all problems are in your own mind

All problems are in your own mind. We cannot escape the prison of our subjectivity, that which conditions the world. The error is to misattribute the colors our mind paints to the world-in-itself. This is why silencing the anarchy within is peaceful: in degrees it shows an ever more objective picture of the world. It is a tricky balance to understand objectivity within subjectivity, but it is possible, though subtle. It is remarkably illuminating when the rays of the larger view of the world penetrate through to the little enclosure within which we reside cramped. We will start to see that necessity with which every extant thing is brought into being. Reality is infinite, but we yearn to carve a piece of it out for ourselves and call it ‘me’ and ‘mine’. In the process we lose sight of the grand scheme of things, and are misled into Schopenhauer’s ‘practical egoism’ of which he admonishes all of us.

I am brought to this discussion because of the seemingly inevitable relapse into the old delusional thoughts that I am constantly subjected to, much to my deepest dismay. In starting to write this, I had intended to discuss the strange way in which my social interactions have always been exactly the same all the while my mind has been changing, and the natural way I had viewed this as a change in the interactions as opposed to a change in my mind. A trivial event jolted some dormant memory into activation yesterday and reminded me of the cycles that spin eternal. How do we grow, yet continually come back to where we began? I believe it must be like a spiral, and that the complexity of life allows for multiple dimensions, some of which are involved in growth and others that oscillate indefinitely. Regarding the events in the external world, there is a trail of clues that we may choose to follow that reveals to us the hidden patterns in time. This is accompanied by the realization that there are greater powers guiding the unfolding of this cosmic story that far surpass our claustrophobic entrapped little minds. The tides continue to ebb and flow, and as my social tendencies are on the upswing, I have noticed an increase in the kinds of judgmental thoughts that attempt to infer what other must be thinking of me and what impression I must have made on them during our chat. I become preoccupied with making sure that the image I paint of myself in their minds is consistent with the image that I have of myself in my own mind. But when I notice myself doing this, I become deeply disturbed by it due to my knowledge that this is a complete and utter waste of time as well as a thorn that torments my mind. Again, the source of this preoccupation lies in my desire to secure a little piece of the world for myself, and the discernment that much in the world is out of my control and depends on others. Therefore it follows that I should make sure others do not think ill of me, lest they prey on me and destroy my chances of having a comfortable and easy life in this boiling cosmic ocean. But the delusion in this kind of thinking is assuming that I can ever even approach a true judgment about others’ thoughts, encased as they are in their prison of bone and blood. Frequently I have been shocked to witness the vast contrast between what I had inferred about someone’s mind and their revelation as to its true contents, as when I directly ask about them. Although sometimes my judgments have been close to accurate, even proving this requires an inference, and in the final analysis it will be found that one can never actually know the contents of anyone else’s mind and must resign oneself to a sort of carelessness in behavior.

In short, what I am advocating is the return to the innocence of childhood. At that time before theories of mind, the very thing whose influence leads to such anguished thoughts and emotions, though it is helpful and necessary even for the navigation of the complex social environment, the child was comfortable and unassuming. How do I balance out my statement that we must return to the time before theory of mind with my counter-claim that it is helpful and necessary even? It is a difficult and subtle balance, which maybe words cannot even articulate. Perhaps the best path to trod would be to temper these judgments with the realization of their extreme fallibility, using them as working assumptions not taken to be literally true but only as guides. Also, it is specifically inferences about others’ thoughts about me that I condemn here and not necessarily all inferences about others’ thoughts. Many cases will arise where I will need to infer someone’s thoughts in order to choose the best course of actions, as when someone may have misunderstood something which may lead them to harm, in which case it is my duty to correct their error when I have clearly perceived this. But again, this perception itself may be flawed at its root and may sometimes cause even greater misunderstanding and lead to even greater harm.

I just want to return to the opening sentence of this whole discussion: all problems are in your own mind. It feels like that is a very powerful statement. Wittgenstein says something similar to this when he says, “The world of the happy is quite different from the world of the unhappy”. If only the mind could be brought to a positive outlook the world itself would take on a positive appearance, such is its tremendous power. The mind conditions the whole world of appearances. Therefore, the most important thing for me right now is to cultivate the good-natured qualities of my mind and to learn how to put my mind at ease no matter what condition of the external world it apprehends. And fortunately this is exactly what the meditation that I practice achieves. So, continue and grow, little one.