Clicking Away...

In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while. 

Walden

Henry David Thoreau

Adrift by Andrew Wyeth

It takes a great deal of effort to pull away from the prevailing culture and assert your independence of mind. Henry David Thoreau, in the days before even the telephone existed, recognized the problem of people going to the post office multiple times a day to check their mailbox. And now we can check the equivalent of our mailbox a thousand times a day via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or dozens of other apps that basically serve the same purpose--did anyone reward me with a click. Stop! Would you not be better served if you spent your time exploring your own mind without the mindless interruptions and random searches brought on by the distraction economy. We have the greatest minds of all the ages right at our fingertips, but you would rather follow some inane person offering their opinion on Taylor Swift or The Top 10 Puppy Breeds. You have but one life to live and you have decided to give a part of it up to the empty pursuit of idiotic messages from the mindless world of the mass media. The greatest thing to explore is not the internet, but your own mind. But part of that is the creation of a mind worthy of being known. If all your thoughts are low and guided by trivial desires such as the latest brand of X or the new Y then knowing yourself is not going to be rewarding. You have to create that mind worthy of being known. You have to put your head down and work. Be well. 

Objectives

State your objective. Have a clear picture of what you are trying to achieve so you can check your progress or lack of progress. You are lost if you don't know what you are working to achieve. 

Do you know what you are working to achieve? When you rise in the morning, do you know what you are working towards? At the end of the day, can you point towards progress towards something? Anything? How can you work if that isn't completely clear? Could you imagine sending workers out to a site with a truck filled with materials and not have a plan? Your life is that truck filled with materials and your mind is meant to contain a plan of some sort. There must be a guide to direct activities or you are just responding to circumstances and living as an animal does. Philosophy can be the guide to direct your activities, but philosophy does not pick what you are building. Where is your plan? What are you trying to achieve in this life? Be well. 

Your Inner Thief

Every waking moment you must be on guard against your lesser self. It is so easy to allow your lesser self to win the battle and pull you into the world of empty pleasure--that second bowl of ice cream, that third drink, that eight hours of Netflix, or those three hours of web surfing when you should have been focusing on some more meaningful task. Your job in life is to defeat that creature that loves everything that is easy and right this minute. This is not happiness or satisfaction, but something small and empty. Stand guard against your inner thief, who is always there, for he is capable of taking your entire life one empty minute at a time. Stand guard.