"You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable." Carlton McCoy, Jr., Master Sommelier.

I read that in an article last night and it stopped me in tracks---if that can happen while you are sitting. Takes some practice.

Put a lump in my throat, that. Brought back memories once painful but now friends. Made me realize how valuable that thought is from Carlton and how many situations it applies to as a guide for navigation to get the life you want.


Discomfort will sharpen your senses and cause deep thinking. Also puts you at a fork in the road. Walk into a room where you are not welcome. Hold your head high and carry on or head for the hills?

For some reason I thought of the word security as an opposite to the thought you express. While security is something that perhaps we all seek in life it can be a brake on moving forward. Sometimes in life the deepest rut we find ourselves in is the security rut which can stunt our striving instinct. Most of us, I think, reach a security level in life when we stop pushing and settle for what we have. Perhaps that is just a part of aging.

When I was 27 I left the comfort of a house and a good job in England to move to Canada. I had never been outside my home country, never been on a plane. I had a wife, two children 5 and under, three suitcases, no job, nowhere to stay, and only 1800 Canadian dollars in my pocket, but I arrived on a Sunday in Toronto filled with a great deal of hope and anticipation for something better because nothing could stop me.

When we are young I think we see discomfort as opportunity. As we age comfort/security becomes our best friend. .

I've been interested lately in the tension between security and change in my own life. I made a career shift a year ago, and it's been a wonderful, positive change for me. But I needed a bit of prodding to do it. I think that *some* change is good -- it keeps life interesting and fresh.

You got it, kentish.

At twenty seven I loaded everything in a U-Haul and drove from SLC to SoCal with no idea where I would stay or what I would do. I had $200. Best thing I ever did.

Broke down in Bakersfield at midnight. Found a gas station open and two guys there happen to have the right part and had me on the road by 2 AM. You can keep your burning bushes, staffs into snakes, and raising people from the dead, cuz, now THAT was a miracle.

Much harder to be daring these days. I try though.

In most ways my best decision, too, though at this late point in my life I do have occasional dreams of spending my last years by the sea in the land of my birth. It will never happen with children and grand children living here. Besides, I no longer have the courage for such a drastic change.

My church just got ruined by freak flooding: waist-high standing water. Everything four feet and below destroyed. $10,000 max on flood insurance.

And we were so comfortable in our newly remodeled building!

Down to join the others, ripping out wallboard. See you all in a few days!

Was there a rainbow after the flood?

As you may know, I have advanced theological training.* I even had a private audience with the Great Guru himself, and sat at his feet while he imparted important Wisdom. I humbly asked why such disasters occur. He gazed upon me with benign eyes, and answered me softly: "Shit happens."


*Master of Humility (Summa cum lousy), at the Institute of Higher Humility.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2020 12:05PM by caffiend.

It's not hard to build a case for considering some forms of ’comfortable’ and ’secure’ as shackles.

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Benjamin Franklin

With regard to leaving a religion, I call it, "becoming comfortable with ambiguity." Religion has a base set of assumptions, and one of those assumptions is that you have to have answers to the big questions in life. At a certain point I realized that it's okay to not have the answers -- to not know.

Exactly, summer. Perfect statement of my experience too. I used to think life was black and white (it was for me as a child), that you could determine absolute truth. Yeah, in a scientific setting. In a church - not so much, where it's interpretation starting from an unprovable premise. Some are OK with that. I have envied them at times.

"Becoming comfortable with ambiguity" is a great summary of the process. It can take time. But it gets to fit after a while.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2020 11:58AM by Nightingale.

Ignorance is bliss, but I don’t envy Mormons. They pay a high price for that bliss.

Summer just got vaccinated against Small Crox or Mormonism Mumps Rubella. I say crox because that's what it is, a crock! They claim to have the answers so you don't have to - when life is normally that way, donations aside.

Congratulations on achieving a huge step toward inner peace.
Ignorance is not bliss if it requires a lobotomy as down payment,

In many cases when someone else gives you the answers, it's called cheating.

Like when the Mormons say that "when the prophet has spoken the thinking has been done." For Mormons the most important is to KNOW the answers and how you came by them is of no importance.
As long as you feel it's true. Right, Mormons?


Oddly, in a book I was reading this week-end this line suddenly appeared:

"Life worked in such a way that right was not necessarily right, but rather what the person in charge said was right." Pager 266 of 100 Year Old Man . . .



Not surprised summer go vaccinated. As a teacher she is probably not much into cheating and wants real answers.

Fiona Apple's song "Extraordinary Machine" includes the following two verses which I have always loved, expressing a similar thing:

"I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes
And I certainly haven't been spreading myself around
I still only travel by foot and by foot it's a slow climb
But, I'm good at being uncomfortable
So I can't stop changing all the time

I notice that my opponent is always on the go
And won't go slow so as not to focus and I notice
He'll hitch a ride with any guide as long as they go fast
From whence he came
But, he's no good at being uncomfortable
So he can't stop staying exactly the same"

I find the juxtaposition of "I'm good at being uncomfortable So I can't stop changing all the time" and "he's no good at being uncomfortable So he can't stop staying exactly the same" extremely profound.

Tom in Paris

I LOVE these lyrics. They don't even need music though I'd probably like it if ever heard it. Thank you Tom in Paris.

Done in Los Angeles.
(Like, really done.)

I have promised myself I will visit the US if I can (financially ;-) when I retire in a few years. You, Done, indeed both of you ;-), are one of the many people on RfM I hope to meet when I hit the States.

It'll probably be in about 2025, so hopefully we'll have Covid controlled in some way by then, in the second-rate science fiction novel packed with worn-out tropes that passes for reality these days ;-)

However, there are some discomforts we never want to be comfortable with, like being mistreated.

Yes. Mistreated. But what do you do when you are?

Mistreated. When it's physical--which is code for obvious-its one thing. But the psychological mistreatment, social mistreatment, can be so pernicious because, uh, "gray area." The phrase, "Open to interpretation", can excuse a lot of mistreatment.

Ironically though, that is exactly what Carlton McCoy Jr, Master Sommelier was talking about when he said that about discomfort. Walking into a room where you are not welcome and staying anyway, even shining anyway. The only way there is hope of that not being the case in the next room you enter is to embrace the discomfort?

Like once the Marshalls dropped the little girl in the white dress off at school, how was it walking into that classroom? The painting is touching. I would like to see another of the little girl's face in the doorway with the first paused step inside.

There is another term, "It takes guts." Not quite as classy, but . . .

For many introverts, it’s success and recognition that puts them “in a strange land,” no matter how successful they are. Easier to walk on slippery rocks in a slimy creek bed than to accept praise. For shy folks, praise is an acquired taste.

Psychopaths.

If these are put under functional-MRI neuroimaging their amygdalae are "cold" -- essentially non-functional (along with other areas of the brain where live allegiances, principal, ethics, compassion). These go through life with no fear. These do what they want uninhibited by a moral sense. Dumb ones end up incarcerated. Smart ones end up CEO's.

(Fun book is The Wisdom of Psychopaths - Kevin Dutton)

Or there is a neuroscientist https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/life-as-a-nonviolent-psychopath/282271/
Also some YouTube stuff on him for those interested who are visual learners (he's kind of a fun guy)

The biopsychoevolutionary argument is we are (if normal) "wired" to be anxious.
With anxiety comes vigilance -- those too relaxed were dinner for the tigers and poisoned by snakes, so all of us today are offspring of the surviving anxious, and so inherited their vigilance. (Next time you are on a run through the woods note that your vision automatically locks onto any horizontally configured twig or stick on the path -- that's a part of this inherited evolutionary wiring)

So one question is, are we first anxious and then the thinking-brain finds a reason for our anxiety?
Why are the incredibly wealthy and successful still often anxious?

The other thing is, we can think ahead and conceive various scenarios - adaptive for survival -- but it is a double-edged sword. The tendency is often to forecast the worst scenario "what ifs" which explains for us the anxiety that was always there already. For any life circumstance, anxiety is driven by the prognosticated worst scenario outcome.

Different take on an interesting OP

We are also a reciprocal and social creature. Hawks of psychopaths survive much better in modern time. Doves get things done.

Nice. I don't see this as a different take but rather as an expansion. The wiring. Could be another topic, but doesn't it play into everything and become every topic in a way?

Decades ago I came into contact with a true Psychopathic Liar. The lies were ridiculously obvious but I could tell he was not lying--- if that makes sense. If he said it, it was true. Wiring.

How much should we trust our anxious perceptions then? Every horizontal twig of discomfort. How should that affect our navigation?

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Decades ago I came into contact with a true
> Psychopathic Liar. The lies were ridiculously
> obvious but I could tell he was not lying--- if
> that makes sense. If he said it, it was true.
> Wiring.

That is how I felt when I hear Jeffery R. Holland talking.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How much should we trust our anxious perceptions
> then? Every horizontal twig of discomfort. How
> should that affect our navigation?
================================

This is a deep question. Critical thinking question.

I don't have an answer, but know what usually happens is we get a warning light, and then promptly ignore it - the "thinking-brain" immediately steps in and tells us why we should not believe what we are seeing before us. We contrive excuses for what our "limbic gut" is telling us. That brother is behaving as a total pathological jerk but, that just cannot be, because he's a 'saint.' (Laughed out loud at that)

Think of it:
-How many people went on missions they never wanted to but it was the "right thing to do"?
-How many times is the 'counsel' of some bishop obediently followed -- even though you know, deep down, this guy is totally an 'effing moron' working against your best interests?
-How many folks are living lives and dutifully doing things they never wanted to, burying their true gifts in art or literature, dying at a law firm because they were convinced as youth by 'wise authorities' to not follow their hearts?
-How many folks are likewise unhappily married to spouses they never actually loved for the same reason, talking themselves into doing the 'right' and 'smart' thing? That they would 'learn to love' the married?

So it would seem we usually know what to do but ignore it. We are taught to do so from childhood by well-meaning adults, who were themselves so taught.

Different angle -- if baseline persistent anxiety is a consequence of evolution, suspect it is the nidus for religions (when first formed - before these become political entities) and philosophies. It drives the search for meaning. For something unchanging.

Parting thought -- brilliant Jesuit mentor once told me:
"The limbic system never lies. The cortical, logical brain lies all the time."

"The whore-decortical brain is not to be trusted!"

   --Even Ruud Mhoters

Now I have to go look up limbic system. Love this.

Would love to know more what your experience with Jesuits was all about. Are they like Catholic Lamas? :) Are you like that now?

Your "Think of it" section has really brought me down though. My particular personality made me more vulnerable than the average. On top of that I was raised to believe self sacrifice was the ideal. I had two brothers reject that notion, but I ate it up. Makes me sick that I could check most of the boxes you listed.


Mormonism and the Cortical system. What a combo? huh?

How many people know the secret to attaining human happiness and will never share it?

"So it would seem we usually know what to do but ignore it."

I don't agree.

We are messy and emotional beings preyed upon by promises of absolutisms and perfections.

We of the developed worlds want happiness in a box, a bill, a brother in thought or naught at all.

God is dead but still offering salvation.

Our guts are good motivators but terrible executors. Our reason is great at planning and control but terrible about compassion and kindness.

We walk a razor's edge hoping for a measure of meaning in our sentences and a feeling of contentment in our souls.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2020 03:55PM by Elder Berry.

"God is dead but still offering salvation."

Deep.

Made me think of my daily yoga.