Skeptic Spirit

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Take care of yourself.

Not because nobody else will, but because nobody else can tell you exactly what you need. If you are going through rough times right now, you may get well meant advice saying: “You’ll get through this!” But this voice must come from you, deep inside. Hearing the words is not the same as feeling them, and you must feel them.

You have the strength to carry on, when you allow yourself to feel it.

Perhaps reality is the sum of our illusions?

For a long, long time I’ve been trying to focus on seeing things ‘as they are’, getting behind my own perception of things in order to get to some kind of ‘truth’. But right now I’m not so sure if I’m going about it the right way. Which, by the way, is a bit of a paradox, since this insecurity is leaving me to use the very same method I am questioning, in order to get an answer…

What I’m thinking is, perhaps there is no such thing as ‘reality’. Absolute truth is subjective, or at least, my perception of ‘absolute truth’ is that it is subjective, but I don’t really know, if it is out there. Something tells me, that if there weren’t some form of true reality, then there would be nothing at all. I’m not talking about the fact that the sun goes up every day (although it doesn’t, but that’s besides the point), but the fact that there is such a thing as communication and social constructions. We all conform to some kind of reality, that we are able to understand without having it explained. 

Sometimes someone comes up and changes the form of reality that we know. Someone alters the way we communicate, or the way we dress or the way by which we deal with authority. Someone sees an alternative to the reality that the rest know and changes things. Which means that there is a new reality, which means it was perhaps just a collective illusion after all. And so is the new reality.

I guess, reality is the sum of collective illusions. So, if this is ‘a truth’, then how do I go about seeing things as they are? Do I conform my own reality to fit it to other peoples? I would have to change religious view 30 times a day, which seems kind of absurd, really. But it might be the way to go in order to see things as they also are. How could I decide not to, why should I have patent on reality? By excluding religion from my path, I am doing so by the force of my own perception, which have faith in science. But it is still just a perception.

The other way to go about it is to mutually exclude anything that contradicts something else. Atheists and religious people would never agree on the god-issue, so I would need to exclude both in order to find something closer to reality. But how could they both be wrong? Well, they could, but then some other spiritual path would be ready to offer an answer, which I then would also have to exclude. Anyway I could possibly turn, I would have to exclude it, simply because I had found it. This is getting way too fluffy for me…

The third way is to question the need for seeing things ‘as they are’, to question my questioning of my perception. The answer to that is fairly simple (compared to the other choices I perceive myself to have). I don’t want to be fooled by my perception or my lack of self awareness. I don’t want to fool myself.

I don’t really care if the rest of society can trick me into conforming to some sets of rules, I have already made up my mind, that some rules are worth following, simply because I don’t want to choose the consequences of not following them. When I follow the rules and refrain from killing someone, it is not because I want to follow the rules. I don’t see social constructions as fixed, I see them as changeable guidelines, because I have seen them be changed by individuals.

I don’t want to fool myself, but I am doing so minute by minute. If I had the possibility for opening the door to my inner self, I would lock it and “forget” where I put the key. I don’t want my illusions to vaporize. Perhaps my spirit is nurtured by my own illusions? I think, the spirit, soul, sense of self, lives through the things we can imagine, the things we dream about, the things we want to feel. My illusions are my reality, and my spirit shines through it. Without some kind of illusion, I would not be… I would simply follow. So, fooling myself may be the fool that I am.

So perhaps my quest isn’t about seeing things as they are, but about creating the types of illusions, that I want my spirit to live out?

The things I tell myself about me are the things my spirit has to work with. If social constructions are changeable guidelines, then what I tell myself is what puts me where I am within the construction. The charming speaker and the shy chubby guy in the back of the room are telling themselves different things, which their spirits have to work with. If they switched inner voices, they might shift positions too.

Seeing things ‘as they are’ must be changed into: Seeing things as I want them to be.

I am well aware that this is a provocative statement, and that I have some explaining to do before actually making my point. I hope we’ll reach the end of this post together. If I google spirituality it will give me various results, from christian churches to web shops, courses and books, articles about tarot cards, angels and astrology. So, spirituality has many forms, apparently.

When I talk about spirituality, I talk about the essence of being. The soul, the spirit, the energy I feel when there is nothing to hold it back. My spiritual life is the challenge of creating the best conditions for my spirit to shine through, and that is not easy because there are many things to hold it back, often stuff inside my mind or heart or body, which is inconsistent with what I most deeply desire.

An example of things that are holding me back is obviously my smoking addiction. Because both mentally, emotionally and physically I know it is not healthy for me, and yet I ignore this awareness in order to smoke. So, there’s an inconsistency going on there about 15 times a day, and that’s just when I react upon it.

Religion is an inconsistency too. But perhaps less obvious, as it is strongly connected to spirituality where ever you look. We are of course free to accept or reject any part of any religion. Even the most fundamentalistic christians choose not to believe in Moses’ law of death penalty even if they do accept the 10 commandments, although that too was written by Moses. So, as such this doesn’t limit the believer’s spirituality.

But when you look at the world through a certain coloured glass, you will see everything in a certain coloured light. When you interpret what you see, you will see that colour, which means you will not see something different. Your mind is slightly (or severely) limited from any other colour of light. When you look upon your self with a certain coloured glass, you won’t see the real you. The wise reader will then ask:

But we all look upon ourselves with a certain coloured glass! Why lash out on religions?

It is true. We all have assumptions and perceptions of ourselves which does not correspond with “the actual self” and they are equally limiting. There is just one difference. 

When you seek to live an independent spiritual life, you will seek to alter your perception of self, and you will try to follow up on the assumptions you have in order to get more self-aware. You will learn, change, learn, acknowledge, learn… The point is to continue digging into these false images and illusions in order to get to the real stuff, the center of you.

But when you look upon your world and yourself through religious eyes, you have obligated yourself to stick to that religion. A lesbian looking at her sexuality with religious glasses will not see the beauty of her being; she will see the sin. A lesbian looking at her sexuality with open eyes will see her own assumptions from a more clear perspective, and she will not let herself be guided in a particular direction from an outside source.

This is important. Because if being spiritual means to allow your spirit to shine through, to be honest about your self and your perception, you cannot allow this process to be controlled by a belief system telling you how to view yourself, your actions or your feelings. If you do so, you will ignore the inner voice. If this inner voice tells you the same as your belief system would, then you haven’t really lost anything in a religious context either. 

But then again… I’m heading for a cigarette the minute I’ve posted this. The spiritual living is not easy.

So, my 7-year-old daughter has decided she believes in God and Jesus. I am, obviously, an atheist and I firmly believe that faith is something that should not be exposed to children. Let them become adults, before they make decisions of the spiritually altering kind. But of course, christianity is a part of the danish culture, and so my children are naturally exposed to it and especially around christmas and other “significant” holidays.

Above all I believe in choice and enlightenment. And when my daughter comes to me and asks me about God and Jesus, I feel obligated to teach her, because my own personal (lack of) beliefs should be mine alone. So I talk to her about it from the honest perspective of a non-believer, which she knows. I present it as great stories, fairy tails, rather than facts, and I try to emphasize the moral by using everyday examples. My daughter asks interesting questions, and even if this ends up being more than just a child’s faith, I am not worried about her. She has a very logical take on life, and in many ways I can tell that she fits the stories into what she already knows, rather than trying to transform what she knows into following the story.

This, to me, is a precious way of thinking. She can believe in whatever she wants, as long as it doesn’t overrule what she knows to be true. And yes, that is indoctrination on my part, it really is. But as a mother, it is my responsibility to give my children the tools to survive physically as well as mentally and spiritually. It is not my job to teach them what to believe in, what to eat, what to wear, what to say… I decide a great deal of this for them right now, but ultimately this is all decisions for them to make on their own. What I can give them is the ability to make “informed” decisions. Decisions that are based on what they know to be true, rather than what they would wish could come true.

As example, the time will come when my daughter will want to wear promiscuous clothing, hopefully not in another 9 years or so, but the time will come! I cannot then decide for her, that she should wear this neat dress with flowers and ribbons, if she really just wants to wear that miniskirt and latex tank top that matches the piercing and the torn apart stockings. I can only hope, that she will be aware of the signals she sends by putting on that outfit, and that she herself perhaps will find a nice balance. Teaching her to pay attention to what she knows to be true rather than what she would want to be true could make the difference.

There is a spiritual lesson in letting go of something, anything really, but some things are easier to let go off than others. Like my addiction to nicotine, or rather, my thought that a cigarette is closely connected to a break, and since I can’t go through the day without breaks, I can’t go through the day without cigarettes. (and I especially can’t have a break if all I can think about is the cigarette that I can’t smoke)

I guess letting go is a choice. You can drop your favorite vase on the floor so many times you’ll eventually have to shape it with glue and dust, and it may all be accidents. But the choice of gluing it together means there is also a choice of not letting go, even if it would be the spiritually healthy thing to do.

I tell myself there’s a lot I can’t let go off, that there are some things too special, too precious, for me to throw out, even if they are beyond repair. It is not the object I hold dear. It is the thought that I can still hold the object, that it still belongs to me. It is also the fear, that I might change, if I let go. It’s like the object, whatever it is, takes up space inside, and the moment I let go, my whole body and spirit will collapse from the replaced nothingness.

Thoughts are much harder to let go of, because I am not accustomed with thinking about nothing. But that is exactly what meditation is all about, entering a nothingness. Welcoming it and embracing the clarity and sense of reality.

Nothing is something too!

And it leaves room for something else, something new, something whole. Something I did not think of looking for, because my broken vase was there, occupying me with ‘something’.

So, tonight I will pick up my old habit of meditating. I haven’t done it in a couple of years, because I was too busy with not letting go. And who knows, it might even replace the cigarettes eventually…

I have written about my view upon manipulation before in which I express that it is an innate part of our language and communication. Like my son the other day, who was angry at my daughter and so while yelling at her called her “JESS!!”, where as 10 minutes later he wanted to persuade her into playing G.I. Joe with him; “Jeeeeesieeee?” 

Some people also use it consciously, and some people try to do it on both levels but fail, and therefore they are not considered manipulative. An example of that would be a colleague making up an excuse for not having done his job for that day. Everybody know it is an excuse, but the real mechanism behind is in fact an attempt of manipulation, just badly executed.

The intention was:

“I want you to perceive me as someone who is not lazy/stupid/indifferent, so I will try to make you believe that I did care about the job, but I was unfortunately prevented from doing it or bringing it to work” 

The reason it failed was because he wasn’t skilled enough to serve that message the right way. The excuse was poorly served, it didn’t push the right buttons on the perception of others, so it did not actually manipulate them. But it was an act of manipulation nevertheless. I have come to realize, that only the average manipulators become judged as manipulative. The bad ones will not be taken seriously, and the good ones have learned how to transform their self image to the point where they become the manipulation they convey. 

The very best will make a point of acting as if they have become manipulated themselves.

I do not see manipulation as any more of a bad thing than talking is. In fact I believe it is a necessary skill to have in a modern society, where communication is a vital element of the social survival. I know the opinions are high and strong felt about this subject, but I have a feeling that people confuse matters.

I guess we have all encountered the unpleasant feeling of having been persuaded into doing something which we later found out wasn’t ‘right’. But was the persuasion an act of manipulation? The answer should be obvious, but as you may guess, I am about to say: “No, it wasn’t!”

It was not manipulation, it was calculation! 

Before christmas I was out looking for a new phone. I had decided upon buying one without a subscription. I went into a teleshop, where I was met by a salesperson, who was very unpleasant to talk to (or rather be talked to). Even before I went in I knew that there would be attempts of persuading me into buying a phone with subscription, so I was prepared. But still, the encounter with this guy was highly unpleasant, not because he was trying to manipulate me, but because the amount of information he gave was calculated in a way, that had I listened to him, I would have bought into it.

He was both manipulative and calculative. The manipulation had to do with his way of conveying the message. The ‘sales speech’ flowing out of his mouth, the emphasis on certain words, the body language, the eye contact… Even the uniform he was wearing. It is an attempt of manipulation, but it is still transparent. I can decide, if I want to be manipulated. I always have that option.

The problem was, that he was calculating with the information he wanted to give me. In this case it was the advantage and the disadvantage of buying a phone without subscription. He did not attempt to inform me properly, instead he conveyed the amount of information he had, as if it was the complete amount of information available. He was calculating on the fact that had he told me the full amount of information, it would lead me to choose differently from what he would want me to choose. 

In this case I had my own very good (perhaps not obvious) reasons to choose a non-subscription phone. So I was able to walk away from there without paying for something I wasn’t looking for. So, no harm was done. 

Manipulation takes a sender and a willing receiver. A politician, who I am not a fan of, can manipulate great many people, but not me. I cannot be manipulated, unless I (subconsciously) decide to do so. 

Calculation takes a sender and an unknowing receiver. There is a great amount of concealed information, and although I always have the liberty of thinking: “There might be more to this story than what I hear…”, the exact information withhold from me prevents me from choosing according to my own interest. Instead I will be given the information sufficient enough for me to choose what the calculator wishes for me to choose. In the above example, by not telling me about the disadvantage of a subscription phone in terms of a high price on e.g. conversations, he could steer my choice in his direction.

Calculation is dangerous, especially when it is emerged with decent manipulation. The calculation is the big sinner, the one that takes control over other peoples mind and spirit. It takes little skills! Unlike manipulation you don’t need to possess any particular psychological insight to calculate what information you want to give another person to make them choose as you please.

There is a good thing about this though. We all manipulate all of the time, both consciously and subconsciously. Even if you oppose to the thought, you cannot choose not to manipulate – it is simply not possible. But you can choose not to calculate. You can choose to give people all the information they need in order to make the right choices, hence giving them the freedom of spirit.

In fact, withholding information is something which takes a conscious effort, and you may end up making life more complicated for yourself. It all comes down to Return of Investment. Being relatively honest and fair makes life rather easy.

I believe, I have a spirit. Not sure if it is simply a matter of hormones or some psychological factors, but whatever I might formally call it, I believe it to be there. Tonight, I would like to touch the area of “things I do, while thinking about how much I want to not do them”. It is not limited to bad habits, it could just as easily be about saying the wrong thing or not doing what I really felt like doing at that moment. Allowing specific people to cross the line or withdrawing too much in relation to others.

What I do and what the deeper spirit of me wants me to do are two different things. One clear example of this is my nasty habit of smoking. The spirit of me doesn’t want to be addicted to a deadly habit, and thrives much better during the times when I am off the cigarettes.

So, somehow I am able to not let myself act upon the wishes of my inner spirit. I hear the words, but I don’t listen. This means, the spirit of me has absolutely no authority in my life. It is more like a guide speaking in the back: “If you please look to your right, you will see the ‘you’ you could be, if you wanted to make a spiritual choice! You would make me feel much better!” 

But then who/what is in control of my actions if not my spirit?

Thoughts, feelings, learned behavior and scattered perceptions can path the way to a very unspiritual life. Still fighting this. Somehow these mechanisms become the force of the habit, the “Why bother?!” statements, that I never really consciously think about. I still react to them emotionally, but my feelings aren’t my spirit. On the other hand, if my thoughts and feelings do not correspond with the needs of my spirit, I just won’t feel it. 

It is as if my spirit is a ball at the center of a maze. And only by aligning my thoughts and feelings from the center to the outer line, I will be able to lead my spirit all the way through. If my thoughts don’t match my feelings, or my feelings or actions do not correspond with my spirit, the maze will turn itself, and the spirit will be captured at the center, unable to find its way out.

My spirit has a lot more influence on my actions than I want to believe though. It is the essence of me, and when it comes through I feel the essence of life. I can keep it locked down for some time, but the minute I give it some power, it wants to take over and tell me about all the other things I need to change in my life.

When I smoke, my spirit doesn’t come through, that’s for sure. And in many other cases where I withdraw and lock my spirit down in the center, I loose the essence of life, basically. I withdraw on the inside, because what I am experiencing is something my spirit doesn’t want to accept. My spirit denies me.

When I don’t smoke, I get overwhelmed. I see things much clearer and often too clearly. Other things my spirit wont accept. It becomes overwhelming, because not only do I need to continue not smoking, I also need to remember to eat (I eat heathy, when I do eat!), and then there is all the clutter in boxes and drawers. There are projects to finish, decisions to make… Tuff stuff that I need to deal with. All this becomes clear, because I am listening to the spirit inside. And once it gets in charge of things, it is SO critical! 

So, I get to the point very quickly, where I close my eyes to the sun. It is too much! 

And yet I am sitting here thinking, I really should listen to my spirit. I really should! Because even though it is demanding, it is simply because I don’t live the way I really want to live. I am close, though. Far closer than I’ve ever been before. So the essence of me isn’t out to criticize me – it is merely trying to tell me that which would make me the most satisfied with living. 

So, it all comes down to that perception. I’ve felt it to be a judgmental perfectionist spirit, but in reality, it is my perception that has been screwed up. My thoughts, feelings, learned behavior and habit of thinking leads me to perceive the advice from my spirit the wrong way. 

Tonight is the night of listening, but maybe I should listen tomorrow as well?

Illusions work, because we want to be deceived. It is that simple. Wether it is the establishment of an empire, a religious perception, a seductive stranger or even just a commercial for washing powder, it is all just small games we play with ourselves. Subtle “Boy, if this was real…!” comments in the subconscious. that keeps the game going.

The difference between being a child and growing up isn’t that we stop playing, it is that we decide to play all day long. At least as children we are told when the game is over. As adults we have to figure that out all by ourselves, and we are still not old enough to do so.

And the more deeply involved we become in a game, the more we withdraw from reality. In the alternative world anything can happen – that is just fantastic. In the real world, anything could happen as well, but we don’t notice and we don’t care. We save ourselves for better times, where reality meets fantasy, only to realize that it isn’t going to happen unless we force fantasy to meet reality.

This would mean ending a game, and we don’t like that.

But if you’ve ever ended such a play, you have also felt the revelation that comes with it. It actually doesn’t hurt as much as you thought it would, because… well, 

It was just a game after all.

Spiritual freedom is about freeing our selves from the unnecessary and imaginary restrictions of perception. But in the essence of this, I have discovered a lovely self contradiction, that I want to share with anyone who cares or is bored enough to put up with the following (and probably rather messy) post. But first an experience I had this weekend…

I was attending my grandmothers birthday this friday, which was much fun and everybody behaved like a family should. My grandmother opened a cabin in the living room and took out two cups, that I vaguely recognized as being some I had bought for her many years ago in a second hand shop. For her birthday, she reminded me.

This is the dialog, as it took place (well, except for the translation, of course) Jess is my 6-year old daughter :

• Grandma’: “Hear, wouldn’t it be great if Jess could have these?”
• Me: “I am sure, it would not survive, she is still not that careful with her toys, even though she tries to be.”
• Grandma’: “Oh, but you can just bring them home now and save them for when she is ready to get them.”
• Me: “.”
• Grandma’: “…Because, it would be such a shame if she didn’t get them.. I mean, I might die… So you see, it is better that you take them home now!”

Although the above is the verbal conversation, I will now reveal the actual communication, the underlying manipulation and messages. (Bare in mind, that I know my grandmother and also that I observed body language and tone of voice) 

• Grandma’: “Hear, I have been planning on giving you these cups back, because I don’t have space for all this old junk, and I can’t bring myself to throw out anything, and I would feel guilty about giving these away to charity, since I got them from you. I am using Jess as an excuse, because I know that you would not deny your daughter a gift. And she might even like it?”
• Me: “Oh no, don’t you dare pulling me into this. I have tons of things you’ve given me, because I suffer from the same habit of keeping things out of guilt, and I don’t want any more of that. If you want to give Jess a gift, pick a toy instead…”
• Grandma’: “Please, I really need for you to take these bloody cups, and I don’t care what you do with them – Just take them!”
• Me: “It really isn’t my problem!”
• Grandma’: “Now, you need to take them! I’ll even pull the what-if-I-die trick on you, just so you know, just how important it is for me, that you do as I say. I made up my mind about these cups the moment you accepted my invitation – you will do as I say”

I ended up bringing the cups home, of course. They are still lying in the plastic bag along with to plastic cups she snug in without asking. “For Iain, so he has something too!” She just said. Maybe Jess will enjoy them after all, and if not, there is still the local second hand shop, so the circle will be complete. :D

This is my point.

I was attempted manipulated. I did see it while it was going on, but I still went along with it, and I am actually feeling more free and happy, than I would have been, had I fought it to the bitter end. Because freedom of the spirit is not about doing the opposite of what you are attempted to be manipulated into doing. (Wow, messy line…) It is not about refusing just because you feel pushed into a corner.

Sometimes the freedom of the spirit is about doing something, your mind had restricted you from doing. I am very, very stubborn! Seriously, I don’t know anyone as difficult to argue with as me. I even fight myself just to let of steam without hurting others. My restriction was to not let anyone use emotional blackmail in order to make me do anything I would not want to do. And if I could not avoid it, I would most certainly fight it on the inside.

In this case, I would have been fairly irritated that I had to bring them home anyway. I actually would have been emotionally affected by this, although it sounds silly. I would have to force myself into continuously fighting it, because this would be the only way of “not loosing”. Like running a race and deciding never to cross the finnish line, because somehow that would prevent me from loosing. In my perception, giving in to this type of manipulation would have been a down fall, a defeat… A dangerous path to follow.

But in order to follow the path of the free spirit I have to go beyond my own restrictions. In this case, I had to surrender to this type of manipulation, fully aware of what was going on. Because that gave me a new awareness of my own restrictions. I didn’t ‘win’ the battle my grandmother had forced me into. I played along, I lost. I feel great!

My restriction was to ‘not let go’ of this, but deep down I had a desire to let go and accept defeat. Disregarding my own restrictions, I realized they were never there. I realized that the moment I stopped fighting both my grandmother and my own fear of defeat, I liberated myself. 

Still don’t know what to do about those cups, though…

There seem to be a thick line drawn between spirituality and skepticism, as if the two perspectives just can’t be connected into one way of living. I fear, I might be categorized as either “not truly spiritual” or “not a serious skeptic”. Not that I usually care about how people want to label me, but in relation to my blog, I actually want to be taken just a bit seriously… Most of the time.

So, how can the skeptical mentality work together with the spiritual view of life without compromising either of them? 

It all comes down to essence. Actually, the only reason it may seem complicated is because the essence got overlooked in the urge for spiritual experiences and handheld proofs. Because, what is the essence of spirituality? 

The way I see it (and you may assume that anything written here is the way I see it), spirituality is as simple as finding and expanding your spirit. It really has nothing to do with aura readings, chakras, crystals, tarot cards or anything else you can buy. These are all substitutes designed to fill out the gap between your personality and your spirit. 

I have been through all of them, though. Even the pendants and the ‘Celtic Book of the Dead’, which I still find enlightening although I do not give it divine credit. The problem isn’t that these things exists, but that believers stop searching, when the substitute is adequately fulfilling on an emotional state.

The spirit is located somewhere beneath the thoughts and feelings. I usually use the term feeling of self rather than spirit, but I am convinced that it is the same thing. It is a state of mind, where the essence of ‘you’ shines through all of your emotions and thoughts, it is the essence of being.

To me, being spiritual is about finding this essence and letting it shine through as much as possible. If I should set a goal for this, it would be to live through this essence every moment of every hour every day. So I have a long way to go, and yet I am enjoying every step I take.

There is an equally deluded perception about skepticism. People thing it is about what can or cannot be proven, to the point where they’ve stopped asking the right questions. They are trying to solve emotional puzzles with math, so to speak, completely ignoring the fact that we are humans, not human mechanisms. 

Being a skeptic is about asking myself the right, difficult questions. In a year, I may have proven myself wrong on everything I’ve written this far. Not because I was dumb to begin with, but because I asked myself questions I had to answer. I have a passion for knowledge about me. 

I have a passion for self awareness. And what better way of living is there for me, than to be a spiritual skeptic?