Unexpected Heart Attack
I had a friend a few years ago who had a light heart attack.
He didn’t need surgery or even a stay in the hospital. But for him and his wife it was pretty terrifying.
Once the fear was gone and he realized he wasn’t going to die, he got a major lecture from his doctor.
I have this neighbor who is a woodworking genius. He’s been retired for about ten years. I think he was an accountant or some other white collar job.
Hanging Out In The Garage
The other day I was outside and I saw him so I went over to talk to him. We hung out in his garage, talking the whole time.
We talked about random stuff the whole time, and in about an hour he built a perfect looking birdhouse.
Funny thing is he didn’t measure anything. He eyeballed the whole thing, and it came out perfectly.
Ancient Memories
When I was in Junior High School I took woodshop. The first half we did these tiny projects. Each took a week or so. They were cool but they didn’t seem to be anything useful.
I saw this lecture by an anthropologist a few years ago. He was talking about self-awareness and consciousness.
Which is kind of odd, since you’d think self awareness and conscious are things that psychologists or neurologists would talk about.
Conscious Mind Instinct
But he talked about self awareness from a human instinct standpoint. He said most of our human instincts are like meta instincts.
Like some animals have a curiosity instinct, but it only shows up when it’s directed at certain types of food.
But humans have a general curiosity about stuff in general.
He said self awareness is a meta instinct that popped up when our brains started getting really big.
Rise Of The Nomad
When we started to wander around. That our self-awareness instinct helped us to learn how to survive in many different environments.
Other animals, for example, show up with a bunch of pre-programmed instincts for certain environments and that’s that.
But humans can learn to live anywhere.
He said the best description of our self awareness is a new instinct generator. To be aware of we need to learn, and then learn this to the point of unconscious competence.
New Instinct Generator
Once it’s learned to the point of unconscious competence, that’s a new instinct.
According to this guy, that is our purpose, from a biological, anthropological point of view.
To continue to learn more skills, so we can get more stuff.
Today, we’ve kind of short circuited that process.
Short Circuits
We want to get more stuff, but if we get more stuff without going through the process of learning more skills first, it’s not nearly as satisfying.
This is why we are such hopeless consumers in modern times.
The second half of class we built this wall unit. It combined all the stuff we’d learned the first half.
It had most stuff you find in a house. It wasn’t hooked up, but it had electrical wiring, plumbing, a window, insulation and even a roof.
No Tape Measure?
I asked him how he managed to build a birdhouse without measuring anything, and he told me I’d only watched the final step.
The first step is to imagine something in mind. Then think about thing for a couple of weeks.
To practice building it in mind, building it several dozen times in mind first.
Thought Into Thing
Then when you’ve got all the bugs worked out, the final time you build you build it in real life.
Since you’ve practiced so much in mind, building it in real life is easy and familiar, even if it’s the first time.
He sat him down and said look, most people make the mistake of living on auto pilot.
Auto Pilot Life Dangerous
You go to work, you come home, you eat whatever feels good. When you’re hungry, you go to the supermarket and get whatever looks good.
If you do that, you’ll die a lot sooner than you need to.
But if you think of your body like a tool, like a sophisticated piece of equipment, and take care of it like a sophisticated piece of equipment, it will last a lot longer.
You’ll get more use of out it.
Respect Your Temple
One way to think of this sophisticated piece of equipment is as a temporary holding place for your consciousness.
The better shape you keep yourself, the longer you’ll be able to enjoy your consciousness.
Slip Through Your Fingers
If you take yourself for granted, your consciousness will have a much shorter life span.
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