New Trusted Content: Next Step(s)

There is a lot of wisdom in proverbs. They are usually short in length, easy to remember, and carry a lot of information.

There was a person in the Freedomain Radio chat the other day that posted the following proverb from Confucius:

To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.

The chatter commented that it seemed that this was what FDR was all about, querying for confirmation.

In the moment, it didn’t feel right–it felt a little like conceding this point would open the door to conceding to the Buddhists that drop by that some of the sayings in their religion also have some alignment with FDR, and I wasn’t quite ready to do that. But I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong with it.

Fortunately (at least for me), somebody on the inside this morning let me know what was up with that proverb (and, by extension, all proverbs):

It’s a conclusion, not a methodology.

Saying that we must set ourselves right and everything else will follow is certainly something that Stef has put forward, but he is not a Man of Wise Sayings in that way. The quote from Confucius is correct (at least to a large extent), but why is it correct?

The thing about religion and even most of the lexicon of wisdom passed down through the copyings of tattered monks is that they are all conclusions. There was some methodology, but the scientific method as we know it today was not the standard of truth, if it was even practiced in such an ancient time.

It is not to say that there is no value in such things, but that a statement about reality–a conclusion–must be validated according to reason and evidence.

I’m not going to completely exhaust the analysis of the Confucian proverb above, but I will give a few reasons as to why it is correct (and hopefully, you will agree).

I’m sure there are ways that the proverb can be interpreted, but the meaning I take from it is that in order to help the world, we must first help ourselves. It is much like the saying, “Physician, heal thyself.” Or, as Stef has pointed out, if you go around preaching the cure but you have not taken it yourself (telling people how to be happy while you are miserable), you actually do more to harm than to help.

The progression of self to family to nation to world is a natural sort of social hierarchy, and I think we can classify this as a fact of reality.

But more than the argument from credibility above is this: it is a psychological fact that whatever we do not acknowledge in ourselves, we re-enact and/or inflict on the world. If I have had an abusive childhood and have never processed it, I will experience the world as abusive or as demanding abuse, and I will act accordingly. So if I do not “set my heart right” (which can be interpreted in many different ways, which is part of why proverbs can only take you so far)–which I will take to mean “process my life according to reason and evidence”–I will inflict my unprocessed trauma in my family, project it onto the nation and to the world.

I think it is safe to say that Confucius (or whoever it was that created the proverb) did not have access to psychology. So the proverb itself is an accumulation of experience, which certainly does have value. But without the methodology, it really does hang in a vacuum. You have to start asking things like, “What did Confucius mean by ‘cultivate our personal life’ and ’set our hearts right?’” And, of course, there’s no way of knowing. Even if he did put out a whole guide on what he meant by it, if he does not include the methodology, it will be fundamentally incomplete.

Furthermore, there is always room for interpretation when dealing solely with conclusions. It is much more difficult to do that with a methodology–either it is rational or it isn’t; either it is empirical or it isn’t.

I did this mostly for my own benefit, but I hope this has been helpful to others.

As of today–actually, in about 4-5 hours or so–I will have been in Denver for a full year.

This move and living in Denver has been such a positive thing for me. This isn’t because of anything intrinsic to Denver, of course, but because of what being here represents to me.

It represents an increase in choice in my life.

I felt trapped in my previous job for lots of reasons. I felt so tired at the end of the day that all I wanted to do was collapse. I didn’t want to take the risk of quitting while I looked for a new job (although I managed to get by just fine after I was fired).

Getting fired was just making official what I had already done in my mind–I was totally not present at work, and I just didn’t care anymore.

While I was in a particularly thorny financial situation at the end of the year last year, I wasn’t willing to take just any job. I did not want a repeat of my last employment. Holding out for something I actually wanted (and working to figure out what I wanted) was essential to create and protect my happiness.

It certainly wasn’t guaranteed that I would find such a job, and I certainly came close to not having any cash or credit… but it did work out, and as far as it did work out, that represents an increase in choice.

The first therapist I met with this year was not well-chosen, but I found my current therapist through a long process of thinking about what it was that I wanted and needed from a therapist, and then taking an approach that I was familiar with to select the therapist.

I have made more conscious choices in 2009 than I have made in the past.

My next steps–whatever they may be–will continue that trend.

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Mornin’

It’s been five weeks since I had surgery–so far, so good! Everything is as it should be, which is all I can really ask for.

A lot of my time has been consumed with work, but that is due to me taking an offer from my boss to make up for the time I won’t be working later this year.

Now that I have the boring bits out of the way…

I’ve made some changes to my diet. After watching a video and reading the transcript of an interview about the science behind obesity, I’ve decided to cut carbohydrates as much as I can, especially grains.

Here’s the first video by Dr. Gary Taubes:

And here’s the transcript of an interview:

Gary Taubes, interviewed by Seth Roberts November 30, 2007 from Seth’s blog

Now, there’s a part of me which says, “of course you’re going to latch onto this diet–you’re obese and desperate to lose weight!” Well… yeah, that’s true, to a point. But I did start eating this way about 7 years ago for about 5 or 6 months and my weight dropped to 240lbs, and I never felt healthier.

However, the woman I was dating at the time was a pretty cold-hearted person and pretty much undermined my food strategy, and I had no support from my friends or family.

I mean, they had to have noticed how healthy I looked as I lost the weight, and nobody said a damn thing to me when I started putting it back on.

In 2003, I was not in a stable place in life. It is pretty difficult to do anything long-term in the realm of self-improvement when the sands around you are constantly shifting, and I would remain unstable for several years.

My peak weight was probably over 310lbs in 2007/2008. I lost some weight (down to the 280s) when I cut normal soda out of my diet without making any other changes. Now, I am down to the mid-260s (I weighed in at 266lbs right before my surgery, which was probably due to an overall decrease in calories, which is part of why I needed surgery), which means I am about 25lbs from my weight in 2003, which, incidentally, was my weight when I graduated high school.

Granted, I was probably just at the level of obesity then, but how many people can say that they have returned to their high school weight more than a decade after college?

I’ve never been at a sustained healthy weight as an adult, but my feeling is that it is somewhere in the 180-200lbs range. Being 6′3″ with (I assume) a moderate-to-large frame, it might be in the upper end of that range… but of course, it’s not the number as much as how I look and feel and how my habits effect my weight that will determine the “resting zone” (so to speak) of my body weight.

And yes, Virginia, James will be exercising. I’ve been restricted in part due to the surgery (I still have stitches!) and in part due to working a lot. I do find that exercise becomes far more enjoyable the less I weigh, especially walking around, and I’m prepared to take advantage of whatever nice weather we have this winter.

Finally, the best for last: I believe I have found my therapist! I have my first therapy session this coming Monday. I found that when I approached it as me interviewing her for a job that the questions I wanted to ask came quite easily.

[edited to add] – I had my first appointment with this therapist and it was quite nice; we did some body work and I have to say that I much prefer this approach to all the other therapists I’ve encountered–we’re not discussing content but working with form.

New awarenesses:

• The distance between now and 1979
• Carrying an intergenerational burden
• The degree of tension in my back
• The imbalance of tension in my back

I won’t promise a report like this every therapy session; I just wanted to put these out there since it was so novel and so nice.

Hey, I just wanted to post a follow-up from my last post!

That one will still remain as Trusted Content, so if you want to read it, please sign up for an account and leave a comment on this entry and I’ll upgrade you.

So!

My surgery went pretty well, was in the OR for 35 minutes (came out 10 minutes early) and was awake by 11:45. I was super-alert pretty quickly and chatty like nobody’s business!

As it turns out, the injury that was repaired was pretty close to as good as it could get, so this is good in terms of prognosis and in terms of recovery time. I’m also experiencing some discomfort and pain, but not a huge amount, and I wasn’t even experiencing any serious throbbing or pain this morning when I got up (I took a vicodin anyway; it had been 7 hours and I didn’t want to get blindsided).

They gave me a list of some post-op care procedures, which I intend to follow to the letter.

Other than that, I’m feeling pretty dang good, certainly a lot better than Thursday.

New Trusted Content (it’s been a while!): Going Under the Knife

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