A spidey sense for your life
Honing that beyond-reason superpower
Hello everyone,
I'm back from the first Contact Improv dance & movement camp in the world post COVID. In a time of social distancing, this is definitely a rare occasion worth celebrating.
Here is a taste of the joy. Now with at least 35 people doing it with me, it’s no longer that weird!
Who would have thought this geeky Computer Science & Philosophy guy will organize dance camp one day? 😄
The camp has touched many people, especially myself, in many ways. I've learned a lot from it and wanted to share with you. (For those who know Vietnamese, you can read the lengthier reflection here)
What would you like to be celebrated for? Write back to me and I'll send you a celebratory message 😍
Now here to this week’s post:
A spidey sense for your life
“Spiderman knows when to do what”
One participant in the camp, a lady who radiates the energy of a Laughing Buddha, shared with the group: "When the body is happy, it will sing. It will dance, and it will also rest."
I thought that was profound wisdom, especially coming from someone who seems to have ease in her own life.
Given my background in Computer Science & Philosophy background, I love to think, to find reasons, and to make sense of things. The older I get and the more dancing I do, the more astounded I am about our own capacity for overthinking. What we call "rationality" is mostly a voice in the head trying to dictate what should happen now. Alas, it's only a commentator who mistakenly believes it has the power to decide.
It turns out that before you can "make sense" of things, you need to "sense" first.
Sensing is not a capacity you can reason your way through. We think we need a reason to do something. In reality, we are already inclined to do something and only then make up reasons for it.
As such, it never makes sense "trying to convince" someone via reason. Neither is it via emotions in the usual fleeting sense of how we feel. The marketeers who play with our lizard brain by pressurizing us into all sorts of manufactured urgency and wanting are not doing any great service either.
It is a lot easier and effective to point people to the source of their experience, thus activating their own sensing capacity. This includes the five external senses - see hear smell taste touch - and the inner proprioceptive ones.
On our end as communicators, we are freer from the pressure to have to convince people. You can only share what you know, and enjoy the possibility that something will click for them. (I'm certainly enjoying that right now, heh). As a silly example, there is no such thing as getting a joke “intellectually”. You either get the joke or you don’t. If I have to explain to you why what I am saying is funny, I already failed.
What truly moves us is something that cannot be named.
It is closer to the source and thus more energizing than reason. It is in both small decisions like what to eat for dinner as well as seemingly bigger decisions like job, relationship or even where to live.
We always already know what we are inclined to. Whether or not we follow it is another story. As a quick example, I am already moved to write something about this topic of decision-making. I had a few moments of resistance "Oh, I don't have time for this" or “it will get too long to fully flesh it out so better not start". Yet I've got to eat my own dog food. The result is all these words you are reading, all simply pointing to that wordless knowing.
Such a "spidey sense" for your life will get honed over time by turning the attention away from the charming cacophony of voices in our head. It's not that you all get Zenned out with no thoughts. Thoughts are still there but they now become the background.
The foreground is now the wordless spidey sense. That superpower can and will guide you into the next moment that is much more wholesome and right.
It is what T.S.Elliot writes as
'This is one moment,
But know that another
Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.'
With spidey-sense, you wouldn't need that much extensive analysis. You may still do it for the intellectual fun of it, such as writing this post for me.
Here is a good news. Sensing is an innate capacity, often eclipsed by thinking but always there. The brainy smart people will need to tune in to that sense and then actually to trust and follow through with it.
You will never be truly convinced by what anyone says but your own experience. If that spidey sense leads you to a place of clearer and more satisfying spidey sense, you will trust it more.
It's unfortunate that this spidey sense is often discarded by smart people as woo-woo. It often comes a common romantic notion in the self-help and spiritual circle such as "listen to your heart".
As such, you have all kinds of magical eat-pray-love type of message. “Facing some life-changing decisions such as life partner, vocation or place to live, you quiet down, tune in and listen to the voice within”, there goes the common advice.
That's partially right, just like I'm partially romantic. Yet this also throws many rational people off because it seems too good to be true. No wonder we struggle and want to dismiss that voice, especially when it comes to a seemingly big decision. If we rarely listen to it before, how can we expect to trust it then? If that voice of wisdom is so good and always present, why don't we listen to it more often?
The invitation for this week is for us to embrace that spidey sense, play and have fun with it. The only way to is to practice listening to it often and see what it is like.
Here are some pointers for you:
It most often comes from inner quiet. Some intense and meditative exercises like running often induce that. Do your own practice, whether it is running, showering, cooking, meditating, journaling or talking to someone who is clear.
It's always present, kind and generous. You don't have to worry that your wisdom is a costly consultation that you can't pay for!
It feels like a whole-body Yes.
It is always clear. Sometimes it is soft. No question, no doubt, only "THIS IS IT." If you have questions or doubt, that is the place to go into.
It is a "sense", not a "reason". Remember: a sense is when you laugh at a joke. A reason is when you can explain how and why the joke is funny.
When you are in love with someone, this is what you would advise them. One fun definition of wisdom by Sam Harris is "the ability to follow your own advice".
Good luck with fine-tuning your spidey-sense. Let me know where it leads you!
Khuyen
ps: Did I tickle your spidey sense? Come join me daily to write & get important work going on Write & Craft.
Now to a poem for the week:
My Soul Has a Hat – a Poem by Mário de Andrade
I counted my years
and realized that I have
Less time to live by,
Than I have lived so far.
I feel like a child who won
a pack of candies: at first, he ate them with pleasure,
But when he realized that there was little left,
he began to taste them intensely.
I have no time for endless meetings
where the statutes, rules,
procedures and internal regulations are discussed,
knowing that nothing will be done.
I no longer have the patience
To stand absurd people who,
despite their chronological age,
have not grown up.
My time is too short:
I want the essence,
my spirit is in a hurry.
I do not have much candy
In the package anymore.
I want to live next to humans,
very realistic people who know
How to laugh at their mistakes,
Who are not inflated by their own triumphs
and who take responsibility for their actions.
In this way, human dignity is defended
and we live in truth and honesty.
It is the essentials that make life useful.
I want to surround myself with people
who know how to touch the hearts
of those whom hard strokes of life
have learned to grow, with sweet touches of the soul.
Yes, I’m in a hurry.
I’m in a hurry to live with
the intensity that only maturity can give.
I do not intend to waste any of the remaining desserts.
I am sure they will be exquisite,
much more than those eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied
and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience.
We have two lives
and the second begins when
you realize you only have one."
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