Irresistible Force

A meditation for the holidays on the nature of attachment

“Man proposes, God disposes”.

A series of events over the past few days have provided me deeper insight into the nature of human attachment. We tend to think of attachment in terms of ‘big ticket items’ - such as attachment to relationships, attachment to money and success, attachment to physical appearances and self-image and so on. But attachment works at a more granular and mundane level than that.

It is the holiday season now, and observing people interacting around the holidays provides a wealth of insight into human nature and how attached we are to even the smallest outcomes. Watching the irate customer in line at Starbucks, for example, who received a “tall” latte instead of the “grande” that he had asked for, after waiting in a long lineup for his coffee. Or the female driver honking in frustration when another driver beat her to one of the last remaining parking spaces in the crowded Walmart parking lot. Or the indignation of travellers when faced with cancelled flights and arguments with uncooperative grounds crew members.

Observing these incidents reveals that attachment has little to do with the objects of our attachments. It has everything to do with our lack of adaptability and responsiveness to “life as it happens”.

Attachment isn’t a behaviour, it is a mindset. A mindset which develops over a long period of time, starting in childhood. It begins with the creation of a belief, when we are too young and innocent to know any better, that there is “another version” of life than the one that is happening right now. A version that is constructed out of our beliefs, ideas of good and bad, right and wrong, our morals, ethics and values, our cultural norms and societal conditioning, our hopes and aspirations. All these building blocks form the foundation of an ‘alternate reality’ that lives in our minds, that is radically different from the one we live in. This is the reality of how things are supposed to happen based on what we have come to believe to be true about the world.

Attachment, then, is the degree to which we adhere to this alternate reality.

“I am supposed to get the grande latte not the tall”

“I am supposed to get that parking spot”

“I am supposed to be on that flight”

“She wasn’t supposed to take the kids and leave me”

“He is supposed to be alive”

“I am supposed to have figured my life out by now”

“Life is not supposed to be this hard”

Attachment comes in infinite flavours from the mundane to the major, from the everyday to the extraordinary, from the insignificant to the momentous experiences of life. Attachment is simply an adherence to the ‘alternate reality’ we have accepted in our minds as fundamental, over reality as it unfolds only in the now.

As an avid snowboarder who enjoys exploring the backcountry, I know that the biggest risk I take is not of avalanches, of injury, of tree wells, or of wildlife. The biggest risk I take is that of assumption. The moment I think I know what is coming up ahead of me is the moment I am the most vulnerable to something going wrong. In wild terrain, filled with trees, rocks and hidden crevasses, my attention has to remain fully focused on what is in front of me without any interference from my thinking mind. I have to let my body remain in a purely responsive mode and often the decisions it makes are ones my mind would never have been able to anticipate. My body is able to adapt and pivot to the environment - anticipating sudden obstacles or changes in the gradation when riding at high speeds that require nanosecond adjustments. And these adjustments happen so quickly that it is often seconds or even minutes later that my thinking mind is able to process how I acted.

Daily living is not a high speed sport, and yet its mechanics are no different. If I were to ride the mountain the way I thought it was supposed to be rather than the way it actually is, I wouldn’t make it down in one piece. Similarly, although the stakes are not as pronounced in our mundane everyday lived realities, we do suffer micro-injuries to our psyches - ‘a thousand little cuts’ as a result of our unwillingness to see the ‘mountain’ as it is - which cumulatively, and over time, translates into a state of existential angst and quiet desperation.

Attachment is not content related. It is an absolute condition. So, when people say “I’m not attached to societal expectations” or “I am not attached to material things” - that means very little. A renunciate may renounce the entire world and go live in a cave. But they are merely adhering to their “alternate reality” in which they are supposed to be peaceful and unperturbed. Are they free to pivot, in an instant, and embrace the material world if needed? If no, then their attachment is no different than the attachment of those who are fixated on material success. Rigid adherence to spiritual ideals is no different than rigidly adhering to material goals.

Attachment has nothing to do with what you are attached to. It has to do with the existence of a second alternate reality in your mind which supersedes the reality you live in. It doesn’t matter what that alternate reality looks like - whether material or spiritual, whether that of success and fame or liberation and transcendence. The attachment is in the fact that THAT reality supersedes THIS one.

“Man proposes, God disposes”. Or, the more secular version:

“The human being proposes, Life disposes.”

Attachment has nothing to do with what a human being ‘proposes’ i.e. what we prefer or want to happen. Attachment reveals itself in how we respond when life ‘disposes’ i.e. when things work out in a manner that is unexpected, unfavourable, unwanted or unworthy.

When the alternate reality simulation in the mind collides with reality as it is happening now, does the conditioned reaction to “correct” or complain about the wrongness or unfairness of this moment kick in? Or is there an intuition to immediately pivot, to adapt to the new coordinates of reality as it is happening?

That is what the experience of “flow”, that so many athletes, artists, meditators and others speak of, is. It is an experience in which the intellect is suspended in a state of “not knowing” within which a deeper intuitive intelligence, which is vitally tuned into this reality, takes over and guides the being forward.

In other words, one is on the edge of the unknown, driving by the seat of their pants, focused on the ever changing what is of the moment and allowing that deeper intelligence, than the conscious mind is capable of, to guide them forward. The conscious mind is no longer the master of outcomes, but the student of this deeper intelligence. It is no longer in the mode of asserting what should be but is in the mode of learning about what is.

Yet, beyond the narrow realm of sport or creative works, attachment and the experience of flow are inextricably linked. For it is not we who flow but life that flows through us. And as this flow occurs, the mindset of attachment creates a network of hooks upon which this life force gets snagged and unable to free itself. Like a stuck record, it ends up looping upon itself. That is what incessant thinking and ruminating is.

Thoughts and emotions are not problematic in and of themselves. But when the stream of one’s consciousness becomes snagged on an expectation of what reality is supposed to look like, the dissonance of the experience is exactly like that of a stuck record that cannot proceed past the sticking point and generates a disharmonious sound.

Ponder this: no “should” statement is ever voiced only once in the mind. Thoughts of complaint or resistance are repetitious for a reason. Like an eddy current in which floating objects become trapped in an endless churning motion, unable to progress - our thoughts and emotions too become trapped in this way when caught between the opposite currents of life as it is and life as it should be. And until one current yields to the other, the state of being trapped ensues. The cumulative effect of this dynamic is that of psychological suffering.

“What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?” is a classic paradox. Life is that irresistible force - it is perpetually moving, perpetually flowing. There is no slowing it down or stopping it. Life moves incessantly. The “immovable object” is the alternate version of reality we hold. And we suffer in proportion to the degree to which our alternate versions of reality are unable to move, to bend, to adapt and mold to the irresistible force of life.

The holidays are both a celebration and a curse because they amplify our resistances and magnify our attachments. They shine a light on how we are prone to favor our private alternate realities over the one unfolding before us. Uncomfortable family gatherings, crowded shopping malls, travel delays and other frustrations act as a mirror pointing unflinchingly to where our attachments lie and how they are formed. Whether we are engaging in conflict or deliberately abstaining, whether taking the aggressive or peacemaking stance, the actions we take are secondary. The real question to ponder is: which reality am I orientated to in this moment? Is it reality as it is, or reality as I think it should be?

And as those frustrations come up, and as those painful memories or grievances become triggered, rather than attempting to mitigate them or suppress them or act them out or allow them - notice why and how they arise. Notice how no matter how you respond, every response validates the same premise: that your alternate version of reality supersedes life as it is happening right now.

Even witnessing our habitual reactions in this way provides an opportunity for the mind to shift from the mode of asserting what ‘should be’ to learning about ‘what is’ in this moment. And each time this shift occurs, that deeper intelligence within us becomes activated and takes over…

I will be taking a week or so off from writing and look forward to resuming early in the new year. In the meantime, I thank you all for your readership and support over the past year - a year which brought me many personal challenges. And yet, those challenges graced me with deeper insights into my own mind and the nature of this thing we call life, the experiences of which I have translated in the many articles on this page. And so, as the year draws to an end and a new one approaches, I wish you all what I wish for myself and all those whom I love:

A life just as it happens.