Each day we wake up and the first thoughts passing our mind probably concern something like our career, our relationships, our worries and insecurities, or even trivial stuff like what we are to consume during the day. It almost never occurs to us that even in our own existence we are so tiny compared to everything that’s out there. From the vantage point of our consciousness, our problems seem enormous, our opinions of the world seem immensely more valid than others’, and life seems to only matter if we manage to build ourselves up and prove our worth to the world somehow. That’s why so much thought goes into pondering the details of our own existence while a sense of perspective is lost in the process.
Mind the Span is something of a reminder of that world that exists, not just physically but also spiritually and intellectually, beyond our usual concerns. It hopefully can offer an antidote to the egoistical outlook which we have been trained to adopt in experiencing life. When we mind the span, we can for once recognize the abundance of possibilities out there, and grow to appreciate how little we know or see in this vas and wondrous universe.
How unfortunate it is when our thoughts only go as far as how we as individual selves exist. We bind ourselves to ideologies, beliefs, and principles, then strive to defend these abstractions all our lives by fending off other possibilities beyond our limited consciousness. We restrict our mind to what we know and concurrently develop the false perception that what we know ought to be absolute truths. Today it gets ever more difficult to acknowledge the limitations of ourselves, as society nourishes a tendency for self-flattery and indulgence. Time and time again we have come to realize that we, as individuals and collective of individuals, often mess up big time out of our misled self-assurance. Then why don’t we just learn to acknowledge that we are only here to learn and not to dictate, to explore and not to control, to stay humble and not to behave like pompous fools? All the constructs we have generated to trap ourselves only amplify self-importance while negating the elements that may otherwise serve as our escape routes? What if we stop and hypothesize for a moment that what we assume of the world is in fact just a construction and most likely false, and on top of that, what if the point of this existence isn’t even to make assumptions or conclusions at all?
—
Cultivate Abundance
‘Abundance’ in today’s world is about wealth, power, popularity, and accomplishments. One adopts an ‘abundance mindset’ to gain more influence, earn more money, achieve more success – basically to get to the ‘top’. But that kind of ‘abundance’ sets us on a path of interpreting the value and meaning of life as singular and uniform for everyone. The term has been coopted to indicate a certain type of attitude and conjure a particular image of ‘success’ (a very narcissistic one at that). We need to be reminded that ‘abundance’ isn’t about gaining more for oneself; that’s a rather paradoxical notion. Whatever the abundance mindset is shall reflect the reality much larger than one individual. There are a myriad of possibilities for defining what success can look like, for creating meaning out of life, and for appreciating all that this life has to offer.
—
The Illusory Self
One of the ideas that should be considered more often is how the ‘self’ with which each of us identifies is potentially an illusion. Over time as we interact with a multitude of elements around us, we form certain patterns of thoughts and behaviors that in turn seem to characterize the ‘self’ underlying our existence. We develop beliefs about things and people, then send signals to reflect these beliefs and opinions. With enough repetition we come to see all of these ideas and actions as inherent to our ‘self’, and we place astronomical importance on maintaining that ‘self’ because otherwise the core of our existence would lose substance. But this ‘self’ is a mere illusion without any neurological mechanisms backing its materiality, and in fact there is also little objective evidence for the continuity of the ‘self’ save for the artificial contexts we construct. Nothing really confines someone to repeating the same patterns of reaction or communication that they have upheld up to any point, and in real life the only things that hold them accountable for consistency are flimsy expectations (either from external sources or, once again, the illusory ‘self’) or man-made legal constructs, for example. When we begin to question that sense of a solid and continuous ‘self’, we not only learn to be aware of the box we have put ourselves into, but also recognize the insignificance of all our synthetic identities in relation to much grander, more spectacular, and all the more real things.
—
These are just some starting ideas to ponder when we “mind the span”. I call this a philosophy of expansive living. There are still so many other aspects of this to consider and attempt to articulate, which is what I intend to do in upcoming months and possibly for the rest of my life. “Mind the span” isn’t so much a definitive answer to whatever that we are craving, be it happiness or joy or fulfillment, but simply an alternative worldview to our default mode of living right now. I hope to be able to entertain these thoughts in the comfort of this little corner of the Internet.