there’s one part in it that’s scientifically accurate. There’s a scene when they get on a planet that is in close proximity to a black hole. And the gravitational pull of the black hole is causing the time on that planet to be experienced very differently. 1 hour spent on that planet is equal to 7 years on Earth. That blows my fucking mind.”

“Yeah, wow” replied Scott in an unimpressed tone. He changed the topic, “Do you have Netflix?”

“Yeah, obviously” I said

“There’s this documentary about UFOs that I’ve seen… it’s called Unacknowledged”

“Never heard of it”

“Well there’s… basically they show the whole psychological side of how the government covers up some reports of UFOs and how they influence media and public opinion… um… yeah… it’s… it’s quite interesting”

I could still see the small hesitations in the way he was speaking. He didn’t want to fully expose his naked mind, he filtered his thoughts and, in between sparks there were silences of “why am I even saying this to them they won’t get it”. I felt that he was so worried about what we would think that he had this manner of explaining himself all the time after he’d express a stranger thought. But it was unnecessary, and in my mind I was saying “just say what’s in your head man, stop caring so much.” But I was patient, and David was too, so we let him speak.

I said something about the perceived self-importance of our species and if there were aliens they probably wouldn’t care about us to the extent that we think they would. We talked about artificial intelligence and how there’s a lot of ethical dilemmas regarding them in the future. And we rambled some more. The summer wind was so pleasant I could stay there all night and listen to David’s ramblings and smile at Scott’s funny shorts and pauses between thoughts. But it was after midnight and I had to work in the morning.

“Yeah, sure, but what about the real life? All this stuff we talked about is cool and abstract, but at the end of the day we still got to go to work and pay the bills” I said sarcastically, as if to diffuse the apparent air of pretentiousness.

Then I thought about what I said for a second.

Why? Why did I have to ruin those moments of pure expression, which had no agenda, and no goal, with such a banal statement. It was just three people with different ages and backgrounds, sharing a moment together, connecting their conscious minds for no other reason than to express themselves.

At that moment I sounded like any other guy, I sounded defeated and snobbish. I dismissed the beauty of the moment with the obvious, with the material. With the ever-present bills talk. Yes, we have to pay the bills, and that is normal, because we live in societies where we need to pay taxes in order to maintain the quality of our systems and infrastructures within our cities. And we all (hopefully) understand that.

But we also understand, anecdotally, and based on research, that human relationships, communication, and connection is the most consistent source of happiness, and it is arguably the most real thing there could ever be.

It’s in these moments when we’re connected to another conscious being that we are the most human.

As Brené Brown, the author of “The Power of Vulnerability” said,

“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”

Or as the renowned poet Goethe said,

“The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.”

And it’s in the moments when we’re lost in a creative activity and we lose the sense of time, that we are the most alive.

As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the book “Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life” eloquently put it,

“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person’s skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”

“The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it would go on forever. The justification of climbing is climbing, like the justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself…. The act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not a moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going. There is no possible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.”

“…It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.”

I took my bag, put it on my shoulder, shook their hands, and went to my apartment. Physically I was gone, as was David and Scott. But my mind was still there in that discussion, meditating on the things that sparked my curiosity, lingering in the air, trying to reach the dim light of the stars above us.

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