Every time I somehow manage to get into this state of inner peace, acceptance, satisfaction (or, simply put, happiness) my mind seems to shift into some other mode as well. It’s as if a different, more efficient “brain fuel” suddenly becomes available — and my “thinker truck” totally digs it! In a matter of seconds I am able to effortlessly understand all of my previous errors and limiting POVs. My mind then can easily forge some new golden concept of reality which at that time looks quite miraculous and divine.
Then yet another day comes about. My mind is forced to run on this “regular fuel” once again. All seems boring, slow, inefficient. Just plain WRONG. I can then easily remember the day before — and all the bliss that I was enjoying back then, free of charge. My brain then does a number of fairly simple logic operations:
The_Feeling_I_Had = Good
The_Feeling_I_Have_Now = Bad
Current_Objective = The_Feeling_I_Had
Now the only way that my mind is trained to (attempt to) achieve this objective is by doing The Thinking. Therefore it recalls these “golden concepts” that were made a day ago — and simply plunges in them! Here’s one idea that made sense, and another one… Oh and it is possible to see more sense in it that I did before! Cool!!
Wait… Why don’t I feel any better? Uhm… More thinking please! It’ll have to get better!
Time for the obvious stuff. Yesterday when I felt happy, it wasn’t because of these concepts. As a matter of fact it is contrary — these concepts were made because I felt happy. My mind seems to have taken an upside-down approach. And it — apparently — does not work.
This led me to imagine a specific scenario that illustrates this situation quite well.
Let’s say there’s a fair amount of labor going on in a factory — few hundreds of workers are constructing a machine. Now there’s this lead engineer that’s not very responsible — he comes around only once a week or so. But! He’s a real pro! When he’s there, he issues a set of clear instructions that are easily perceived and implemented by workers and all is going just fine. When he’s not there, though, workers still do what they have been previously instructed, but the longer they don’t have a word from the lead engineer, the more chaos, uncertainty and sometimes even damage to the project occurs.
After quite a few days of hard and inefficient labor workers are greeted by a lead engineer who once again brings clarity, understanding and faith into the hearts of other people. All is going great — as a matter of fact, the machine seems to be nearly done! Everybody are enjoying the fruits of their labor, there is someone singing, and few other people doing a “victory dance”, the lead engineer nods his head as if he was saying “We are finally there…”.
Workers celebrate this new achievement and start wondering about the future. What about out lives? Our financial security? We did so well, we definitely deserve a raise in wage! They all agree on forming a workers’ union and elect a president for it. He’s quite a charming guy — speaks about prosperity, justice, the real nature of a man, and all other things that workers absolutely agree on. “Now this guy will make our lives even better!” — thinks Joe the mechanic.
The next day lead engineer is absent again. Well, yesterday’s instructions are still relevant and there only seems a minor work to be done… Oh, wait, what’s that? A new malfunction in the machine that nobody has spotted before?! Workers seem to be panicking — not only they have no idea how to fix this without the schemes and knowledge of the lead engineer but there’s also a deadline to finish the project today! They need to do something! They need new ideas! They need someone to help then find a way out of this!
A president of the workers’ union comes in. He immediately notices something is wrong. “Oh let me guess” — he interrupts. “Still no word from the manager about a raise? Listen, you don’t need to worry! We can overcome this issue! We are the people! We deserve better!..”. Few of the workers attempted to explain the situation to the charismatic politician but it seems to be in vain — this guy just could not shut his mouth and see into the root of the current issue.
After a while the atmosphere becomes increasingly tense, Joe the mechanic starts shouting at the politician while trying to explain what’s actually going on, later few other workers start demanding a president of an union to give them clear instructions of fixing the machine. The president, however, only keeps expressing the same ideas about equality, justice, the fight for the common good…
Few hours later workers finally realized the futility of such conversation, asked a man to leave and started experimenting with the machine expecting to find a way to fix it.
And they did fix it — not before the deadline, unfortunately. The initial project failed, but another businessman became interested in the machine and so workers continued doing what they’ve been doing. The lead engineer finally showed up with some new clarifications and ideas, everyone were ecstatic to see him! Few minutes later a president of workers union came in as well, congratulating everybody on their amazing job and emphasizing his own role in the success of this project. Sadly, no one seemed to be interested in him.
He wandered in the factory for a while and then left.
