Reclaiming Life

Fragment from imaginary dialogues

“How can I increase life-density[<contextual-link; medium length]?“

“One way, as we’ve talked before, is through life-stacking[<link; medium]. 

Another way is through what I call life-reclaiming.”

“Like reclaiming verbal-empties [<link; short] and such?”

“That’s one aspect of it. Another aspect we might call reclaiming behavioral-empties.

Habits are paradoxical. 

On one hand they are essential to our growth because they automate behavior, making it effortless, which frees up mental-space, allowing the full expression of genius.

On the other hand, habitual-behavior has a tendency to vanish into mindlessness (and joylessness). Bringing mindfulness back into (most of) them is another important component of Artful Living. You might think of it as habit maintenance.” 

“Life maintenance even.”

“Another aspect we might call reclaiming transitional-empties.

Imagine you’re absorbed in an activity and suddenly feel the need to go to the toilet. You’ll likely mindlessly rush to get it over with, so that you can quickly return to what you were doing. This is an instance of what I call transitional-time.” 

“Makes me think of Robert Greene’s distinction between alive time and dead time.”

“That’s a beautiful distinction. In my view, alive time has to do with how Joyfully Present you are in what you’re doing. 

What I call Joyful Presence is a combination between Presence and Meaning.

You can be Present when doing an unpleasant activity, and that’s wonderful.
Being Joyfully Present means being Present and making the activity Meaningful. This is a creative process.

Transitional-time is often dead time, time perceived as keeping us away from something.

Artful Living means deeply realizing that all time is precious, and coming up with creative ways to turn dead time into alive time. 

The example with going to the toilet is also an instance of what I call transitional-space. The default is to walk from A to B.

What if you danced from A to B?

Artful Living means coming up with creative ways to make use of space and integrating movement into your life. 

Another type of transitional-empty has to do with what I call transition(al)-points.

You do activity A, feel an impulse to do activity B and immediately give in to it. The switch from A to B is a transition-point.

Any transition-point is a decision-point. Mindlessly giving in to an impulse means skipping a decision-point.

In an important sense, reclaiming life means reclaiming decision-points and artfully using them to EVOLVE.”

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