Thursday 1 February 2007

Pic of the day: Well, it is a goal of sorts... but it is not an end, just another beginning. Whether the new stretch you run will really be better than the last, remains to be seen. (Screenshot from the anime Mamotte Shugogetten.)

Running without a goal

Isn't that how humans normally live their lives? Running without a goal. Or rather, they always have a goal -- or perhaps several goals -- but they never reach them: Each time they come even remotely close to a goal, they set themselves a new goal further ahead. And then they keep running. Or perhaps they compare themselves to their neighbors, and run to keep up with them. But of course the neighbors keep comparing themselves to us, so they also run as fast as they can to keep up. In this way, everyone has to run as fast as they can just to stand still.

I too am running without a goal; I just run in a different direction.

***

My sims are a lot like humans, in that they always, always have wants. They want to kiss their spouse; they want their kid to get good grades in school; they want to buy a puppy or kitten; they want to improve their cooking skill; they want to become a werewolf... wait, that last part was not quite like common people, I guess. When one want is fulfilled – and sometimes even if not – they want something else. A human trait indeed.

But starting from University, the sims also have Lifetime Wants. This is something that is far from trivial and requires planning, dedication and patience: Have a golden anniversary, graduate 3 children from college, be best friends with 20 people at the same time, own 5 successful businesses and so on. If they reach this, they are immune to despair for life, and function on a slightly higher level, as if all their needs were always met. (They still need to eat, sleep etc, but any suffering less than death does not reduce the quality of their work or their interactions with others.)

There are indeed humans who seem eerily similar to this. But I don't think – or I haven't seen it happen – that they arrive there by reaching a goal outside of themselves. Rather, when they reach some great goal in their life, they may stay in "platinum mood" for a while, but like our original Sims they slide down again to real life. It was only a "peak experience", as modern philosophers of the mind call it. Ken Wilber in particular likes to point this out, that there is a difference between states and stages. States of mind can be entered in various ways, but then you go back to your normal state of mind. To reach a stage of growth where you can stay in the "peak experience" is something that takes a lot of time and dedication. And even then, you are likely to find new "peak experiences" that dwarf what you have known before. He doubts that anyone today has reached as far as a human can reach. I doubt it, too.

But there are some who seem to have reached what we sims players call "platinum mood", where the pull and shove of life does not bring them out of balance. Some are famous, but some are not. It is not something that in itself causes fame or admiration in this world. Only if they have a task to perform in life that brings them into the public spotlight, does the world notice that they are not quite like others. The Dalai Lama seems to be one such person. Perhaps Nelson Mandela. What people notice when meeting these people is how fully present they are. Even though they are meeting with someone almost beneath their notice, they are paying more attention than your best friend. Why is this, I think, if not that they have reached their goal and stopped running inside.

The running inside, the ceaseless planning, dreaming, hoping, fearing... this draws a man or woman away from what they are doing in the here and now. And yet the here and now is the only point where we can do anything at all. If we don't meet people here, we will pass them like lanterns in the night, a sign of life but not life itself. We pass them within shouting distance, but even should we touch their bodies, we can still not touch their soul, if our own soul is not fully present.