Practices of Certainty, How to Not Be Boring & Mistakes

Amigos y amigas!

Saludos from the freeeeezzzzing UK 🥶❄️☃️.

The big 3 newsletter is here.

Let’s begin with this week’s mental health tip…

1.) Practices of certainty.

There are some things we can’t be certain about nor control.

Uncertainties:

Things outside of your control:

Understandably, some people distract themselves from this harsh truth at every opportunity; seeking existential relief in their next materialistic pursuit or yearning for emotional regulation in screens.

But as we know, truths of life are about as easily escapable as a Mayan tomb at night, while you’ve got no clothes on and your angry ex is chasing you with a chainsaw.

There’s no escaping.

The bottom line…

To protect your mental health in a world of uncertainty you must cultivate your own daily practices of certainty.

Here’s what that means…

Practices of certainty are those one or two activities you do throughout the day you can rely on while everything else is crumbling down around you.

For example:

It doesn’t have to be working out, cooking or meditating. Your practice of certainty is anything you can rely on in an otherwise volatile world.

But here’s a rule…

Your practice of certainty can’t involve other people.

Why?

Because the actions of others are uncertain. (Remember naked in Mayan tomb at night truth of life).

If your practice of certainty is…

You’re setting yourself up for disaster on the odd chance that person can’t fulfil your practice.

Your practice of certainty must be self-governed, ultimately controllable and flexible to whatever change is happening in your life. No matter where you are in the world, you should still be able to do your practice of certainty.

So, I only have one question for you…

What’s your practice of certainty?

(Mine; working out, reading and walking).

Go deeper…

If you want an antidote to your existential fear of uncertainty then consider what the British philosopher Alan Watts (1915-1973) had to say about it.

Alan Watts was a peculiar man. Largely responsible for popularising eastern religions such as buddhism and taoism in the west, in his lectures he always comes across as a man who never took life seriously but took it incredibly sincerely. Much like a zen master would to his student, Watts had an incredible way of convincing his audience that this problem they were so worried about; the uncertainty of the future, death, how to be successful or what to do with one’s life, was a silly little problem after all. And that life really is quite simple so long as you don’t beat around the bush or worry yourself into pent up seriousness.

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Watts’ greatest work was a book he titled ’the wisdom of insecurity, a message for an age of anxiety’. Published in 1951, in 157 pages Watts begins by exploring his childhood fascination with trying to put water in an envelope and send it to someone in the post. An impossible task, much like trying to put legs on a snake or making the tail wag the dog, Watts likened this conundrum to our desire to escape the reality of uncertainty. It seems the more we try to make ourselves feel certain, the more uncertain we feel.

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But what if the opposite were true?

What if the more we embrace the nature of uncertainty the more certain we feel?

What if the more we embrace our insecurities the more secure we feel?

This is precisely the backwards law of life Watts proposed.

As he explains…

“If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure… To be secure means to isolate and fortify the “I”, but it is just the feeling of being an isolated “I” which makes me feel lonely and afraid. In other words, the more security I can get, the more I shall want. The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet… To stand face to face with insecurity is still not to understand it. To understand it, you must not face it but be it.”

So you cannot achieve certainty in a world that is by nature uncertain. But you can achieve solace in understanding the problem. In fact, to understand the problem is to solve it. To let go of the desire for certainty is to float with the current of the stream. To stand in stubbornness for the achievement of certainty is to scramble back upstream, tiring yourself out until you eventually “give up”.

Lastly, you might want to keep the words of Seneca close at hand…

“The whole future lies in uncertainty. Live immediately.”

Now let’s cover this week’s social skills tip…

2.) How to not be boring…

The only thing worse than speaking to a boring person is speaking to a boring person whilst sitting in an uncomfortable chair.

But by ‘boring’ I mean something different than a negative judgement.

A boring person is someone who hasn’t expressed the courage or vulnerability to tell us what it’s like to be them.

Part of the reason why some people are boring (me very much included in this equation because I understand I can bore others quite easily) is because of two reasons:

1.) They describe events literally, not emotionally.

2.) They’re dishonest.

Go deeper…

1.) They describe events literally, not emotionally.

We might explain events as “beautiful” “wonderful” or “dull” but we’ll remain boring if we don’t explain why.

“The person we call interesting is in essence someone alive to what we all deeply want from social intercourse: an uncensored glimpse of what the brief waking dream called life looks like through the eyes of another person and reassurance that we are not entirely alone with all that feels most bewildering, peculiar and intense within us.” - Alain De Botton

Consider the difference in interest we express towards adults and children. We often find children much more interesting because they are loyal to themselves…

Whereas an adult is more likely to rattle off how they spent the last 7 hours of their time in a procedural to do list manner, devoid of emotion, not enlightening us to how secretly they imagine themselves jetting off to Indonesia to leave everything behind because they feel incredibly bored, stand up to their boss and tell him how insecure he really is because deep down they don’t like him or how when they’re alone in their room they pretend they’re in a 17th century theatre play whilst listening to classical music and looking out of the window because doing so “shuts the world off for a while”.

“The interesting person isn’t someone to whom obviously and outwardly interesting things have happened - someone who has travelled the world, met important dignitaries or been present at large geopolitical events. Nor is it someone who speaks in learned terms about the weighty themes of culture, history or science. They are someone who has grown into an attentive, self-aware listener and a reliably honest correspondent of the tremors of their own mind and heart, and who can thereby give us faithful accounts of the pathos, drama and strangeness of being alive.” - Alain De Botton

2.) They’re dishonest

We become bored with people when we sense they’re not being entirely honest with us. That we’re being denied access to the true insecurities, joys and traumas of this person’s life.

A bore might rattle off about how their friend’s husband’s brother’s best friend is currently drinking himself into oblivion, because they lack the courage to look unflinchingly within their own problems and tell us about them.

So how can you deal with boring people?

First of all, treat them as less self aware whilst being a kind, compassionate conversationalist. Help them reorient what they’re saying back to themselves and encourage them to shed some light on what might be happening inside them. And when they begin rattling off on a topic which loses your interest or seems irrelevant to their inner world, ask them “when did this topic become a problem for you?”

How to not be boring yourself?

No human is ever truly boring.

They just appear to be boring…

1.) Because they fail to understand their deepest self.

2.) They don’t communicate it to others.

Most of the best artwork across the centuries has been of the plainest, most mundane things captured in a refreshingly simplistic way.

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(Kramskoy - The Peasant)

But if you really want to fortify yourself against being boring, remember…

The best way to avoid being boring when you talk is to mention how things made/make you feel and be willing to reveal a little bit about yourself and your inner world.

If you find yourself saying “I wouldn’t usually admit this but…” then you’re on the right track towards becoming more interesting and letting others know they’re not alone in their human weirdness.

Now let’s finalise with this week’s personal realisation…

3.) Focus on what to do next, not on what went wrong

This week I’ve realised the importance of not getting stuck in mistakes…

“If you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that you play that determines if it’s good or bad.” - Miles Davis (Jazz artist)

You ate junk food? < follow it up with cooking a nutritious meal.

You skipped a workout? < make working out the first thing you do tomorrow morning.

You got angry and yelled at someone? < take a moment and apologise.

You’re gonna mess up. That’s not the problem.

The problem is if you keep spiralling further into the downward trajectory of your mistake.

Accept the mistake and rectify it with a following positive action.

What’s next:

I’ve just found 20 more books to research for the art of social poise course. Still aiming for 2025 launch - aiming for April, could be sooner.

Next vid on the channel: how to finally conquer shyness + 10billion more videos.

Thanks for reading,

Until next week!

Lew

P.s. I learned this week cows have best friends and get stressed when they’re separated. I’m not quite sure what to do with this info. New niche?

P.s.s It’s so cold in the UK I return home from my bike rides with 3 less fingers. I wonder what the temperature is where you’re from? (Just a casual British man trying to spark up a convo about the weather; “show me you’re British without telling me”.)

P.s.s.s We’re now on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newelofknow/?hl=en-gb

Quote of the week:

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