I’ve been experimenting with two complementary techniques for influencing the quality and direction of my life. In this post I’ll write about one of those methods: imagining and describing best case scenarios.
While it’s easy and natural for most people to imagine and try to mentally prepare for worst case “what if” scenarios, it’s less intuitive to imagine what life would be like if everything went amazingly well.
Keep your eyes on the watch…
During the most recent SFWA Nebulas Conference I had the opportunity to speak with author Lawrence Schoen about hypnosis. One of the conference events is something called “office hours” during which authors, publishers, and other conference attendees share their time and expertise in scheduled fifteen-minute one-on-one conversations. Lawrence was offering to share his knowledge in regards to hypnosis, and I signed up out of curiosity, and because I already knew and liked Lawrence from last year’s SFWA conference in Pittsburgh, where he was my conference mentor.
Going into the conversation I knew very little about hypnosis. I knew that therapeutic hypnosis could be used for a variety of applications, everything from smoking cessation to wart removal, and also that some susceptibility to hypnosis might be related to dopamine levels in the brain, regulated by activity of the COMT gene. Lawrence confirmed the former and strongly disagreed with the latter, a position which appears to be backed by fairly recent scientific research (susceptibility to hypnosis appears to be unrelated to dopamine levels and the ability to focus attention).
Leia, looking toward the future, or possibly at a squirrel. (picture by my daughter on her iPad)
One doesn’t have to look far to find overwhelming evidence that the universe is an uncaring place, and that life doesn’t play fair. Good people die young for no good reason, animals in the wild are painfully eaten alive by their predators, and entire civilizations are beset by war, famine, and plague. Mercy and fairness are entirely human constructs, and those that would ascribe such qualities to a creator or god must undergo mental gymnastics of the highest order to stave off crippling cognitive dissonance.
Sometimes this nihilistic realization gets me down. There is no inherent meaning in life, so I must create my own meaning (or live a subjectively meaningless life). The world is filled with suffering that I can do very little to prevent (including, at times, my own).
At other times, I feel incredibly optimistic and empowered, even in the face of my own nihilistic worldview. The values and attitudes that create this feeling of empowerment (not all the time, but sometimes) include:
That’s my mini-sermon for today. Hope you’re doing well. Live long and prosper!
My next post will be a personal update dedicated to my Patreon supporters.
My original blog banner (photo by Stephanie Morgan)
This year marks the ten-year anniversary of this blog (my first post was written in December of 2009). Zooming out, that decade comprises about a fifth of my life so far, a third of my adulthood, about half of my marriage, nearly the entirety of my time as a father, and more than three times the length of my writing career (which didn’t officially start until 2016 with my first published story).
Rock solid.
It’s futile to plan your whole life. Nobody’s life goes according to plan.
Q: How to make God laugh?
A: Make a plan.
But it’s also futile not to.
I deleted a blog post yesterday. It was all about how I’ve been sleeping better (which is generally true), and what’s been working for me (getting more bright light in the morning, some EFT techniques, herbs to reduce cortisol, calcium+magnesium, and so on). I’d written the post after sleeping a perfect seven hours without waking up at all (without any sleeping pills or megadoses of vitamins). I thought I was over the worst of my sleeping issues.
But then the night before last I didn’t sleep at all. Not a wink. Aside from a late dinner and staying up a bit too late watching Netflix (with f.lux and my amber glasses), I’m not sure what I did differently.
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