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Your Mission: Destroy Yourself While You Still Have Time!

Make some mischief with yourself. Stay tuned for a powerful exercise at the end of this mischievous lie-filled rant!

False Beliefs

(Thanks to salviaforme for the cartoon.)


Sinners Beware: What you are about to learn will help you to realize you will never be punished and you have never actually done anything wrong. There really was never anyone to give you permission in the first place. You made up the joke, and the joke is on you.
Before we get too deep into making mischief, know that I do not mean suicide or any kind of destruction to your body. I encourage the destruction of how you think about, interpret, and experience the events of your life.
Correct. You must destroy yourself while you still have time. It will feel better to get it over with now and not a moment later.
…there are things you can accomplish in the span of a single minute that would blow your mind…
Who wants to sit up screaming in terror on a deathbed after having the realization that who you really are was not who you thought you were all those long, hard years?
I promise you, it will feel much better to sit up screaming in terror and have that realization now with the potential for a good amount of life still ahead of you. The life awaiting you after your own terrifying moment of realization may expose you to an abundance of love, adventure, and creativity.
Enthusiasm and zest for life get hidden under crushing ideas, expectations, beliefs, shoulds, ought tos, and musts that inform and define your idea of who and what you are. This conglomeration piles up like heavy sediment at the bottom of a river. Who and what you are is something far different and far deeper than ANY ideas you or anyone else have ever had.

Thanks to Brian M. Smith for the image.

You are the flowing river. The sediment is just garbage that other people threw into you. The sediment is not a problem unless you idetify with it and confuse it for your real self. Then it piles higher and higher until the river gets choked out and dammed up…..a stagnant pool…..
What you are is something different than anything it is possible for you to even think about. More on that later…
I lied eariler this post. I said you must destroy yourself. Actually, you really aren’t required to do anything. Most of you will never destroy yourselves in the ways described in this article. This offering goes out to the handful of people who will try the experiments they are about to read. Thank you.
In an earlier article for 30pov.com, which you can read by clicking here, I encouraged the suicide of all false ideas and false selves. False selves arise from ideas and beliefs. Ideas and beliefs arise from one’s assignment of meaning to organic, dynamic, and otherwise meaningless experiences.
Do you remember each morning that you are a creature, an animal among other animals, creating meaning where there is none? Do you know in your body that you are not a sinner, and you never could be? Do you remember that the sun never sets? Do you remember the possibility that you could enjoy everything you experience, even the really difficult stuff? Does that piss you off?
The meanings we give to our experiences then inform our beliefs. The beliefs inform our actions, thoughts, and interpretations of new experiences.
Do you have a friend who has strong political beliefs? Have you ever noticed that you can predict that friend’s reaction to events and certain experiences before the event takes place? The reason for this is simple. Your friend with the powerful political beliefs has a set of prepackaged conclusions and reactions to events. All events will be interpreted through the political beliefs to arrive at the conclusions demanded by the political beliefs.
Imagine a science experiment in which the end result was known ahead of time, and the experiment was designed to arrive at the preconceived result. That would not be much of an experiment; it would be a total farce. The personalities weighing most humans down are equally total farces.
We humans often seek out people and information that reaffirm our conclusions and beliefs about life. You want others to reinforce the beliefs you hold. It feels good. It takes less effort than actually thinking and experiencing the uncertainty underneath every experience. It seems much easier to pretend you know what’s going on all the time than to face the deep uncertainties underpinning most experiences in life.
It might help to think of the beliefs and ideas you hold about yourself as the backdrop, background, or props behind all of your actions and experiences. Though they might hide out of your awareness, they inform and color everything else you experience.
If you believe that you are a bad person, you will interpret other people’s actions in ways that reinforce your belief. If someone you know walks into the room and doesn’t notice you, you will automatically take it personally and imagine you have done something wrong, or that the person is mad at you for some reason. You will not even consider other interpretations and other possibilities.
Robert Anton Wilson wrote in Prometheus Rising, “The prover proves what the thinker thinks.” Wilson’s assertion can also be understood in this manner: the meaning you assign to your experiences–while forgetting that the meaning originated with you–will reinforce the beliefs you hold about yourself.

The less beliefs and ideas you hold about yourself, the more free you will be to experience events as organic, dynamic, and

—:::NEW:::—

Your experiences can never be new to you if you enter them with preconceived ideas and conclusions about yourself.

“How can I break free?”

By ruthlessly seeking out and destroying every idea you have about yourself, you will begin to remember an old and forgotten part of yourself. Underneath all the concrete and asphalt¾all the ways you were taught to think of yourself and interpret your experiences¾there is another part of yourself. That part of you has clarity.
I have lied again—–::::::::What I write of here is not a part of anything. There is a whole creature under the dross of the personality. Your personality was just a tool you created to help you get by while you learned about and experienced your life up to now. Perhaps you have confused your personality with the real You? …..Did you?….
Do you always know what you are going to do next? Do you ever surprise yourself or your friends?
If, and this is a very big –IF–   ?you? find yourself longing to escape from your own personality…..if you long to break free from your prepackaged reactions to life, other people, and yourself……take action….
Open a new word document or get out a piece of paper and a pen.
Make a list of all the personality traits you can identify about yourself. Write your common behaviors and reactions. Make the list as long as you want, you can always add more later on. Add some descriptions of yourself other people have shared with you. Include any descriptions your parents and teachers gave you.
Think of what other people expect of you. Do they expect you to always be happy? Do they expect you to be angry? Late? Early? Identify what you think of yourself.
After you make the list, pick out one item on it and do the opposite. Do anything but live up to that trait. Remove the trait from your life and try a new strategy. It won’t necessarily feel good. When you begin making mischief with your own personality, you may feel like you are dying, or overwhelmed with anxiety.
Let the anxiety and fear remind you that :::You are changing and growing:::::
I would say that the real you holds tremendous beauty, but I would be lying to you again.

The real you is the creator and beholder of all beauty.

By beauty I mean life, and by life I mean everything. This does not mean things always have to go well, and it also does not mean that everything has to be pretty, easy, and simple. Figure it out for yourself.
Do this every day, and add to the list as you identify more and more traits you think are your own.
The real you is what remains after you have destroyed all the traits you once let define you. Your personality is nothing more than a game. If you must have a personality, and it seems we must, create one deliberately that gets you more of what you want. When it does not serve you, scrap it and create a new one.
Remember not to forget that this process may disturb you and your friends and family. Many people expect and demand consistency. Do you want to keep living the life everyone else has imagined for you?
To get in touch with yourself, you can try one or more of the many experiments I have tried and suggested on my blog, Escape Plans Unlimited. If you want personalized training and a helpful hand through some of these processes, check out Creative Deconstruction for a list of options.
A quick way to get in touch with a more real YOU is to ask yourself the following questions as many times a day as you can remember:

  1. Who would I be without my memories?

  2. What the Hell is Going on Here?

What are you waiting for? Get Free. Make mischief within yourself.

There are things you can accomplish in one single minute that will

…blow…your…mind…

You really can let go of all definitions and conclusions you have ever had about life, the universe, and yourself.
What remains after you let go is……….::::::::::::::——–>>>>>>>?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Did you know I was going to say that?

10 responses to “Your Mission: Destroy Yourself While You Still Have Time!”

  1. Avatar janna hart says:

    great page, very interesting ideas, actually totally cool, thank you Garrett.

  2. Avatar Garrett says:

    Thanks much, Janna! I enjoyed writing this piece.

  3. Avatar Megs says:

    I REALLY enjoyed this article, Garrett, and I plan to forward it to some friends and family of mine. I made the list you prescribed and decided that the first trait I am going to do the opposite of is: being 5 minutes late for most things. I am going to be at least 5 minutes early from now on. Lots of other traits to go through… bringing more consciousness into each moment instead of running on the habit pattern track of my Meghan Personality. I feel changed from some of my old ways, especially lately, and this article is a well-written reinforcement for me once more. I appreciate what I perceive as you tackling very alternative, yet logical, and freeing subjects that truly promotes legitimate and authentic growth of each of our unique selves. The clear observer. I applaud this – merci beaucoup!

  4. Avatar Garrett says:

    Thanks for the comments, Meghan, and thanks even more for doing the exercise. It is a fun one that can go on and on forever, until each moment holds true freedom….

  5. Avatar j says:

    On the right track, Jack!
    <3
    j

  6. Avatar Sue Q says:

    Megs forwarded your article and I made my list and know there are a lot of changes to be made to improve my life. I have been taking a hard look for a while now and see I’ve been on the wrong track, but I’m working everyday to rectify that. Good work!

  7. Avatar lee lee says:

    {speaking of interventions…} this sounds like detox or something. quite frankly, i’m just not ready for that. {i’m now leaving the room, in a drunken, doped-up, high-on-myself rage}

  8. Avatar Garrett says:

    Sue, thanks so much for stopping by. Glad to see you are enjoying the technique. It can be a bizarre experience to see a list of traits about oneself written out on a piece of paper. Kinda like a script for a movie…
    Thanks li’l j.
    Thanks lee lee…..lol……Bright Eyes has a song that has apt lyrics for right now, “So believe in who you are…and just keep acting out the part…but at the end of the play, the audience walks away….and I’ll be standing alone on a well lit stage.”

  9. Avatar Garrett says:

    The “…I’m just not ready for that.” gave you away.

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Jack Wild About Jack Wild

Jack Wild has spent the last 10 years treading and creating paths of liberation and wellness. He studied yoga in Hawaii; massage, raw foods, martial arts, zen meditation, the tarot, tantra, and kabbalah in Oregon; and Radical Undoing and Energized Meditation in Arizona.

Read more by this author on 30POV .


Issues

December 2009
Season Finale
November 2009
{Seven Deadly} Sins
October 2009
Mischief Making
September 2009
Green Ethics
August 2009
ESCAPE