Starting Again

Race Metaphor

There is a metaphor commonly referenced in regard to a situation in which a person endures a significant setback. It is a metaphor related to racing, where a racer has deviated from the course, and finds their vehicle stuck, and difficult to free from untreaded surroundings.

Losers and winners are defined not by the setback, but by their reaction to the setback. The loser in such a situation spends precious time condemning the setback, and condemning the World in which such could happen. While the winner quickly remains in the context of the race, and does what they can to try to remove their vehicle from the misfortune, and proceed with traveling again.

Such is a metaphor for much of life, and an example of life reacting to obstacles. And the abstract goal of life does not necessarily need to have losers. You may be the only participant in your particular race. And the only goal may perhaps be to find significant meaning throughout your race.

Despair

It is true that there can be plenty of inspiration for complaining. Especially when one has traveled a difficult path throughout life.

It can feel like the World is conspiring against you. It is true that there are some dynamics where your weaknesses can get exploited, as such can manifest in competitive realms, as such can be deliberate or simply an inevitable outcome of competitive behavior. But at some point, it should be asked whether you are enabling your despair, or perhaps failing to get good perspective over your position in life.

Changing World

Deviation from the metaphorical course can be described in various valuable losses. Perhaps in the loss of a form of autonomy. Or perhaps in the loss of a loved-one. Or perhaps in the loss of an opportunity.

As the World progresses, opportunities are perhaps increasing in frequency, while simultaneously decreasing in duration or depth or obviousness. The speed of the race is increasing, and, as one should expect, the corresponding rate of crashes is also increasing.

The metaphor perhaps requires some adjustment, as the World and its metaphorical course seem to be changing at an accelerating rate. Perhaps there are changes in vehicle parts, perhaps swapped during pitstops. Perhaps there are new roads being added, while others are closed or inconvenienced. Perhaps there is volatility in the weather, such as wind or rain or snow or heat or drought.

Crash Signal

Significant crashes tend to signal that changes should be made. The misfortune may have had less to do with randomness, and more to do with inevitability. A new position in the World tends to need to be decided, or it will often be imposed.

What to do with the old knowledges of the past, and what to do with the super-new possibilities of the future. Such is perhaps addressed by amplifying the present, by composing the present in a healthy way. The known-past is part of the present. And the anticipated-future is part of the past, as one projects informations from the past onto what has yet to occur.

It tends to be an act of a loser, trying to project wants for how the past should have been onto the present and the future. Misses from the past can distract from what is wise in the present. Opportunities pass, and some values change.

Similarly the future can be a distraction, trying extensively to project what you want onto how the future progresses. The future does not exist in the same way in which the past indirectly exists, as the foreseen-future is never history. Projections of the future can always be contextualized as a product of the past, as an anticipation that similar patterns of the past will continue. The higher the specifics in predictions, the lower the probability of such predictions being accurate.

The indirectness of the primary value of the past and its past-derived-future needs to be emphasized. The present contains the primary value, as the value of the past is primarily derived from its utility in the present. The winner values the present over the past, and understands the past only to be primarily valuable in the context of the present.

Beyond periodic healthy rememberances of past-time well-spent, the loser wants to repeat or replay the past. The word-loser may seem harsh, as it is a label often used to demean others. But in the context of life, being a loser is losing the present. One need not be a loser in life in the same way there are necessary losers in other races.

This Website

It is perhaps a strange choice to make at this time, building a personal website. Given the various changes in technology and feeds of information. As a few companies have taken control of the niches of most electronic communications. And as overseers of machine-intelligence aspire to assimilate all the valuable information available to Humankind, and become the optimal deliverer of all such information.

I still see value elsewhere, in some of the new ways that have increasingly become old ways. I perceive durability in what is naturally useful. Perhaps there is value to be found at either side of the deviation between the natural and the unnatural. I suspect the unnaturally valuable will become ordinary. Which is perhaps merely my own projection from my own understanding of the past.

Yet the concept of a website is an example of something unnatural, that began interesting, and became ordinary. In the past, a typical website could accomplish atypical results. As with other technology that becames ordinary, the quality of ideas contained by such technology became the primary value. Such offers some perspective on the metaphorical race, as well as the actual race.

This site is a place for various unique explorations
along with lessons in wellness