Episode 58. Stop Looking Down

What in life deserves our time and attention and what things don't. I hope that as we consider that question along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on Skipping Stones: “Stop Looking Down.”

It is easier to see bad things than it is to see good things. Catastrophe and destruction suck up our attention like a vacuum. It isn't uncommon for the first thing we notice about someone else to be something we don't like. On the other hand, appreciating things that are beautiful and good. Takes a little focus.

Unless of course you happen to be a man and you're looking at a woman, but generally speaking, beautiful things like flowers, forests, rivers, mountains don't seem to command our attention most of the time, but rather they seem to invite it. We will look and we will appreciate the good and the beautiful, but our attention seems to find its way more often to less than impressive things.

I talked with someone recently about this, and they told me a few days ago they'd woken up early and went outside and watched the sunrise. She said it was an incredible experience, and she told me that she thought, why don't I do this every day? She also told me that she hasn't made an effort to do it since.

It's really interesting that most of us have experienced something transcendent in our life, such as an incredible performance or a special, intimate moment with another person. Yet that's not the kind of feeling and experience we become addicted to. Instead, we become addicted to things like food, drugs, and impersonal sexual experiences.

Our minds appear as though they are set up to be perpetually looking down in life. We can have the greatest experience of our life, but somehow that feeling or experience is not the thing we choose to chase the next day. Instead, we snap our heads right back down like we got caught peeping into someone's window.

There are a lot of good things out there that have the potential to deeply move a person and to even elevate them a little above the animal version of ourselves. Yet we [00:02:30] push these things to the side. One of the greatest gifts and possibly curses that we've been given is our ability to think outside of our basic instincts.

An animal's life is dictated entirely by its instincts. Humans have the incredible ability to consciously operate outside of those instincts to some degree, yet we rarely do. A person has the capacity to transcend. Many things in this life, yet we choose not to. There are certain moments in my life when I've been listening to a song or watching a film where I've felt completely and totally transcended as if a truth of the world was laid bare to me in that moment, I.

And what is so amazing to me about moments like that and things that inspire, is that contrary to all other pleasures that we get addicted to, these kinds of experiences actually leave us feeling satisfied. When I've witnessed a performance that's lifted up my mind and soul to a higher plane, I usually sit in silence for a moment and never feel inclined to rush back for more because of things that inspire.

Things that transcend are truly and deeply satisfying. They're the kinds of things that are actually able to fill the voids in our hearts. Why would anyone need to rush back when the afterglow from the experience leaves you so full and happy? Moments of inspiration and transcendence are those precious moments in life.

When a person is truly and fully satisfied, we don't want them to end, but when they fade away, we're not compelled to go find those places again. In fact, we are more likely to simply return to our usual routine with virtually no change at all. The moments of inspiration and transcendence are the moments that make life rich. 

They really are the only moments worth pursuing in life, yet we have a hard time staying focused on them. We don't like looking up 'cause we've been trained to look downward. More people seem to take pleasure in criticizing and focusing on the worst of humanity as opposed to opening their eyes to that, which is good.

We like to wallow in the mud, so to say, because it's easy. It's easier to criticize that one person getting out of the mud than it is to lift ourselves out. I think the reasoning goes that if everyone is as miserable as you, at least you don't have to feel less than someone else. If you can keep them from climbing higher than you wallowing in the mud has its perks.

It takes little to no effort. All we have to do to stay in it is do nothing. Putting down someone else's hard work costs us little more than our breath, which is going to be exhaled anyways. At times we convince ourselves that we belong in the mud. I think sometimes we don't even realize there's another option.

If everyone around you has only ever looked down in their life and may have never crossed your mind that you have the option of looking up. Where we choose to look is a simple, yet powerful tool that we have. Our gaze can drift from focusing on the worst things to focusing on the best things. The problem with the best things is that they are just not that interesting.

Sometimes I hear people complain that newspapers never focus on anything good, but when was the last time that you chose to read more than just the headline? About that person that donated a thousand pairs of shoes somewhere or did some other charitable thing. Our minds are just not wired to pay very much attention to people doing good things.

Unfortunately, I think because our bodies are wired to look for threats, it predisposes us to the negative. Transcending and inspiring things do not really help a person survive or reproduce. They're not beneficial to any kind of natural selection. So far as I can see, in a way, experiencing things that are transcendent and inspiring is outside our nature, which makes it all the more incredible that it is even possible for us to experience them.

So, it's a battle to step outside our lesser selves, but it's a battle worth fighting because a life that touches upon the divine is a fulfilling life. It is a life worth living. We all know that there's something glorious about overcoming an obstacle and winning it is the basic plot for virtually every story.

Almost every story you've ever read or movie you've ever watched begins with a problem and a struggle to overcome it. I think our standard thinking tells us that our personal adventure is us versus the world, but the real war is our better self-versus our lesser self. This is the arena where we reach transcendence and inspiration.

It may spill over into the real world, but the battle being waged is an internal one. A soldier choosing to fight an unwinnable battle that he will not be remembered for is a battle of his commitment to his cause, or to those around him versus his fear and his selfishness. The glory doesn't come from the defeat of the enemy, but from the higher self-defeating the lesser self.

The way to transcendence and inspiration is not necessarily a single path as we can find our way through things like music. And through art we can find our way here through a gritty battle against yourself or against an enemy, sometimes winning this battle to find our way to this place is simply a battle to look up.

 There are dark places we can seek out and hide in that are without number, but finding the best comes from climbing out of those holes and seeing the sunlight above people are not really the same as far as what drags them down. I once heard Arthur Brooks in an interview say that you should find your idol, meaning -

You should find the thing that you are most predisposed to make bad decisions for in order to acquire them. That may be a pleasure. It could be power. Maybe it's material wealth or even reputation. These are the things that pull us down. They're the things that keep us from looking up. To some degree, we are all affected by each of those idols, but there is usually one or two that are more alluring than the others.

You know who wants you to look down? It's the other people that are looking down. When you start looking up, it's threatening to those that are incapable of doing the same. In the musical production of Les Misérables, the first song starts out saying, look down. Look down. Don't look 'em in the eye. Look down.

Look down. You are here until you die. And unfortunately, this is how many people in the world would be happy to see you live. And if you listen to them, you will die with your face down.  We can open our eyes to things that are right in front of us that can lift us up if we choose to. But we have to remember to keep on looking for them.

This is Skipping Stones - “Stop Looking Down.” You can find this podcast anywhere you choose to listen to podcasts. For more information about me, feel free to visit skippingstonessr.com. And if you enjoyed the show, please like or subscribe. If there is a topic you would like me to speak on, please feel free to email me at info@skippingstonessr.com, new episodes will be released weekly every Monday.