I experienced what this was like for a few weeks nearly two years ago and lost it. Shrooms after I hit rock bottom with alcoholism/ depression accidentally gave me a breif window into true reality and I have been trying to get back to that perspective ever since. The intensity of the emotions pushed me through to the other side breifly. The problem now is fear. AI and climate change terrify me and have no solutions. Plus I have put myself out there and have been rejected multiple times since then and each time it takes me longer to convince myself leaving fearlessly is what I want. I think because of adhd my rejection sensitivity is higher than average but its very painful, stupid ego. What I wouldn't give to experience that optimistic oneness free of fear and judgement once again. Your writing is one of the few things that reminds me of what I experienced. I can tell you actually lived it as well, because seeing the world as if through the eyes of a child is exactly what it felt like.
So we learn to homogenise everything so that we can make quick judgements and expedite our way through life. But that then disconnects us from the possibilities in every present moment as we've already pigeon holed what we see and experience so that we can move on. I see how curiosity is a remedy for that. Curiosity would slow one down as there is always much to consider in any given moment if experienced with 'new eyes' rather than consulting the internal shape shorter in our minds to catalogue the now in favour of what's next.
If the shift into adulthood is marked not just by age but by the moment reflection on language takes hold, that changes everything. Once experience is mediated by the symbolic order, by signifiers that circulate beyond us, we’re no longer simply in the world the way children are. That mediation creates distance, even alienation, but it also makes possible things like irony, metaphor, and reflection itself. Children move gradually into this terrain, experimenting with language before it fully encloses them. For adults, the enclosure is stronger, and when it breaks, through collapse or exhaustion, what emerges isn’t a return to childlike immediacy but a hard-won immediacy, one that exists only because we are already inside language. Does the call to marinate risk turning choicelessness into a project by framing it as a directive within the symbolic order?
"It is possible to live an ethical life without building an identity around one’s ethics."
And this analogy is excellent:
"...we all generally have a sense of how best to orient to one another in traffic. And we do this without building much of an identity around it. We don’t sit around spending time thinking about our driving. We don’t reminisce on the various commutes we have done in the past. Nor do we waste much energy on envisioning the many drives we will go on in the future. Driving is a functional task we engage in - not an existential one."
This is great as well:
"When you encounter the new - you open to life’s intelligence. And in doing so your own intelligence grows.
This is what it means to be spontaneous. To be perpetually open to the new."
Thank you for this brilliant reflection. One of my prose pieces is dedicated to this topic, and I'm pleased to present it here in English translation. Please marinate:
SHOSHIN
One evening, Seff Kosse was surprised to notice that he was in a good mood. He was sitting with friendly people and accidentally made a joke. Almost everyone had laughed, and he was a little startled as he considered what had happened. Should he be worried now?
He had often spoken with people who were familiar with good moods, but also with bad moods or even despair. One could even train or study in this field and later work in this field with people who were often in a bad or very bad mood. They would advise them on how to improve their mood and explain where their bad mood might come from.
Seff had spoken with these well-educated people several times in his life and had worked with them on the difference between a bad mood, a good mood, too bad a mood, and too good a mood. It was amazing what there was to learn in this area.
So that evening, Seff was clearly in a good mood; he even made several jokes, often before considering whether they were actually funny or not. In his astonishment, he wondered if his mood was perhaps too good.
Then again, he considered that perhaps it only felt that way because his mood had been too bad for a long time. Taking a pill for being too good was probably not advisable right now. Being in a good mood was actually harmless, but experts had even come up with a special expression for being too good, and Seff wasn't quite sure whether this expression applied to him or not.
But now he turned to the question of why people like to invent expressions for things they encounter in their lives. It probably just put them in a better mood. And he found it a little funny that people like to first invent expressions for something and then apply that expression to something they encountered. This usually gave them the feeling of having recognized something significant. There was something about it that seemed very funny, as if everyone made jokes without first considering whether they were actually funny.
However, the stage before someone came up with an expression for something seemed remarkable to Seff. Further east on this strange globe, experts in good and bad humor had even invented a term for it: Shoshin. How funny!
Seff Kosse liked this expression very much, as if it could protect him from something. But even more, he liked that moment before he came up with expressions. It was a beautiful, eternal moment and perhaps even paradise on earth.
I experienced what this was like for a few weeks nearly two years ago and lost it. Shrooms after I hit rock bottom with alcoholism/ depression accidentally gave me a breif window into true reality and I have been trying to get back to that perspective ever since. The intensity of the emotions pushed me through to the other side breifly. The problem now is fear. AI and climate change terrify me and have no solutions. Plus I have put myself out there and have been rejected multiple times since then and each time it takes me longer to convince myself leaving fearlessly is what I want. I think because of adhd my rejection sensitivity is higher than average but its very painful, stupid ego. What I wouldn't give to experience that optimistic oneness free of fear and judgement once again. Your writing is one of the few things that reminds me of what I experienced. I can tell you actually lived it as well, because seeing the world as if through the eyes of a child is exactly what it felt like.
So we learn to homogenise everything so that we can make quick judgements and expedite our way through life. But that then disconnects us from the possibilities in every present moment as we've already pigeon holed what we see and experience so that we can move on. I see how curiosity is a remedy for that. Curiosity would slow one down as there is always much to consider in any given moment if experienced with 'new eyes' rather than consulting the internal shape shorter in our minds to catalogue the now in favour of what's next.
If the shift into adulthood is marked not just by age but by the moment reflection on language takes hold, that changes everything. Once experience is mediated by the symbolic order, by signifiers that circulate beyond us, we’re no longer simply in the world the way children are. That mediation creates distance, even alienation, but it also makes possible things like irony, metaphor, and reflection itself. Children move gradually into this terrain, experimenting with language before it fully encloses them. For adults, the enclosure is stronger, and when it breaks, through collapse or exhaustion, what emerges isn’t a return to childlike immediacy but a hard-won immediacy, one that exists only because we are already inside language. Does the call to marinate risk turning choicelessness into a project by framing it as a directive within the symbolic order?
what are the odds of this being the post today after me deciding to start effortless being as a life path yesterday?
Dear Shiv,
Another beautiful piece!
I like this a lot:
"It is possible to live an ethical life without building an identity around one’s ethics."
And this analogy is excellent:
"...we all generally have a sense of how best to orient to one another in traffic. And we do this without building much of an identity around it. We don’t sit around spending time thinking about our driving. We don’t reminisce on the various commutes we have done in the past. Nor do we waste much energy on envisioning the many drives we will go on in the future. Driving is a functional task we engage in - not an existential one."
This is great as well:
"When you encounter the new - you open to life’s intelligence. And in doing so your own intelligence grows.
This is what it means to be spontaneous. To be perpetually open to the new."
Thank you for sharing as always!
Love
Myq
Thank you for this brilliant reflection. One of my prose pieces is dedicated to this topic, and I'm pleased to present it here in English translation. Please marinate:
SHOSHIN
One evening, Seff Kosse was surprised to notice that he was in a good mood. He was sitting with friendly people and accidentally made a joke. Almost everyone had laughed, and he was a little startled as he considered what had happened. Should he be worried now?
He had often spoken with people who were familiar with good moods, but also with bad moods or even despair. One could even train or study in this field and later work in this field with people who were often in a bad or very bad mood. They would advise them on how to improve their mood and explain where their bad mood might come from.
Seff had spoken with these well-educated people several times in his life and had worked with them on the difference between a bad mood, a good mood, too bad a mood, and too good a mood. It was amazing what there was to learn in this area.
So that evening, Seff was clearly in a good mood; he even made several jokes, often before considering whether they were actually funny or not. In his astonishment, he wondered if his mood was perhaps too good.
Then again, he considered that perhaps it only felt that way because his mood had been too bad for a long time. Taking a pill for being too good was probably not advisable right now. Being in a good mood was actually harmless, but experts had even come up with a special expression for being too good, and Seff wasn't quite sure whether this expression applied to him or not.
But now he turned to the question of why people like to invent expressions for things they encounter in their lives. It probably just put them in a better mood. And he found it a little funny that people like to first invent expressions for something and then apply that expression to something they encountered. This usually gave them the feeling of having recognized something significant. There was something about it that seemed very funny, as if everyone made jokes without first considering whether they were actually funny.
However, the stage before someone came up with an expression for something seemed remarkable to Seff. Further east on this strange globe, experts in good and bad humor had even invented a term for it: Shoshin. How funny!
Seff Kosse liked this expression very much, as if it could protect him from something. But even more, he liked that moment before he came up with expressions. It was a beautiful, eternal moment and perhaps even paradise on earth.