ARE HAPPINESS AND HYPOXIA BEDFELLOWS?

Jeremy and I sat on the beach at Destin and began a discussion about happiness and wisdom as it pertains to a mitochondriac.   The audio file of the beginning of our discussion as it occurred is above.  It is pretty raw.  You can hear the surf and wind in the back round along with the music of the moment. 

This is a contemplative blog........about why so many struggle choosing nature over society's comforts.  

THE PREMISE:  When your mitochondria are hypoxic, seeking happiness is deadly because of what happens to NAD+ in mitochondria.  This implies, that constantly seeking happiness in any endevor is perilous.

WHAT ARE YOU CHASING, HAPPINESS OR WISDOM? 

Humans evolved the attributes of a large brain, the ability to speak, and formed an intricate social networks that can use many aspects of technology. Our biggest attribute is the ability to think. This allows us to radically change the environment that we are ideally adapted to. It has allowed us to dominate all habitats and create havoc in most of them as well. The real human miracle of our mind is not that we can see the world as it is…but that we can see it as it is not and then change it. If we think and act incorrectly, we can quickly recalibrate and overcome it. Conversely, we seem to be a prisoner to our paleo-cortex (older, less evolved brain) and resist change even when we know it must occur. Many times we will subjugate the best interests of our survival to suit our emotional needs or desire. The real paradox of humanity is that often our reasons for the things we do are often weak but our sentiments to do them remain quite strong. Interestingly, we have overcome that liability as a species so far many times. Some of us even find comfort in that ability at times.  That comfort is dangerous to us longer term.  

I believe today we are now mismatched in our environment because of our own doing.   We've created a world of man made light and culture and we have no Earthly idea why society is changing as rapidly as it is now.  It turns out the choices we've made around light and technology are sculpting our lives because of how it changes they way we think like never before. 

Patients often take the longest possible paths; they digress onto numerous dead ends, and make all types of errors because of this artificial environment. Then some writer comes along and write summaries of this asymmetric, messy non-linear process.  Their writing cleans the mess and make it appear like a simple, clean symmetric straight line. Human history has been and always will be highly non-linear and unpredictable.  The use of artificial light has become a Black Swan event in evolution of life that has led us to poor thinking.  It is no longer survival of the fittest that matters, it is survival of the wisest that does.

The Black Swan asymmetry of our history allows us to be confident about what is wrong, not about what the majority believe is right.

As long as you are looking for permission for your thoughts you’ll always be behind the curve awaiting absolute proofs which don’t exist.  The truth is always an approximation of what we believe today based on the present state of data.  Few of us realize how light has ubiquitously changed our decisions around many things.  

By utilizing marketable proverbs at every turn, society encourages people to “just be happy” without actually acknowledging or working through their issues.  The marketing cliches  confuses platitudes with actually doing the work to find wisdom that is buried in Nature.

When you focus on happiness as the goal you might be limiting real life wisdom.  

Every day before I die I want to do 5 key things each day to improve. Lead, grow, create, excel, serve. I lead myself and my business to fulfill my purpose of leading to changes I want in medicine, so I begin with me. I find a theme of the day and I live it that day. I try to become the change I want to see in my world. I become radioactive to the old paradigms. I try to grow myself and my business in some small way to achieve my potential. Potential is worthless without the action of kinetic energy. Daily creation of world-class leadership ideas in some way: resources, experiences, ideas. Chase excellence in all I do. I may not always be successful but I won't allow stasis to hold my mission back. I want to serve my members, patients, clients, colleagues, and community. For too long I used to serve only myself.

The obstacle of daily accomplishment is implementation. What every starts well ends well. Sharing knowledge is easy. Implementing said knowledge is power. Behavior precedes belief. Belief precedes decisions and choice precedes action. Action precedes buy-in; it does not follow it. Are you ready for a change? Join my new tribe today. https://jackkruse.com/become-a-member/

DO LOVE/RELATIONSHIPS FOLLOW HAPPINESS OR WISDOM PATHWAYS? 

When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable and that comfort limits your actions to seek new data to obtain wisdom. Comfort breeds laziness and laziness limits action for the sake of happiness. This is why some relationships fail.  I believe an addiction to happiness has lead to our high divorce rate.

Recently a relationship guru announced their divorce on line and asked their followers not to pry into their lives.  This was an ironic statement since they made money selling the public the idea that having a good marriage was all linked to trying harder to be happy.  Here is their marketing cliches linked to happiness:

“You Have to Choose a Happy Marriage – Every morning you wake up and you get a choice. You get to choose your perspective. You get to choose how you’ll approach the day. You get to choose happiness. Every morning I want to wake up and choose to be a kind mother. I want to choose to be a good friend. I want to choose joy in my marriage. By choosing to have a happy marriage you’re more forgiving, more kind, more willing to laugh together and look for special moments to connect. Believe me, I don’t always get there but if I start the day with the intention I’m far happier than I am without it. Whether you’ve been married eleven years or fifty or a week and a half, you get to choose how to go through life together. Choose to be happy.”

Now these two guru announce they are divorcing.............and both say they are happy to do so!!!!  

Is this congruent to their marketing tag lines?   I thought the quest for happiness created marital bliss according to their logic?  

Time makes more converts than reason, it appears.............

My wisdom is different.  Love is not something you protect. It’s something you risk, always.  If you do not, you'll settle for less than you deserve. 

Our culture has been selling us happiness to the nth degree.  Marketing executives have based entire brands on telling it like it is, but when you look with a discerning eye, it looks like our culture has only been telling us what they think you need to hear. 

Happiness has a time and place.  It is relative to the environment you find yourself in now.  

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness."   Might anger be useful to the mitochondriac to put a limit on the quest for happiness?  I think so. 

Everyone chases after happiness, but few understand where it comes from.  Even fewer realize what they have to give up to acquire it.  

Happiness, without a braking mechanism leads to a life without wisdom.  Nature is all about wisdom.  Without wisdom, you become subject to marketing/media gurus.  Marketing is the art of getting the public's mind to lie to itself using a fable.  It disconnects us from Nature and reality and builds a chasm to obtain true wisdom.  You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.  All failures in Nature can be summarized as the failure to adapt.  Moreover, all success in Nature is based around successful adaptation.  The wisdom of Nature finds success using resilience in the face of adversity, not the comfort of happiness. 

GENIUS IS CREATED BY OUR THINKING, NOT OUR BIRTH

I believe the quest of happiness subtracts us from the wisdom of Nature. 

I save my wisdom for my friends I value, because Nature appears to reserve her wisdom for those who follow her recipes.

I need to constantly remind people that science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding. In this sense science is the communication path man should be using to study how nature shapes us. We have to remind ourselves that the path is fallible because of the process of nature and the nature of man. 

Man always creates errors and often he fails to understand why his methodologies can create many scientific fallacies believed to be fact. Much of what man has learned and come to believe is not true in nature, it just happens to bring us closer to the truths that nature weaves. This occurs because Mother Nature’s hand is capable of erasing while she simultaneously write’s more wisdom that builds things around us. 

You begin to realize in every experiment and theory there’s no such thing as a complete lie or complete truth. There’s always some truth in there and that is what science is trying to squeeze out from the pulp. Man’s duty is to distill the juice of nature with experiment, but how something is studied effects the results and this can create new knowledge or dogmatic fallacy. Realizing what was once believed to be true, but no longer is true, is what creates man’s wisdom.

Experience never errs.  it is only our judgement that errs in promising itself results as are not caused by our experiments.  

Great minds ask great questions.   If the government, mainstream media, or your supplement maker can get you asking the wrong questions, these entities never have to worry about the answers you find, because they will always be immaterial.

My experiments on happiness have shown me the more happy I am, the less wise I become.  Happiness and comfort are one of modern society's greatest half truths. 

Happiness is life's mirage.  

Discuss this idea below................I always enjoy feedback. 

We’re having a family open house day 7/4/20 for members. Details coming via email. Guest MD speakers, glass blowing, and FIRE works by Jeremy Thomley.