I am never really here in the present moment. I am always somewhere else. In all my free time I’m almost always lost in a book. I can’t eat alone without reading something. I can’t even take a shit without reading. If I’m not reading I’m probably lost in computer land or some fantasy or the other, far, far away, high up in the stratosphere somewhere.

I have read Eckhart Tolle thoroughly, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and a number of books on mindfulness and Buddhism. I doubt that many people, who are not scholars, have read as many books on psychology, meditation and philosophy as I have. (I have of course read tons of other books as well.) I am like that cook who has read all the cookbooks in the world, but never cooks anything. If he is hungry he has a hamburger or a pizza.

Well, I’ve been listening to a lot of different mindfulness training programs on CDs, I have taken meditation classes and I have been to weekend retreats, but still, I am never really present here and now.

During my morning walks through the park, on my way to work, I always try to practice being “here and now”. I intentionally try to be here where I am, to be aware of my walk, in the now. But it is only for very short moments, maybe for a few seconds or so, that I manage to stay aware. Of course I know very well that this is how the mind works, but still, after years of practice?

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There is nothing wrong with sitting meditation or Buddhism, but it is not for all people. I think it is for people of a special kind, with a special kind of personality. Some people like meditation, others don’t. Some people like running and physical exercise, others don’t. Some people simply love to hang around and do nothing, others freak out if they don’t have something to do.

This is what I have arrived at: There are many paths leading out from the forest. Everybody has to find their own way. But it is important to know though, that there are things that are common to us all. You can’t be a complete asshole and expect happiness as a result. You can’t lie too much to yourself and expect to find out something about the truth. You can’t bee to egoistic if you expect any progress on any spiritual path.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The ego is like an old dog. Jill Bolte Taylor had to have a brain hemorrhage to lose her ego. Something similar happened to Ram Dass. Eckhart Tolle had to be driven close to suicide before the ego lost its grip over him. There is such enormous power in ego. That is why we humans won’t ever change our evil ways. Words, books, seminars, weekend retreats, psychotherapy, years of meditation practice, nothing seems to do the trick. We will simply not change, even though it is possible. It is possible to give up smoking, and drinking; it is possible to change eating and thinking habits, but still, we won’t do it.

It is too difficult to break habits. So, stop trying to change anything, the world, your friends, your husband or yourself. Don’t try to be positive or realistic or optimistic. Do what you like or do what you don’t like. It makes no difference. Believe in whatever pleases you. I have given up the fight now. I have surrendered to an overwhelming enemy.

Some people speak in an affected way. They have an artificial dialect; like cultural snobs, politicians, religious fanatics, cool truck drivers or drug peddlers, just to mention a few varieties. They put on a show to impress others. They don’t speak with their own voice. They pretend that they are someone else. Their inner voices are most likely affected and artificial as well. Probably they have completely forgotten about their own true self.

Well, we have all been there. We are often forced to speak with another voice than our own? We have often to pretend that we are someone else in order to get away with something, stay out of trouble, or simply because we want things to run more smoothly. Sometimes we have to pretend that we are positive and optimistic, sometimes we have to pretend that we mourn. But after some years, if we completely have forgotten about our own true voice and our own true self, then what do we do?

How do we find a way back? Is there really a true voice in the head? Is there really a true self?

Is it not only after some kind of disaster that one begin to question things? Why should one question oneself if ones life is a success story? Maybe the catastrophes are blessings, necessary for us to wake up?

Sometimes on my way home after work I stop at the pub to have a beer and a chat with some of my old friends. It is seldom very uplifting. They have as always been drinking and smoking pot all day so the communication is mostly of the one way kind, which means that I don’t say much. Well, I listen to their disconnected ramblings for a while, and then I go home.

Is this what it fees like, I think to myself, for an awakened man to talk with ordinary sleepwalkers?

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Some are alcoholics or drug addicts. Some are completely hypnotized by some weird religion or ideology, like neo liberalism, neo Nazism, Raëlism or Islamism. Some are racists, some are neurotics, or stressed out, or just out of it. Some suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, some are schizophrenics and some are health and fitness fanatics. The list could be made very long I guess. But how many of the earths population aren’t caught up in anything? How many people simply live their life without any particular ideas about it, without any activism for any particular cause, with no special goal, no agenda, no nothing? I think a lot of people do so. And I think that the only hope for the human species is that more people would get off whatever train they are on at the next station.

Some people collect butterflies, some people collect stamps, and some people collect thoughts. Thought collectors always carry a small notebook to be able to quickly jot down interesting thoughts as they flutter by. Thought collecting is a weird hobby. What is the point with it? To eventually write a book filled with interesting thoughts and make some money? The whole thing is very sad. Isn’t it like trying to sell sand in the Sahara dessert?

Anyway, at some point in life most people realize that thoughts are not that important. The brain is constantly producing thoughts, like the kidneys are producing urine. But absolutely no one is collecting urine to show off.

Well, also many butterfly collectors eventually loose interest in collecting butterflies. What is the point with it really if one doesn’t have scientific reasons for it? It is possible to find butterfly collections in any museum of natural history. One can look at dead butterflies there. Or one can enjoy the living ones as they flutter by.

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I don’t think that daydreaming is a bad thing. I think it is healthy. It is not possible and it is not necessary to always be in the “real” world. It is OK to be lost in dreamland every once in a while. The point is what kind of dreamland one is lost in. Is it a terrible place? Is it a dungeon where one is brooding on revenge, or is it a sexual fantasy where one is having a wonderful time? It is not possible and it is not necessary to, for example, be fully present when one is driving a car where the traffic is not to heavy. One can let the autopilot do the driving while one is listening to the radio and singing along with the music.

But, today many people live all their life in a virtual reality with almost no connection to the “real” world. This is a problem. Many kids today have absolutely no interest in the everyday reality. They shut everything out. Television, computer games, portable computer games, cell phones with computer games, iPod’s and all kind’s of technical appliances makes it possible be completely lost somewhere else. And the big problem is that it is not their own dream worlds they are lost in. It is someone else’s. Their own reality is a foreign land to them. Many people today can’t stand their own thinking, how they are, what they look like, what they are and how the world is functioning. It will be a long and hard way for them to reconnect even sporadically to their own reality.

Animals can’t create philosophies and religions, and they can’t smile. We, on the other hand, can certainly produce a lot of different philosophies and religions and we can produce a lot of different smiles.

Politicians have their special way of smiling when they want to look good on TV. Social workers have their kind of understanding and well meaning smiles, with the head bent a little. Many born again Christians produce an interesting holy looking kind of smile. Idiots have their idiotic smiles, car salesmen have their big Hollywood smiles and crooks have their nasty ones. Very cultivated and high born old ladies can smile wonderful smiles as they spread their sarcasms around.

Alcoholics have their special way of smiling. They produce a very stupid kind of smile. You can immediately see that someone is an alcoholic only by the way he smiles. Some people are not alcoholics but are filled with mendacities for other reasons. Their smiles are difficult to make out, but I have noticed that when they get older their weird smiles get more pronounced.

All this applies of course also to laughs. There are also many different ways of laughing. But not all smiles and laughs are false. There are also true smiles and true laughs, straight from the heart. These smiles and laughs are of a completely different quality. They originate from a completely different part of the brain.

There is also true religiosity, true spirituality and true philosophy. Not everything what people say (including one self) is false. And of course, there is a also a true self.
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