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There really is a great joy in eliminating all the things one is uninterested in and only pursuing what is important.
I've at times created a fake unreal life for myself. It's something I think us renegades constantly battle--we've freed ourselves from outside constraints (more or less) but find that the same programming is inside us. I saw this very clearly in my last business which was started with friends out of love, but I found myself stressing over the work later, as if an imaginary boss in my head was forcing me to do things I didn't like! WTF.
I'm currently reading two books about unreal people: Success Built to Last (studied people who were successful in whatever they were dedicated to--not necessarily fame or fortune--only those committed to something for over 20 years) and The Perfect Mess (studies how and when messiness is advantageous over order in personal life, businesses, relationships, etc.).
Here's to unreality!
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Resposne
I really look forward to reading the perfect mess. That sounds like a great book.
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Response:
You're an inspiration, dude. I'm looking forward to the interview.
I think I am in transition. I was in administration for a public school district. I stood out like a sore thumb. I was unhappy. So I decided to start a really cool venture with a friend of mine. I have never been so passionate about anything before. I feel freed from all the red tape, politics, and general yuck in the public schools! I am so pumped about it. SO am I now unreal? You tell me.
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Response:
I think you're unreal, Laurie. And congrats on the new venture. I'm really glad that you're so happy. It sounds like you've come alive.
I'm loving these alternative ideas that roll against the norm of mainstream beliefs. If your interested in a blogroll link exchange or any other kind of networking, email me.
Marc C. ;-)
This post reminded me of the movie 'Stick it' - when ranting about her former rise to superstardom at the gymnastics world championships, the main character said:
"I wasn't *great*..... I was just obedient."
I'm stoked that my 9yr old munchkin got all fired up during the movie re: the stupidity of the rules and the judges rewarding stupid things, conformity over innovation and raw authentic brilliance that touches your heart in a way you just can't ignore.
And he declared that he would rather be *great* and change the rules so they actually reward greatness, and keep obedience in context where it belongs, like keeping your car safely on your side of the road -- that's a sweet sweet sound to a mama's ears :)
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Response
I love stories like this. Children are much wiser than most people give them credit for. It sounds like your child is no exception.
I think once you really see through the 'Grand Story of becoming a Real Person', life changes for ever.
I mean this grand story: that it's great to get a good job and that you need to spend all your energy on your job so that you can get a better job, and then a better job - so that you can get ahead in life AND REALLY MAKE SOMETHING OF YOURSELF. That story.
Of course, there's always a chapter missing. That's the bit when the person WHO HAS REALLY MADE SOMETHING OF HIMSELF then get's made redundant - because the employer cares f-all about him - and then gets depressed because he has not developed all the lovely talents that lay dormant and spends the rest of his life wondering why being a 'real person' didn't quite work out...
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Response:
Perfectly said. And thanks for making the world a better place by (as it seems) being an AWESOME parent.
I've been trying to decide where I fit in or want to fit in the conventional world of work these days. This sure help clarify it for me!
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Response:
:-) Yes.
"You spent the first half of your life becoming somebody. Now you can work on becoming nobody, which is really somebody. For when you become nobody there is no tension, no pretense, no one trying to be anyone or anything. The natural state of the mind shines through unobstructed -- and the natural state of the mind is pure love." ~ Ram Dass
"Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy." ~ Lao Tzu
Cheers...
Kent (The Financial Philosopher)
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Response
Kent, where do you get these amazing quotations? Are they just sitting in your head most of the time for you to pull out on demand.
I never thought of the similarities between non-being and "not being a real person." Thanks for that.
Also, that Ram Dass quotation is dead on. Who is he and where did you find it?
The only problem is when you find that what you thought you were gonna get from something, doesn't happen the way you thought it would or doesn't happen at all.
Rock on.
Life has to be more than what this world offers.
Wow.
Thinking are hard.
You just got dugg so I'm sure you're drowning in notifications, but I just wanted to let you know that you got me thinking, and I made a post on my site and gave tribute to you sparking my revelation.
Check it out if you want. But more importantly, thanks. I'll be reading more often from here on out.
Thanks for the reminder,
Nneka
I'm still up for a phone and/or email chat if you are; drop me a line if you've got the time, I'd love to discuss some stuff with you.
Peace!
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Response:
A phone call sounds great. Let's do it soon! I'll email you in the next few days to line things up.
I see your point, but I still think your "real" and "unreal" are a word play. We decide what is real for us. I work doing what I like and I work on weekends because I love it. Or I may take a nap on weekday afternoons. I never bother if someone think this is "real" or "unreal" -- it sure is real for me.
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Response
OF COURSE it's word play! It's meant to be an illustrative distinction. That's all.
I agree that we decide what is real for us. This article is food for thought. It's a ~1,200 word blog post and it's certainly not exhaustive. That's all.
That being said...
The "fake unreal life"... brilliant, not because it's original, but because it's accurate. We, as a whole, could probably stand to live a more unreal life, as you put it, but at the other extreme, we can't simply live the unreal because it's different from the norm. There still has to be purpose to it. I think that's why I'd like you to explain why? ...Why is the unreal life better, except because that's what you say you've chosen?
You can go even deeper, Clay. I
I am living in the real world, wondering how to escape it, and not thinking anything, i live definitely like a zombie, and that all because i don't know what i want to do with my life.
So anyway, thanks, you saved my day!
But you're addressing exactly the same truth from the opposite angle.
the part about the five names gets me thinking....
A friend sent me a link to your blog. It was his subtle way of cheering me up. I'm not sure I would define myself as "unreal" as I assure you that I am quite "real," but the "unreal" description you provide could be my own. It's not an easy choice as there are many ways to be derailed, hence why the link was sent to cheer me up, but it is very worth it.
Keeping it perhaps - surreal.
thanks
.adam.
Well done.
I read this and it immediately reminded me of one of my favorite TED talks: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson...
Hope you like it.
I think what Clay meant with his labels of "real" and "unreal" was how *society* sees people. If you have The Proper Training(tm) and The Proper Documentation(tm) to perform a specific task, you're a "real" person. This is a very common attitude in today's culture and it is very damaging. Clay mentions homeschooling and unschooling; that's a great example. The pervasive attitude is that children have to be taught to learn by Real Teachers. Any parent out there who's spent any amount of time with their kids knows that's untrue whether they are conscious of the knowledge or not. Ever tried to *keep* your kids from learning something? It doesn't work real well, does it?
But I read Clay as defining himself as "unreal" *from the point of view of society.* As in society saying, "Hey, you don't have 4 years undergraduate education or an alphabet soup after your name, therefore you are not 'real'. You don't work a regular job for someone else, therefore you are not 'real'." I didn't read it as any reason to take personal offense at *him.* Isn't that kind of shooting the messenger?
Your definition of "real people" starts out as "people who are done planning for and preparing for life and are actually living it." Ok, well, this is a canard because people who "live" life never stop learning or preparing to do the next thing.
But, forget that for a second. I know what you mean: When you are in school you often feel like you are just marking time until you "really" get to do something.
So, your "unreal" people are those who have decided to do something and are doing it. This definition is no different from your "real" people. All of this stuff about how they are "light on their feet" or can "implement structural change" is at best window dressing and at worst, also wrong (let me know how easily you could repurpose your life into raising kids if you had to...and then let me know how "light on your feet" you actually are).
The fact is, most of us never get around to doing "what we want" because we are afraid. When you get to the point in your life where you can actually do this, when you can overcome your fear of the unknown, of failure, of not knowing what comes next, then you are getting somewhere. But all you have described is people who wear ironic t-shirts and listen to shitty bands nobody has ever heard of. Once you can account for the fact that your parents have done all this shit, and your grandparents, and so forth (my folks almost got lynched in Mississippi in '64) have all been through this, without blogs or Twitter or scrabulous or iPods, then you will be on to something.
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Response:
I like the part about horrible bands and ironic t-shirts.
But other than that, I really don't know what you're getting at. Just when I think I get your point I realize that I don't. I'd love to respond, and I'm sure you're onto something, but I don't understand what it is yet.
If you could boil your thesis down to something other than "this is completely wrong," then that would help me out a lot.
Thanks man.
I've been reading a lot of John Taylor Gatto recently, which always helps to shake things up in my head so that I don't feel so resigned to structuring my life according to how other people/institutions think it should be. The article linked above is a basic introduction to why modern schooling actively cripples children and how you can move away from that. Even though I found out about him after I had already graduated high school, and quit college, he helped make sense of disquieting feelings I had about the whole experience that were hard to put my finger on. I left college so I could think. Sounds like a crazy paradox I know, but the longer I've been away from school, the more right I know I was. I don't need someone else to tell me what I should think about, or how I should think in general.
This is one of the main things I think school does, makes you dependent on outside forces, be it people, advertisements, or "expert" opinions, to define every last aspect of your life and who you are. It made me laugh when you mentioned how the forces trying to make people "real" go into hyper drive in their mid-twenties. I am now 27, and the last couple of years I have made even more of a concerted effort to try and define my life and my mind for myself. It has been a very difficult struggle, with long bouts of depression and feelings of intense emptiness while I let a lot of things go.
I have gravitated towards phone jobs that allow you space to read and write while in between calls. Less supervision. Less responsibility. That has been one of the hardest things for me, dealing with my choice to work at a job that is not a career so that I can work later in the day and have space to think. This has been one of the first jobs I've had where I am working eight hour days and yet because I'm allowed to go to sleep late at night and wake up midday, I no longer need an alarm clock to drag myself out of bed. I have leisurely "mornings" to have tea, write, whatever, before I need to go in. This ended up meaning more to me than I originally expected, I took the late hours at first because there was a pay differential to work at night. So in that sense it is a win/win. The hard part is having people ask me what I "do" and in order to answer that question accurately, I have to focus on something other then my job. Because so often when people ask what you do, they are asking where you work, etc. My life has ended up different than that, and I am glad I accepted that's how things need to be for me to be happy.
For the last few weeks, I have been designing a blog to talk about how much I love food. Making notes about content, designing the header, choosing a color scheme, the whole thing. I'm glad I have creative projects I care about, and that I'm working on creating situations where I can express myself. I wasn't sure I would get to this place in my life. I spent most of my twenties so far working at jobs I hated and spending my free time hiding inside of an online videogame. The events of the last nine months have helped to push me to the other side of that and I feel alive for the first time in many years. I am excited about my future, I am happy about the kind of person I am. I am grateful for encouragement and room in my life to peel away all the layers that have been carefully placed on top of me since I was young that were supposed to define who I am. It is refreshing to realize I've been there all along, I just need to get down to where I am. Thank you for being another person reinforcing those kinds of ideas. Best of luck to you while you work on experimenting with your life.
1) Moved within walking distance of my job.
2) Made a digital antenna and got rid of cable.
3) Got rid of cell phone (actually pay as I go - cost < 100 year)
4) made a rocket stove
5) cancelled newspaper
6) don't pay for sports events
looking for other ideas now
Thats all it took, take off your shoes and suddenly your not in the real-club anymore. That day to this, I have never put my shoes back on (figuratively at least). I left the club that day and stopped trying to find my place on its endless ladder of despair.
I don't regret it.
This is a really inspiring post. The Stepping Stone concept really drives it home. For most of us, completing a series of goals revolving around credentials and acquisitions has been seared into our brains since we were kids.
Even when you create your own reality or live an alternative, off-the-grid life, it can be easy to gauge your own success using society's measuring stick.
On a side note,
Two guys are in a canoe, canoeing across the dessert in the sand. Guy #1 turns around to guy #2 in back and says,
"Wears the paddle"
Guy # 2 says,
"Yep"
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I actually know Jeremiah Nelson - a really nice guy but absolutely no semblance of any sort of a memory. Perhaps he's a folksinger by trade because he can't remember anything besides his own schizophrenic lyrics...
My two cents: you need to know yourself and know what makes you happy. Some people are happy being "real" and in fact, if you keep at it long enough and are successful enough, you do gain not only financial independence but also freedoms such as taking long vacations, deciding how long to work each day, and deciding when to start your day and whether to work from your home or from the office. You are also free to take risks and chances and change direction, because you are financially independent. So in a way, if you "give" those 10-15 years to the system, you do get to take back - and you're even young enough to enjoy it.
But of course, life IS structured when you have a "real" job, "real" responsibilities and real kids that go to a "real" school.
You, Clay, are incredibly smart and talented. You are also very ambitious which is good, because some philosophical types (you know you are! You are a thinker) lack in the ambition department which does not bode well for success in life. You are young, but you are old enough to know yourself and know what you need in order to be happy. Being "real" will make you miserable. It makes a lot of sense for you to be unreal, and it is my opinion that you WILL succeed - in real people's terms. You are already on the path to achieve "real" success, on your own "unreal" terms. That's just awesome.
om
"I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not; but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them." - Thoreau
I believe this makes me a "surreal person" -- "unreal" maybe? Either one, I'll take it.
:-)
I too like your expression "stepping stone lives" and I understand your point. But I also believe that you can only find peace, joy, and your next great opportunity when you are in alignment with whatever step you are on/in at any given moment.
It's the tendency to always be looking at the "next step" -- or looking too many steps into the past or future -- that really creates the dissatisfaction.
Great write!
Robert Anton Wilson also.
The best blog in my view.
thanks
This is a good philosophical topic. Like Vered said, you are a thinker and you have a knack for making people think about their situation, which any good philosopher should.
I'm curious to know whether you think the U.S. Constitution is a product of "real" or "unreal" people...
And that means ignoring the conventional wisdom and doing what you are passionate doing. It means saying "why the hell not?" when someone says "it can't be done."
I've always enjoyed the guidance of that timeless movie, The Princess Bride:
Buttercup: "The Fire Swamp? We can't go in there - we'll never survive!"
Westley: "Don't be silly. You're only saying that because nobody ever has."
Decide what you want, set your own rules, lather, rinse repeat.
Works for me. :-)
Happy blogging!
I loved this post. It makes me feel better about being a freak. Thank you :-)