To clear up any misguided motivations you may have for reading this post, the answer is no, I am not going to disclose the juicy details of my one-night stand aboard fellow lifestyle design blogger Andrew MacPherson’s sailboat. (Just kidding, I have never met Andrew MacPherson, nor have I ever engaged in sexual activity while on a sailboat. Actually, now that I think of it, I’ve never even been on a sailboat. Note to self: Add to goals for 2010. The boat, that is.)
All kidding aside, this post examines one of the reasons why we often don’t take action when we should (and need to, for that matter), and how you can gain the necessary perspective to get off your sexy little tush, and start doing what your soul pleads for . . . instead of using the popular but ineffective method of close-my-eyes-really-tight-and-hope-it-just-happens. (Both my current hair cut and the fact that there is not a white 2010 Audi R8 parked outside, speak to the flaws of using that approach.)
Understanding Arbitrariness As Your New Secret Weapon
Among lifestyle design enthusiasts, the concept of the nine-to-five paradigm being nothing more than an arbitrarily assigned time frame for doing business is widely known and accepted. There is absolutely nothing particularly special about the hours between 9am and 5pm (or 8am and 6pm, if we’re being realistic), nor is there any rule of the universe that claims that human beings will be most productive during that time. Personally, I find I’m most productive either very early in the morning, before 9am, or very late at night, after 10pm. But in essence, the 9 to 5 system was likely created and since perpetuated in an effort to increase work productivity by ensuring that everyone would be available to do business at the same time, all of the time. A bit reminiscent of The Stepford Wives, but with a quick costume change from apron to high-powered business suit, complete with matching venti Starbucks latte, hold the whip cream, thanks.
Perhaps my favorite example that best illustrates the concept of arbitrariness is that of human language. (Bear with me, it’s related I promise.) Language is, on all accounts, nothing more than an arbitrarily assigned system of sounds that we have all collectively agreed upon to use in order to communicate. Take English, for instance. There is no inherent meaning in the /p/ sound — admit it, you totally just stopped to pronounce the puh — but somehow, we all know that when we see that little line with a circle on top, facing to the right, it sounds like puh. Yet, even without this agreed upon system of communication, gliches still occur. Take the word “fish,” for example. We spell it that way because f makes fuh, i makes ih, and sh makes shhh, right? But theoretically, “fish” could also be spelled like “ghoti,” and still be argued that you’d pronounce it the same way: gh is pronounced like f in “tough,” o is pronounced like ih in “women,” and ti is pronounced like shhh in “nation.” So, is the f sound represented by the letter f, or by letters gh? As speakers of English, we know that the answer is both. But do we know why? No. Unless some evil mastermind is royally *@#%$*& with us from some remote little station in the sky (did anyone just picture Dr. Claw, from Inspector Gadget by chance? No? Okay, moving on…) there is no reason why. This is an example of arbitrariness at its finest.
Language may be arbitrary; however, what isn’t arbitrary about it are the emotions that we attach to certain words or phrases. To illustrate, how do you feel when you read the word, “marriage?” You either just got this warm, fuzzy feeling inside, complete with images of a beige minivan and family road trips dominated by never ending games of I Spy, or…you’re like me and threw up in your mouth a little, and then images of being shackled to a cranberry-colored La-Z-Boy and the depressing thought of never being able to have one night stands on random sail boats came to mind.
Whatever your position, when we hear certain words, we associate them with certain feelings. Another humorous example of this relates to when I spent a year living in Quepos, Costa Rica. In Quepos, it’s no surprise to hear the word “jueputa” thrown about, which translates to “son-of-a-bitch” in English. It’s especially popular whilst watching La Sele, Costa Rica’s national soccer team, on TV. In any event, this word was quickly integrated into my rapidly expanding Spanish vocabulary, and was used quite liberally on my part…mostly because it’s a fun word to say. Fast forward a few years to this past summer, when I lived in Santiago, Chile. In an effort to establish rapport with some fellow Chileans, I immediately resorted to my go-to vocabulary word, and began spouting jueputa this, jueputa that, only to be met with instantaneous looks of absolute horror, followed by a stern No digas eso! After getting some much-needed clarification, I soon discovered that, while jueputa translates to the same thing, it does not mean the same thing: It is only used in Chile during serious fits of anger and is considered quite offensive. My bad. The point here is to show a good example of how words can carry vastly different meanings and associations, depending on an infinite number of factors.
Why am I telling you all of this, and what it have to do with sex?
So, the most fundamental system that we have available to us, language, is entirely arbitrary until we attach some meaning to it. And if language is the vehicle through which we co-construct our ideas, beliefs, perspectives and all that jazz, then by default, aren’t they arbitrary as well, operating only as a function of the emotions we’ve attached to them? Let’s experiment:
Social Construct Possible Emotion Attached
(Especially If You’re a Pansy)
Marriage Love
Right v. Wrong Guilt
Race Fear
Religion Hope/Fear
Money Anxiety
Inherently, these social constructs mean nothing, until we, as people, assign them meaning. And this is exactly how such societal institutions gain their power–by leveraging the emotions that we have attached to them.
From this perspective, anything and everything you do is actually quite meaningless, unless you allow it to have meaning through your emotions.
Arbitrariness & Lifestyle Design
So on the flip side of things, this knowledge has the potential to be quite empowering in terms of lifestyle design. Theoretically, though perhaps an oversimplification, if you can control your emotions, then you can control which arbitrary social constructs you elect to participate in, including that of nine-to-five. And by controlling the social constructs you participate in, you are, effectively, designing your life the way you see fit.
That said, perhaps the most important social construct we can choose to control is that of consequences. It’s the notion of a consequence that holds us back most, and might very well be the reason why you’re sitting here reading this right now instead of fulfilling your dreams. The entire perception of a consequence is nothing more than yet another social construction that is in our consciousness based on a number of past experiences in which the outcome may have been less than desirable. Those less than desirable outcomes have produced in us the emotion of fear. We’ve internalized that fear, and as a result, when we contemplate trying new things, we are now conditioned to consider the potential consequences and, as such, feel fear. Oftentimes, out of fear of the consequence that we don’t want to face, we consciously or unconsciously decide to avoid that consequence–and, as such, that fear–by avoiding the new experience. Because we haven’t experienced the new experience–and the potential positive outcomes that could arrive as a result–we don’t have anything to weigh the fear against. So the fear tips the scale in its favor every time, and we don’t take action. This is a serious problem.
In order to get over this psychological battle of bullshit, it becomes necessary to force yourself into the experience. By living the experience and garnering the positive outcomes that can be derived, we are empowering ourselves against the emotion of fear. Now we’ve got something to weigh it against. I believe this is a perpetual cycle, and one of the reasons why travel can become so addicting. Once you start having positive experiences with travel, then you will begin to associate travel (read: new experiences) with positive experiences and, eventually what happens is that the positive associations you have with travel will far outweigh any of the negative consequences/fears/reservations you might have about it, such as jungle fever, uncontrollable bouts of diarrhea or being kidnapped by Bin Laden and being forced to have his babies. (What is wrong with me?)
The point here is that if consequences are arbitrary, and they only exist within our minds as a function of fear, then stop empowering that fear, go make yourself a Johnny Walker, give the next random person who walks by a good slap on the ass (for good measure) and take action on whatever it is you’ve been contemplating doing, even if it’s just that first small step.
And then go have some meaningless sex.
