And, with your trapped thing in mind, start dreaming. It doesn’t have to be good; it doesn’t have to be doable or realistic at this point. This is your time to dream. Don’t fix your dreams just yet; that’ll be a job for later (in the book). For now, just dream away.
Go on. Have a go now, because I’m about to give you some pointers to help you if you’re struggling. So, if you think you’re big enough to do this without any pointers, toddle off now and get going, big boy/girl.
Pointers. Okay, let’s find some pointers to make the points… dum dee dum, here we go…
Let’s say we’re talking about what you do for a living, as we often are…
Where do you get your kicks in life? Make a list of everything that gives you a kick. Spend days doing this if you want. Most of us don’t stop to consider where we get our joy in life. To do so means that you’re more likely to increase the joyful bits and reduce the dodgy bits if you can.
Next, where did you used to get your kicks in life? (This question is based on the observation that life has a sneaky way of eating away at the things that we love doing and replacing them with things that we do out of duty or necessity instead.)
Next, where could you imagine you could get kicks that you’ve never experienced before and don’t presently indulge in. For example, I’ve never kitesurfed, but I imagine that I’d like it very much, so that goes down on my list. The same goes for buying 1,000 clothes pegs (my favorite household item, incidentally, and if you ever want to buy me a gift, you can’t go far wrong than with a set of bespoke wooden clothes pegs – maybe you could paint them yourself) and turning these 1,000 pegs into a modern sculpture of an open, cupped hand (and what this would say to the observer would be ‘we are clothes pegs, we spend our lives holding others and, well, we’d like to be held ourselves, maybe in the warmth of an soft and open human palm, for example’). It would be very moving.
So you have your lists of all that does, has, and could give you your kicks, Mr. Pips. So how the flockety crotch do you make a living out of it, Mr. Pitt? Glug the wine, feel the pull of the silk panties, enjoy the exploding of a grenade because now’s your chance to… officially… GO OFF ON ONE.
Oh bloody hell. I know you’ll soon start telling me that you can’t make a living out of THAT.
Well, keep going for now. Don’t worry about that.
I recall a F**k It Day we ran in London last year when we asked people to do this exercise. And that inevitable question came up: ‘But I couldn’t make a living from THAT, could I?’ Actually, though it ends in a question mark, it was more of a statement than a question. You understand? There’s a subtle difference in inflection on that ‘could I’ that turns it from a humble, inquiring question into a rather aggressive statement of fact, and a fact of a blindingly obvious nature.
So I, in my enthusiasm, foolishly threw down a challenge to the crowd of 80… a challenge that probably overestimated my on-the-spot-entrepreneurial genius. I said:
‘I bet I can find a way to make money from anything that you suggest.’
Now, what I had on my side was that they were all thinking about things they LOVED doing. It wasn’t that they were just sitting there thinking, ‘Let me find something that you so obviously can’t make money out of that John will look like an idiot in front of 80 people.’
Nobody, for example, said:
‘John, I’ve never done this, but it’s what I’d really, really love to do.’
‘Yes…’ I’d have said, with not a little trepidation.
‘John, I’d like to knock one out2, on stage at Wembley3, in front of 100,000 people to the beat of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen. In fact I’d insist that the real queen was in the audience. She could have a royal box if she wanted. But for the whole of my ‘show,’ her reactions would be relayed live via one of the huge screens that flanked the stage, while the other screen would show my… er… show.’
Why he bottled out on that relatively innocuous word given the content of his suggestion will baffle me to my dying day.
If they had, would I have been able to respond with a moneymaking scheme to make his Wembley fantasy possible? Maybe not, but I can already see several ways how just the idea could make him some money. For example, he would have had some rights on the use of his idea in this, our book… so I would have had to pay him something in order to use his suggestion to make my point.
Which was…
Yes, this is what someone asked. In fact, that someone was the wonderful Gemma Birss, who is a journalist at Prediction magazine.
‘I’d like to meditate all day, every day. How on earth can I make money from that?’
And that was a good start for me. Because, by a quite remarkable coincidence, I’d had an idea a few weeks previously for a huge project involving hiring meditators to go into ‘problem’ urban areas of the UK, to rent an apartment in the area, and sit meditating all day, every day. You see, it’s been demonstrated that if a certain proportion of the population are meditating, then crime levels drop. So that was my thought. The project has a great name, which I won’t tell you because it hasn’t happened yet (though it might never happen, like many things that pop up in my head).
But I had a very quick and true answer for Gemma: ‘I know how.’
The truth is, in a world where you can buy just about anything or any service over the web, and thus reach huge audiences or niche audiences in far-off places very easily, it’s possible to make money from almost anything.
But the point here isn’t about making truckloads of cash – though that might be the ‘kick’ you’re after, I suppose. The point is to do what you love and make a living from it.
For now, whatever prison you’re trapped in: relax, and go off on one… use your imagination to dream your way out, to dream of other possibilities and other worlds…
Everything starts with a thought, everything. Think about it, even human life (I must F**k It).
1 To digress and often at some length and fervently, but as Laurence Sterne wrote ‘Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine.’
2 Also described as ‘spank the monkey,’ ‘throttle the snake,’ ‘shake hands with a close friend,’ etc., – but, perhaps, more universally known as ‘to masturbate.’
3 Wembley is the ultimate dream sporting and music venue for any Brit wanting to showcase their skills in front of a big crowd. Look it up on Google – it’s a lovely place.
BREAKING THROUGH THE WALL OF BELIEVING IT’S REAL
You might not be so lucky as to experience such a range of extraordinary phenomena as those on H Block during that day. Not that they appreciated it, of course. They have the universe of magic putting on a show for them every single day and they don’t notice a thing.
But are you so different? Maybe the universe is putting on a magic show just for you, every single day of your blessed life, and you – like the H-blockers – haven’t noticed a thing.
Is it all as ‘real’ as you think it is? Are the solid things as solid as you think they are? Are you as separate from other people as you think you are? Is ‘cause’ always followed by ‘effect’? Are coincidences just that, or is there a link you don’t understand? Is all organic matter dictated just by the scientific laws that we know already, or is there something else to it all, an ‘energy’?
It’s possible to challenge any assumption we have about what we are and our place in the universe. And, of course, people have been challenging their assumptions since assumptions were first had.
Everything we think of as solid, is nothing of the sort: it’s all energy in one form or another (according to physicists, as well as gurus and qigong masters). So, in theory, we could all walk through walls, just like in The Matrix. Uh?
You think you’re separate from everyone else? Haven’t you experienced the strange coincidences when you were thinking of someone and they called you? Or when you knew what someone was going to say before they said it (it happens to our twin boys all the time… maybe because
twins are more tuned into this ability, but it’s remarkable to see this phenomenon playing out in front of your eyes every single day of your life). What connects us? Thoughts? Energy?
In 1983, Braud and Schlitz, researchers into consciousness, conducted an experiment into whether one’s intention could influence another person’s state. A nervous person would sit in one room and someone in another room would use intention to calm them down. By measuring the electrodermal activity (EDA) of the nervous person, the researchers could then tell if the calming intentions were having an effect. And they were – a huge effect. In fact, the third parties were having a calming effect on the nervous people that was almost as great as when the nervous people used relaxation techniques themselves. So someone having good thoughts about you is almost as beneficial as you having good thoughts about yourself. How is this possible? Uh?
Read Lynne McTaggart’s excellent book The Field.
You think your physical state is separate from your thoughts? A study was done in 2004 in which 15 volunteers were asked to flex and contract one of their little fingers for 15 minutes every day for 12 weeks. And another group of 15 volunteers were asked to just imagine doing the same thing, for the same amount of time.
The strength of the fingers of all the volunteers was tested before and after the ‘training.’ Those who actually moved their fingers increased their strength by 53 percent. And those who just imagined moving their fingers increased their strength by an astonishing 35 percent.
This means that, instead of going to the gym, you could lie at home on the couch, just thinking about doing the exercises at the gym and the results wouldn’t be far off. (I’d like to see the first Mr. Universe who never lifted a dumbbell, but just thought about it.)
Dr. David Hamilton tells that story in his excellent book, How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body and, rather entertainingly, in his regular talks.
You think that when you sit still and quietly, the only benefit is for you? Think again. In 1972, an experiment was done in the US that confirmed the so-called ‘Maharishi Effect,’ after Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who stated that if one percent of the population meditated regularly, there would be a reduction in crime and violence. So in this experiment, carried out across 24 towns with populations of 10,000 or more, there were indeed meaningful changes in crime levels when as few as one percent of the population participated (using transcendental meditation).
Gregg Braden details the above experiment in his excellent book, The Divine Matrix.
You believe that what you’re seeing is ‘reality’: that it’s a fixed, objective thing? Watch the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? and learn about the baffling and magical world of quantum physics, when what you see is only fixed as ‘what you see’ when you actually see it, fixing itself from the limitless possibilities of reality only when viewed.
You believe that even your view of reality, once fixed, is an accurate version of what’s ‘out there?’ It’s not really. Look at color, for example. Your eyes and brain work very hard to create the visual picture in your brain that you think of as reality. What’s ‘actually’ out there? The answer is an ocean of electro-magnetic radiation with a vast range of wavelengths, most of which are invisible to you. And the ‘stuff’ that you think is emitting such wavelengths is in itself mainly empty space anyway. What’s out there? Nothing much. The vivid colors of the 37 ice creams I find in our local gelateria are not actually properties of the ice cream: they’re properties of my ‘model’ of the ice creams, a model created by my brain, in my brain.
Uh? Read The Ego Tunnel (the Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self) by Thomas Metzinger. It’s brilliant. But you might end up saying ‘Uh?’ even more than while reading this chapter.
Read all or any of the books I’ve mentioned and concluded that we’re now discovering amazing things about life, the universe, and everything? Think again. Masters, gurus, mystics, seers, shamans of all races, spiritualities, and philosophies have perceived such phenomena for thousands of years.
You think you know anything? F**k It. Think again.
F**k the theories; the fixed positions. F**k the religions that believe they, and only they, have the answer. F**k the dogmatists, the rationalists, and the materialists. They deal with dead ideas.
If you want to find a position, go join the Agnostics Club. An agnostic is cool. An agnostic is not uncurious or indecisive. An agnostic looks at the infinite mystery of life and the universe in wonder. He or she enjoys wondering, too, how it all works but recognizes something in a perception of utter humility – I’m never going to know for sure, and I’m cool with that.
F**k It will allow you access to some wondrous magic. Magic may well flood into your life as you start to practice F**k It in one way or another. But you want me to give you the definitive explanation for how it all works? You want a map of the paradigm? Think again. For now, let’s stick with the map of this prison and how to get you the f**k out of it.
And what an appropriate time to talk about the Breakout Tools and helping you to Walk Through Walls.
F**K IT. LET IT GO
(Music to play while reading this chapter: ambient, trip-hop, chill-out, though not ‘Chill Out Classics.’)
You may have already noticed from the way we’ve been talking about F**k It, that it goes in one of two directions. Letting go, slowing down, giving up, is the first – and the most easily understood. In fact, most people assume F**k It is just about this. And it is actually the predominant quality of F**k It required in society today.
Look at anyone around you. Look in the mirror. And tell me what you see.
You probably see someone who is working too hard, who has little time for the things that really matter, who’s tired, often stressed, worrying about things that might never happen, striving to do better, to be better, always trying to get to next thing, the next level, that will hopefully end in their/your happiness.
So F**k It works very powerfully when you realize that most of those things you’re worrying about aren’t so important after all; that it’s possible to give up on stuff that’s causing you pain, to do less, relax more, and go with the flow of life instead of trying to make everything happen and work all the time.
For them/you, it can help to think about the idea of ‘taking your hands off the steering wheel.’ And it’s never been a better time to tell you why. Most of us believe that, unless we grip the steering wheel of life and steer in various directions in order to get to where we want to be, nothing will happen (or, even worse, we’ll crash). And the gripping of the steering wheel, the constant steering, and trying to work out which way to steer, can be very tiring – exhausting, in fact.
But what would happen if you took your hands off the wheel?
You’d crash, of course. Really? Well, maybe your passenger would intervene and help. Or maybe the car would steer itself. What? Yes. It’s possible. In fact, I read just yesterday that self-driving cars have just become legal in Nevada in the USA.
Isn’t that wonderful? When I talked about ‘taking your hands off the steering wheel’ in my first book, seven years ago, I had to use the analogy of being on a car ride for children at an amusement park. I remembered that when I was a small boy I believed I was actually driving, but slowly (and very disappointingly) realized that I wasn’t, and that the car was on a track, and would effectively steer itself. I made the point that, though it was disappointing to me then, it would probably be a great relief for most adults, who are tired of driving, to take their hands off the steering wheel, and let the car steer itself.
And now it is possible. Google, in fact, cracked it first. And it’s Google’s cars that will be the first to self-drive (well, with people in them, of course, checking that the software doesn’t fail or that decide they want to try to fly).
So, in the car of life that you’ve been driving – the one you thought you were in control of, and had to steer successfully to get anywhere – well, there’s a chance that, if you did take your hands o
ff the steering wheel, it would drive itself. Life’s a Google Car.
Come on Google, let’s brand this one: ‘Google Life – relax, we’ll do the driving.’
But, yikes, how does that work? Surely, it would all go to pot if I simply stopped ‘steering.’ Well, try it. Take your hands off the wheel just for a little while and see what happens. If you’re trying hard to make something (anything) work, see what it’s like to ease off and not strive so much, to sit back and see what happens.
You may well be in for one helluva journey.
So this is how F**k It works for most of us: we’re trying too hard, striving too much, over-controlling, over-worrying, over-working, over-thinking, and over-cooking everything.
It’s time to take the F**k It chill pill, and slow it all down, give up a few things, do less, try less, control less (if at all), under-perform, trust it will work out, go with the flow, think less, and generally enjoy your life more.
But that’s only one direction: the one most people need to take.
Most people understand it. But some people say:
‘Yes, that’s all very well. But if I did all that, I’d get nothing done. I’d end up lying in bed then getting up and sitting on the sofa watching TV all the time, eating pizza, getting fat, lose my job, have no friends… It would be a disaster.’
And I reply:
‘Try it.’
If they did (which they won’t), but if they did, they would soon get bored of lying in bed, or watching TV, or vacationing, or doing nothing. And that’s when the next F**k It direction would kick in. Read on…
F**K IT. GO FOR IT
(Music to play while reading this chapter: thrash metal, urban electronica, dubstep, hip-hop.)
F**k It Therapy Page 10
