THE MONTHLY EH?! - JANUARY 2025 (*the one where I attempt to talk about the vitalness of making sure you are coming from a place of groundedness)
New year, who dis?
Ok, here's an important thing to keep in mind right now:
Everything that ANYONE could ever need to hear or read has already been said and/or written. EVERYTHING.
And in the same way that you don’t need to personally understand how the wifi actually works in order to experientially understand that obviously there are other people out there who currently have a better understanding about how certain things actually work at a much deeper level than yourself (which is fine and totally understandable because it’s not possible for anybody to know everything about how EVERYTHING works — because it turns out the reality of human existence can get quite complicated once you’re willing to go beyond general navel-gazing and get into how it’s possible to Facetime in real time with humans thousands of miles away OR why every piece of life advice always seems to find a way to recommend some form of “mindfulness” and some form of “practice” based on some kind of “foundational wisdom”).
To make matters even better, most people have already heard, seen, thought, felt, and shared most of this agreed-upon wisdom for themselves (oftentimes many times over) — AND — never before has access to such actionable wisdom ever been so easily available; never so instantly shareable.
But you already know this.
It’s the kind of air-tight life advice that can be put so painfully simple and to the point that there is usually an egoic tendency to want to write off every reminder that pops up as another “no duh” cliche to be brushed aside — AND AT THE SAME TIME — these basic pieces of wisdom are also the kind of nuanced topics that can be talked about and talked around forever, with our egos wanting to dissect the recognized truth from every imaginable angle & go off on every interconnected tangent before finally surrendering to reality (until the next time our ego needs to be reminded again).
This often leads to bouts of over-intellectualized topic changes and reactionary arguments stirred up by that familiar brand of self-defensive delusion that always seems first in line to loudly bud into the narrative with a never-ending assortment of deflections & projections whenever the inconvenient topic of how ALL OF OUR supposed beliefs & opinions need to also align with EACH OF OUR demonstrable actions/intentions… otherwise it’s all just different flavours of the same biased interpretations of cherry-picked “spiritual” and “political” theory that everyone is so tired of seeing/hearing about via EVERYBODY ELSE’s hypocritical actions/intentions (while somehow always avoiding the realization that we all only have control over our own actions/intentions and that there’s no genuine personal integrity if there’s no genuine personal accountability).
We’ve all experienced feeling some version of this.
So before I risk scaring anyone else off by subjectively saying something unskillfully that stirs up the kind of feelings of discomfort & disagreement that can make a person disengage with the actual work at hand (aka: aversion) — even if boasting “I’m not wasting my time reading all that lol!” doesn’t usually stop certain people from continuing to have loud opinions and somehow still be agitated about what they didn’t even supposedly read (aka: clinging, attachment) — I mostly just want to share a quote that I think communicates what speaking from a true level of groundedness & understanding looks like.
I want to share it because I truly believe that approaching life from this level of groundedness is not only available to ANYONE who is willing to consistently apply the same recognizable wisdom/logic to their own direct experience of being conscious awareness tied to a human body/mind — BUT ALSO — it would seem that this level of genuine groundedness is exactly what’s missing from so many’s approach to a life lived with other living beings (whether one feels ready to be honest about it with themselves this very moment or not… because there’s always the next moment to try/start again, because that is how being present works):
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders, even if that person is me. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
I have bolded the last line because that seems to be the crucial part that most egos like to conveniently leave out when repackaging this kind of advice for easier consumption (ie. it’s all just a bunch of talk if none of the wisdom recognized ever gets put into action and experienced by oneself and those they interact with).
If someone shows you that they can’t talk about their “spiritual” or “political” beliefs & opinions without turning into a reactive pile of self-defensive goo whenever they are met with the slightest pushback or any kind of follow-up questions — that’s a pretty good sign that you’re talking to someone who is currently coming from a place of groundlessness.
If someone can not speak about what they believe in and why, if their beliefs & opinions feel far too rooted in whether or not other people will tell them that they totally agree to go along with whatever they’re telling them, no matter what, no questions asked (because ‘supremacy cultures/mindsets’ hate having overt hypocrisies & contradictions discussed in an open forum where other people can see/hear all the related context) — that’s also a pretty good sign that you’re talking to someone who is currently coming from a place of groundlessness.
Engage accordingly (ie. realize that your approach cannot just involve approaching from a different angle of groundlessness, even if it comes with some real clever come backs and put downs).
This is why it’s helpful to realize why one of the eight items mentioned in The Noble Eightfold Path (a path built upon groundedness) is a concept known as “skillful speech” (and why entire books can be written on that one topic alone… but here’s a short article form Ethan Nichtern if you’d like to dip your toes for a minute OR just check out this infographic I uncovered via google’n).
And if someone’s ego tries to dismiss the subjective opinions & relevant context that you have tried to share openly with others by throwing out that classic cop-out argument of “Don’t be so naive… lame stuff like ‘the golden rule’ doesn’t apply for the way the REAL world really works (that’s just fantasy stuff we tell our children before they have to grow up and become adults)!” — please remember to remind yourself that those people are not making a good counter-point.
Because there are no good counter-points when coming from a place of groundlessness (that’s kinda the point of aiming for groundedness instead).
In fact, telling someone to “be real” because “that’s not the way the world currently works” when the other person is attempting to converse openly about one of the many issues/problems with how the world “currently works” —THAT OLD FAMILIAR MOVE— is literally just them revealing that they already know the point of attempting to have these conversations, that’s why they’re so anxious about trying to avoid it.
That’s why it will often seem like the other person is trying to argue with you about points you never even made. And it doesn’t seem to matter that they’ll even admit with the arguments they bring forth that they didn’t even read any of the subjective opinions or related context that you shared (because that’s how certain they are). Some will even jump straight to the many different variations of the same, “My main opinion is that I wish people like you wouldn’t share opinions like this based on context like that and I want you to stop” retort.
This can be all kinds of frustrating if you think the point is to try and feel like everyone else thinks you’re “right”.
However, if you can be mindful enough to realize it, not only will you see that all of their self-righteous deflections & projections are coming from a place of groundlessness (literally just listen to what they tell/show you) — BUT ALSO — if you are coming from a genuinely grounded position yourself, you should also be able to mindfully recognize that uneasy feeling of what it’s like to be coming from a place of groundlessness.
And it is through that mindful recognition of seeing someone else struggle with something you’re familiar with struggling with (especially if you can remember the words/actions that you found helpful during times when you struggled to find ground) you should also be able to still see a flicker of that untapped potential in all humans to recognize & acknowledge just how much our shared humanity agrees about the root causes of our interconnected man-made problems (if only more of us could handle the harder-than-it-sounds task of actually talking openly about all of this “spiritual” & “political” stuff — which is also why “just being able to talk about” our beliefs & values needs to be a major part of the work we’re all doing… which is not the same as me saying that I think nobody else has ever realized all this stuff before OR that many people aren’t already walking what they talk while learning to focus more on the walk).
I guess, as always, that’s why this stuff often comes back to the old adage: “All I can do for you is work on myself & all you can do for me is work on yourself” — which is wisdom that I find Ram Das (aka: Richard Alpert) was really good at speaking about from a very human perspective:
Oftentimes this means being able to find the humour in the fact that the people who often complain the loudest about how the world currently works are also the ones who seem to jump the quickest to telling other people “if you don’t like it here then you should go somewhere else!” as soon as the conversation attempts to start talking about actually working on solutions (instead of forever staying locked into the egoic game of always finding something/someone to blame or judge or both).
Unfortunately/Fortunately (depending how you look at things), the only effective way to counter all of this delusional thinking and hypocritical behaviour is to make sure that we ourselves are not just coming from a slightly different groundless perspective based on similar unaddressed delusional thinking and hypocritical behaviour.
And that’s why finding a path built upon genuine groundedness (and then continuing to walk that path once you’ve found it) is the only thing left for anyone to do — because it’s always been the only thing left for any one to do.
The only way to combat faux morality is by displaying real morality; The only way to deal with other’s liquid integrity is to make sure our own integrity is solid.
Now, I know nobody’s ego is going to like things framed this way, but I think it is worth pointing out that the following familiar example is not a very good sales pitch for why someone should change the way they believe/vote/live:
“Me believe ‘good propaganda’ (aka: me smart). You believe ‘bad propaganda’ (aka: you dumb). If you confirm that you agree and consume the same ‘good propaganda’ like me, without ever questioning anything about what ‘good propaganda’ says & does, then we can go blissfully yell angrily together at all the other people who believe the ‘bad propaganda’ (conveniently, everything I don’t like or am unsure of is ‘bad propaganda’).
If you have any issues with the logic of my ‘good propaganda’, please don’t bother me with any of that ‘bad propaganda’ context as I find it much easier to trick myself into thinking that I am not coming from a place of groundlessness if I only converse with other people who also believe the same ‘good propaganda’ as me, no questions asked, just publicly confirm membership when asked (even if some of the other ‘good propaganda’ people seem to believe & do things that feel worse than some of the things I have been told to label as ‘bad propaganda’, but I’ve also been shown that it’s important to stick together with others who also take on ‘ideologies as identities’ and then get very stubborn about it all).
Much confuse, must distract.”
No, I am not specifically talking about YOU here (or back there).
And, no, it doesn’t even matter if you feel that you have more examples of “the bad side” being worse hypocrites than the side that you choose to support — if you are coming from a place that still involves taking on and/or making excuses for different variations of the same kind of hypocrisies that contradict one’s own supposed beliefs & values, you’re only making yourself into another example of another human who includes asterisks with all of their supposed foundational beliefs & values.
Which is a place of groundlessness.
I know, let’s jump from my rambling attempts at trying to re-communicate cliched concepts (that most people already know) to a nice modern day example of what it looks like when someone speaks from a true grounded position of lived foundational values (ie. they practice what they preach so their words come with more weight/power) — let’s watch Bishop Mariann Budde “confront” Donald Trump’s hypocritical ego with direct words about that pesky “radical left” idea called… *checks notes* compassion for everyone (not just ourselves) + love over hate, always & forever (amen/namaste 🙏).
And since “compassion” is the fastest way to describe The Golden Rule — I often prefer using the expanded definition of “ALWAYS treat others how you would want to be treated AND stand up for others when they are being treated in ways that you would not want to be treated, whenever/if you can.” (which I’ve shared before and I’m sure I’ll do it again) — there really isn’t any logical pushback available for any of Bishop Mariann Budde’s opponents to rationally counter what she said (and just look how powerless she made some of the most “powerful” people in the world look for a few honest moments).
If you listen to what she actually said.
Just her words.
…
This is why the predictably groundless response we got was the current figurehead for hypocritical morality & unaddressed societal greed (ie. the twice elected “billionaire” President of the U!S!A!) sitting down with his smart phone and crafting an egocentric complain-y social media post that simply oozes with undeniable groundlessness it’s almost too perfect of an example:
But the lesson here is not that YOU (or me) need to become ordained Bishops in order to truly cultivate this kind of groundedness in our lives, it’s just that you (or ME) need to be prepared to get called a “socialist-commie” every now & again by groundless humans who are not quite ready to start acting like they are aware of just how obviously rooted in groundlessness their actions/inactions are (and sometimes you just have to ask them if they can give a definition of the words “socialist” and “communist” so everybody in the comments section, including themselves, can have that moment of realizing that their whole brilliant retort was to resort to not just childish name-calling, but… name-calling that uses words outside of their literal dictionary definitions, literal definitions that it’d be good to start pulling up more often anyways).
It’s like how there are people out there who will tell you that you need to both wake up AND not be woke, which—stop me if you’ve heard this before—but that’s just another example of groundlessness.
And so is when the “facts don’t care about your feelings” people get really up in their feelings whenever others want to include certain agreed-upon facts and relevant context into the supposedly “open” conversation, and so is when… honestly, please take a moment to see if you can’t think up a few more examples of groundlessness that you’ve spotted throughout your time on earth so far (you’d be surprised how much it comes up).
But that’s part of the gargantuan challenge in front of us all — you will never run out of examples of other people’s groundlessness (especially in the present reality that we all share, as pointing out hypocrisy is basically a ‘whack-a-mole’ game that you can either play forever or until you run out of quarters).
However, none of the examples of other people’s groundlessness mean anything until YOU realize that the only actions/intentions you have control over are your own (which means we can all only ever truly work on weeding out our own contradictions… which, honestly, is usually more than enough hypocrisy to focus on working at for right now anyways — I guess that’s why none of the good advice suggests biting off more than you can chew, which is also good advice).
Because it’s only through genuinely attempting to address the realities of our human existence—which we can only do by consistently applying recognized wisdom to our own direct experience of living—that any of us are ever going to have any chance of pulling ourselves (and each other) out from under the overwhelming wave of polarization that seems to have so many pinned down on an unsustainable, groundless path.
So I will leave you with the way I remember something wise the Dalia Lama said, as I think it is the exact kind of actionable mindset needed right now (but to truly put it into action, to truly believe in what is being said, it’s going to take a bunch more people realizing the vitalness of coming from a genuine place of earned groundedness):
If there is a solution to the problem, you need to move on from worrying/complaining/blaming and realize that the good news is that there is a solution to be worked on (huzzah!)… so focus on the solution.
And if there is literally no solution to the problem, then there is literally no point in worrying/complaining/blaming after a certain point.
And there are solutions to the majority of our problems.
Despite how many people seem fixated on always trying to change the topic away from “talking about solutions” to “forever listing more & more problems that just provide more & more examples of why we need to focus on talking about how to put the solutions into action” — there are solutions to the majority of our problems.
You already know this.
And there are already people out in our communities actively trying to work on some of those solutions, all while also trying to actively talk openly & honestly about the roots of our problems (ie. there are people out there who have already realized the importance of finding their groundedness and the effort involved in trying to maintain that balance, maybe you’re even one of them).
Humans like this—the ones who know that the only livable way “out” of an anxious-minded life is to continue to go “in” to your actual experience of being—these are the humans where our needed solutions will come from (because these are the humans where our needed solutions always come from because these are the humans who always manage to find a way to do the needed work, whatever that needed work may be).
We’ve all experienced feeling a version of this.
And even though it is true that the humans who continue to push back against talking about & working on the many solutions available right now are a major reason why our societal problems never seem to get solved (and this usually involves groundlessly dismissing subjective opinions and relevant context from those who they deem as representing “the other side”) — it is also extremely important to remember that all of those people are also still humans and they will also still need to be reached by at least one other human’s attempt to communicate the importance of being/feeling genuinely grounded.
And there’s no faking groundedness (but that doesn’t mean our egos won’t keep trying to pull us off balance by using our tendencies towards craving, attachment, & aversion… and sometimes taking on a thick Boston-accent to say “Is this person saying they’re better than us?” whenever someone tries to talk about the importance of actions AND the intentions they were based on).
Until next time…
I’m going to keep up my previously mentioned plan to stay (mostly) offline and logged off from the ol’ socials until AT LEAST the end of February 2025 — HOWEVER — I also plan on continuing to put together one (1) ‘Mountown Signals’ newsletter each calendar month (and I also have this idea I haven’t found the time to flesh out better yet called: ‘The Chamber of “Non Profitable” Interests’ + I do plan to hopefully start working on more HI54.BLOG + MOUN.TOWN blog posts so this monthly newsletter can become more of an entry point to ‘read more if interested’ topics instead of another 20-minute rant about a range of topics that actually take longer than 20 minutes to talk about properly anyways) … so please feel warmly encouraged to sign-up for future monthly newsletters for FREE below (if you’d fancy something like that):
And if you resonated with this newsletter enough to want to pass it on to someone else who you think might get some value out of it, please feel warmly encouraged to do just that (oh look, here comes a ‘share’ button) ✌️
And if you think you connected with a lot (or even just a little) of the stuff I tried communicating above (or in past newsletters), but if you also feel like I didn’t quite do a “perfect” enough job explaining things in the way that you would feel more comfortable saying to someone else in your network, please remember that a lot of what is really needed right now is for more people (people like YOU) to start skillfully sharing THEIR own subjective opinions and the relevant context that inspired some of THEIR own thinking.
Because it’s not about whether I (or someone else) managed to finally word things just right, in just the way that EVERYBODY needs to hear it, so finally it clicks for everyone at the exact same time without any more follow-up effort (or without anybody threatening to take their ball and go home… even though we have other balls anyways).
Remember: just because everything has already been said, that doesn’t mean that you’ve said/shown YOUR part in the open & honest way that someone in YOUR personal orbit needs to hear/see right now from someone who is specifically YOU — so what’s YOUR version of trying to communicate this kind of stuff?
How do you create a feeling of groundedness in your day-to-day life?
What are some of the topics that create a feeling of groundlessness in you?
And don’t worry… EVERYTHING that ANYONE could ever need to hear or read has already been said and/or written. And you don’t need to hear/read all of it, or even most of it, and we don’t need to all check out the exact same stuff in order to come to the same shared conclusions based on our unique interconnected experiences.
WE all just need to remember that no matter how many beliefs & opinions we hear/read out there, the only person who can recognize wisdom as wise and experience the wiseness of the wisdom themselves is YOU (and the same thing applies to everyone else, including ME).
Because part of being human (which is what we ALL are) is knowing that being “human” is not about perfection, it’s about having the intention for trying to live a much more skillful life that maybe we’ll never quite get all the way to “perfect, all the time” (and, yes, intentions matter, especially if you ever catch yourself getting caught up in taking on someone else’s shame for someone else’s guilt-worthy dehumanizing actions/beliefs — and all because you just haven’t heard “the difference between feeling shame and creating guilt” explained in quite the right way for it to become another realization to carry in your quiver).
The truth would seem to be (and not to just me): If you consistently apply agreed-upon universal wisdom to your own actions, wisdom that does not contradict agreed-upon realities of human existence and wisdom that you can recognize & experience for yourself (aka: if you make a sincere effort to live a more skillful life based on actions/intentions that align with your guiding foundational beliefs & values) — the rest is literally just getting on with it and experiencing whether the age-old rumour about “good” actions tending to result in “good” consequences is true or not (and whether the related rumour is also true about “bad” actions tending to result in “bad” consequences).
Finally, as with anything shared with you from someone else’s perspective… there’s only one way to start finding out what you think/feel for yourself.
🍻
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Jeremy // HI54LOFI
* 95EH.CA’s Temp Intern
+ Vice President (of a garden)