The "As-If Method"

So, I believe that the supernatural is either nonexistent or incomprehensible, and I try to only believe propositions that are logically consistent and for which there is evidence.

Of course, this leads to a problem.

We know that the human mind is quite a bit irrational. We know that self-fulfilling prophecies are a real phenomenon. It is pretty much a given that there are quite a few irrational beliefs flowing around in that big fishbowl that I call my head.

Let's call this the "problem of meta-rationality". The essential question is, how to deal rationally with irrationality? Is it more rational, for example, to assess my own potentials in life realistically? If I remember it right, several studies suggest that healthy humans overestimate their own influence on their situation. If you don't do that, you're depressive.

So, is it better to believe that I am a bit better than I probably am, knowing that this might indeed make me a better human being in the long run? How to deal with a belief that is obviously counterfactual, or just unfalsifiable, but it simply makes me feel better? After all, I'm convinced that feeling good is a good thing, not only for the person who feels that way, because a mind flooded with good feelings will probably not have any intentions of starting a war or something.

I think there is a way out. I call it the "as-if method".

I think it is perfectly valid to choose to interpret the world in a certain way, even if there is no proof that things actually are that way.

I find this to be much more honest, much more realistic, much more consistent than just assuming that all my irrational, unfalsifiable beliefs are true.

"I choose to interpret the world as if god existed." -- Yes sure, why not? "I choose to interpret the world as if it consisted of nothing but love." -- Yeah, cool, go ahead! "I choose to interpret the world as if everyone was my enemy." -- Well, if you absolutely think that this is what you want, yay, more power to you!

Personally, I choose to interpret the world as if my breath was a strong flow of colorful, hot energy flowing from my lower abdomen all through my body, up into my head, and back again.

The question whether it is true becomes irrelevant at this point (most probably it's not). I find this to be deliciously pleasurable, empowering and beneficial.

Truth matters to me. A lot. The other value that I think is equally important is happiness and peace for as many people as possible. What if both values can not be achieved at the same time? By choosing my interpretation, I can have both. It's the never-shrinking, everlasting cake. Finally.

How Tantra Can Improve Your Sex Life

I just realized that I wrote a blog posting entitled "How tantra can improve your sex life". I was joking in that posting. Every blog about tantra is obliged to have a posting like that, because after all, sex sells, and specifically with tantra, sex is what seals the deal.

I'm doing another posting on the same topic - only this time, let's be a bit more serious!

It can sometimes be easy to forget that other people don't know what I know.

I don't mean this to be demeaning or derogatory. I gathered some knowledge over a few years. A huge part of that time was spent in doubt whether this would actually lead me anywhere, or whether it was just a huge waste of time. There is no question, by now, which one is true. But of course, you, my dear reader, may probably not have gone down that road, may be about to decide whether this is for you, may have had some bad experience with some self-appointed "tantrika".

So...

How tantra can improve your sex life... for real

The answer can be summed up in one word: Mindfulness.

If you're used to the normal ritual of sex, then this may be hard to grok: First off, what is meant by the term mindfulness, and how would it lead to better orgasms or more joy in your sex life?

Have you ever had one of those moments of absolute clarity? For a brief instant, you were totally in tune with yourself. The world was a peaceful place, and it was good to be there, wherever it was. It was a moment to be savored, and not even the knowledge of its eventual passing posed any real problem.

Whenever you are in a state like that, it just doesn't matter what the future will bring. You are in this moment, right here, right now, and that's it. That is a fine thing whenever it happens, pretty much regardless where you are.

If you happen to be in bed with your partner, it means that you don't have to strive for orgasm, ejaculation, release - even the question whether you (as a male) currently have an erection becomes obsolete. You just enjoy whatever feelings there are. And by doing so, those feelings become even more joyful and enjoyable.

Isn't that something?

Well, there's more.

See, if you're being mindful and let go of your drive towards orgasm, you can also be mindful of your partner. You stop rushing things. You take your time. That may be even more of a change for us males, because we tend to be rather goal-oriented creatures. You'll stop asking yourself if you've done enough licking or stroking, or when she'll at last have the sought-after orgasm. You can let go of your performance angst and your desire to satisfy her "better than any other guy", because every moment is excellent in and of itself.

In short, it makes you a better lover.

Techniques

Of course, there are lots of subtle techniques - mostly boiling down to breathing and PC muscle exercises - and they have their place and are good and important tools. But the core essence of tantra, as with any other meditative practice, is skillful mindfulness.

Psychotherapy and Metaphysics

A scientist friend of mine recently complained about psychologists and their inclination towards weasel responses. "...and how does that make you feel?" being, probably, the most stereotypical of those.

I think there are two main aspects to this issue.

One is that virtually all schools of psychotherapy are really just codifications of their founders' personal opinions. Those are based on more or less an amount of clinical experience, good intuition, and knowledge of human nature.

Since those schools strive to explain the whole of human behavior, require years of training, and are closely related to people's innermost emotional turbulences, they tend to evolve into quasi-religious metaphysical structures, a.k.a., worldviews.

To put it simply: There is no superego. It's just a construct that Freud came up with when he attempted to explain why people suffer from emotional ailments.

I think this is ridiculously obvious. Per se, it isn't bad either. It shouldn't actually bear mentioning -- except that, more often than not, I have the impression that therapists tend to overlook that fact. When people forget about the metaphysical, constructed nature of their methods' presuppositions, and treat them as fact, problems arise.

On the other hand, we do not seem to have anything better to offer, right now. Judging from my own experience, I submit that psychotherapy -- if it is at all effective -- mostly boils down to unconditional empathy, a safe place to talk about one's issues and face all emotions that might pop up, without being judged or put down. Well, and sometimes a friendly kick in the ass when you're about to shy away from that facing-it-all process. (Of course, I'm not talking about psychiatry here -- that's a whole different can of worms.)

On top of that, there may be a few fancy tricks, such as gestalt therapy's "empty chair", but I tend to consider them supportive acts rather than substantial to the process.

As far as therapy can deliver the aforementioned empathy and a safe place, and the price is somewhat reasonable, I do not have too much of a problem.

But I certainly think that it is important to keep in mind that all the fancy concepts behind the various methods -- TA's "parent/child ego-states", Fritz Perls' "gestalt", Freud's "id/ego/superego" -- are merely concepts that can help you talk about stuff, but at the same time, they may limit your thinking when you start taking them too seriously.

Ten Rules for Being Human

by Cherie Carter-Scott

1.	You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.
2.	You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."
3.	There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."
4.	Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5.	Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6.	"There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
7.	Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8.	What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9.	Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10.	You will forget all this.

Source: www.bluinc.com/free/human10.htm

A Challenge To One's Worldview

Warm-up:

• Think of something that you wouldn't do under normal circumstances. As, for example, in my case, shooting a gun at another person.
• Now think of circumstances that might make you do that, regardless. I might shoot someone if they shot me first. (Well, and if I had a gun.)
• Now, assuming that those circumstances are met, think of circumstances that might keep you from doing that. If the other person started pleading, it might keep me from shooting them.
• Go on until you run out of additional circumstances, or until it stops being fun.

I find that a rather interesting exercise, as it shows me what my real values are, and which value trumps which other value - in short, it confronts me with the "hierarchy" of my values.

Now for the real beef:

• Do the same, but this time, think of taking advice from someone who vehemently opposes your worldview. For me, this might be a right-wing fundamentalist christian; say, a member of the Phelps family.

I say, this is not only a lot of fun, but it forces you to meet yourself at a level that you would normally avoid. It's a challenge to oneself, and it is just a mind-game so it is perfectly harmless. And I think we should challenge ourselves in ways like that way more often!

Experiment with breath, chakras, and a word

Here's a little experiment. It might take you 5-10 minutes or so:

1. Choose some attribute that you like. For example, "creative", "enthusiastic", "motivated", "strong", etc.
2. Think of that attribute.
3. While thinking of that attribute, focus on the first chakra. Repeat the attribute in your head, while breathing into the first chakra.
4. Then do the same for your second chakra, with the same word.
5. Do you notice any difference? Which chakra "responded" stronger? Were there images popping up? Are the images for the second chakra different from the ones for the first chakra?
   Do not try to change anything. Just note it.
6. Go on through all the chakras, from pelvic floor through solar plexus and heart, up to crown chakra.

Now take note of your feelings.

Did anything change? Was it a change you liked?

Now, you might want to decide to include this into your daily schedule. Or not. Your call.

Personal Development Reductionism

The human brain (or to be mor precise, the mind it constructs) is an incredibly complex system. It is self-referential in a lot of ways, it is practically made up of interdependent feedback loops, and it allows for virtually unlimited flexibility with some regards, while at the same time remaining steadfastly, stubbornly conservative in other areas.

That is why a purely mechanistic, reductionist approach to Personal Development must fail. That is why moralizing tantrums about "evil thoughts" are exactly as unproductive as any attempt at "taking full responsibility for your emotions". That is why NLP fails miserably and consistently when it comes to Personal Development. On the other hand, it works wonderfully as a marketing sham: It plays on our idea of being able to control ourselves, our notorious overestimation of our own ability to control our circumstance. (There is a nice psychological word for that, but I forget.)

The idea that "change happens fast" is utterly ridiculous. With linear systems, yes sure, you can produce any desired outcome within the bounds of the system. Throw that rock against that window, and it will predictably break. Throw it against that police car, and see what happens.

For good or for bad, the mind is not like that. It's more like a stage play performed by 1000 underage agents of ImprovEverywhere, where each one of those has committed to a different mission and some are blindfolded while others carry active flamethrowers around.

You throw a huge beach ball in there, and it'll bounce around for awhile, and then fall to the side where it is forgotten. Or, they'll use it to go on a tangent, speak to it as if it were prince Hamlet of Denmark, and create a whole new piece of drama out of it. Or pray to it. Or throw it at each other until they all run out of breath.

Now, I am a huge fan of the Human Potential movement and Personal Development in general. I daresay that, over the past five years, I have improved drastically in several regards. I am more energetic, more daring, hopefully more attractive than five years ago. I made more money over the past two years than in the ten years before that. Well, back then I was a lump of misery, depression and self-loathing, so it kinda figures. But anyway...

Next to none of all those changes were achieved by fixing on a goal, devising a method and then sticking with it (except for when I quit smoking - that one worked like a charm, incidentally, right from the start). Instead, it was trial and error, trial and error again. Rinse and repeat. Over and over and over.

Note that I'm not endorsing any vague, esoteric, touchy-feely concept of "holism" here. Instead, I'm advocating strict rationality, combined with empathy. All I'm saying is that, in a complex self-referential system, change can only happen incrementally, driven by frequent feedback.

Yes, I'm a fan of Agile. Did I mention that I'm a Certified Scrum Master(TM)?

You anchor that good state to a snap of your fingers. And then you forget to snap them. You practice your cleverly designed mantras, and they feel flat and listless after a while. You check out qi gong, just to find that you can't seem to manage to practice it regularly. You learn zen meditation, and the next thing you know, you're bogged down by a fixed idea of "enlightenment".

Well, duh. Maybe I just haven't found the golden bullet one cure to open all doors yet. Or I'm just a failure. But somehow, seeing how others struggle in much the same way I do, I highly doubt that. I think, if most applicants of a certain methodology never actually manage to reach their goals, it's time to stop blaming those applicants for "misapplying the methods". Instead, it's time to go back to Square One and revisit that underlying model of yours. Yes, I'm looking at you, Mr.s Bandler, Grinder, Rosenberg, Jeffries, von Markovik, Erickson! I'm silently judging you.

Of course, I still advocate tantra, breathing, meditation. I do that, simply, out of my own personal experience. All of these things have proved tremendously beneficial to me. Your esperience  may be different - if so, don't practice what I do!  To some degree I even recommend NLP. But - and that is a huge "but" here - should you decide to give it a try, do yourself a favour: Don't expect it to "work as advertised", just by doing the "right thing".

It's a dance. It's a play. It's pure and utter chaos. It's life.