Realizations and Rationalizations

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Perseverance and the Definition of Insanity

We have all heard that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over expecting different results. We were also taught from birth that the key to success is perseverance: to never give up. In the parlance of the hippie counter culture of the 1960’s: to Keep On Keepin’ On.

The witticism about insanity is commonly attributed to none other than Albert Einstein although there is no concrete evidence that he ever said it. It does not seem like something that Einstein, the master of thought experiment would say. Instead, that clever word play seems to have originated as spoken by a character in feminist mystery novelist Ernie Mae Miller [cite] Sudden Death (1983). However, the association of repetitive behavior with insanity goes back to the 19^th century

A similar slogan, “Insanity is making the same mistakes over and over and expecting different results” has been documented from a pamphlet distributed on the streets of Chicago by Narcotics Anonymous in 1983. Never Give Up and topics on perseverance in general have been talking points of motivational speakers, armchair psychologists, life coaches and personal development narratives since way before Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking came out.

So how do we reconcile the “repetition/expectation” definition of insanity with good old American self reliance: guts and determination, keep on trying, never give up, whatever it takes attitude to overcome obstacles and become success oriented. In one word: perseverance. Then there is another: Intention.

There are so many reasons not to accept the insanity plea. Surely at some point you are following in someone’s footsteps, standing on the shoulders of giants, someone has achieved goals before. You are not in competition with anyone else to reach your own goals. Life should not be a competition, even if it were, that kind of competition “ain’t nothin’” since only you have the power over your own life. No one has to lose for you to win. You are tougher than you think in your darkest hour. When your sanity is called into question by malevolent busybodies with specious slogans, let your own rationalizations prevail.

Failure does not exist. The most important thing to know is that failure only occurs if you allow it. failure can never exist unless we create it for ourselves, The New Age version of failure gores like this: mistakes are not failures, it’s just a quantum take on mistakes, feelings of giving up are not failures, just detours that are taking longer, failure is only when you completely give up on something that was dear to you means a lot to you, therefore failure is a choice. No one can tell you with authority that you are a failure; failure is an internal state of mind. Even in adverse circumstances, from the experience of something bad, eventually something good will come from it. Something which might not have happened had the adversities not taken place.

Once committed to goal be deliberate, keep one foot in front of the other, believing that you are strong enough to achieve whatever you want, eliminating the very idea of failure from your mind. This way the propensity for failure ceases to be a choice, and you will persevere no matter what, stay motivated

To disperse the errant logic of that glib definition of insanity lets look at definitions of rationality and success. According to Chinese folklore, the definition of success is to be happy. So by that rationalization, how to be successful every day becomes how to be happy. Te quality of continuing to make an effort, even if difficult or takes too long, finish what stared even if despite obstacles, hold firmly and steadfastly to purpose or undertaking, being tenacious not giving up. find a way to have a vision of something worth striving for. Stumbling blocks are actually stepping stones; practice

For instance, there are many Olympic champions who have overcompensated for physical disabilities. Many multi-millionaires have come back from bankruptcies and living in extreme dire poverty. For these people. failure does not exist in the real world, merely adversarial circumstances to overcome.

Counterpoint to the definition of insanity: success or mental well being or sanity. Does this kind of success necessarily include lack of failure? Not at all! Remember the system environment analogy in which the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. There is always a bigger hand-basket, the Universe, which becomes a fountain of energy and beacon of hope that prevents the dissipation of our little world.

So if there is no such thing as failure…maybe there is no such thing as insanity at least in the doing the same thing over and over sense. In that repeat performance sense of insanity, there is a misconstrued equivocation of insanity with repetition and failure. Musicians and athletes calls that practice. Scientists and inventors call that experimentation. Thomas Edison endured over a thousand failures while inventing the tungsten filament light bulb. “Now we know something else that does not work” was his quote. Mistakes are not necessarily failures. One characteristic of all successful individuals is perseverance.

The Psychic Seer, the Delta Bluesman, the Folk Singer and the Civil Rights Orator all had a mantra: “Keep on Keepin’ on”. Just go on moving forward after setbacks and what seems to be failure in life. Like the resurrection of the mythological phoenix from ashes, if you do the work you love, you will never go to work. There is a karmic cycle to a pattern of repetitive behavior which inevitably results in a downward spiral that can be misinterpreted as insanity. That Cycle can be broken rather easily.

How to break a downward spiral cycle of insanity and failure: First of all, one must have a strategy and re-organizational skills. Second, one must have vision of a better way; Third, one must banish failure from the realm of possibilities and pure potential choices. Finally one must have hope while realizing that Hope is not a strategy and failure is not an option. The only way to overcome adversity is with positive energy: do not allow to be one’s self to be dragged into downward spiral emotions or actions. Don’t try to deflect downward spiral karma onto bad actors. It wouldn’t hurt a bit to send your good vibrational energy of love to to the universal unity consciousness. Love your obstacles; embrace your adversities; take setbacks as learning experiences; adversities are teachers.

The rationale of equating some kind of repetition and expectation of results is way outdated. That primitive definition of insanity goes back to at least the nineteenth century when the use of the word insanity was beginning. The quote about Definition of Insanity appears on coffee mugs and posyters on line with a mistaken attribution to Albert Einstein. As such, some contemporary relevance of that slogan is due to invoking of the legacy of Einstein. How could he possibly be wrong?

For the Repetition/Expectation definition of Insanity to hold water, one must project failure onto one who practices perseverance. This reasoning would be based on the twisted notion that insanity and failure are somehow connected and that doing the same thing over and over again is somehow unreasonable and delusional. The Repetition/Expectation definition of Insanity is therefore a preposterous extrapolation of the flawed logic that insanity is the result of repeated failures or a pattern of failure in one’s life.

How can “Over and over again” be construed as insanity and subsequently relegated to failures or somehow insanity constitutes failure? Is it the repetition or the expectations causing the Insanity?

Granted, it is repetitive behavior that generates a downward spiral into suffering, whether it be working at the wrong occupation, following the wrong leaders, loving the wrong woman, running with the wrong crowd. Whenever entering into the downward spiral becomes a pattern, maybe it is time for change. A change which advances the consciousness of self preservation that has positive affectations for everyone and everybody. Remember these two counter insanity slogan mantras: “if you do the work you love, you never go to work” and “Change the World by Changing Yourself”.

Those who subscribe to the “Repetition-Expectation Insanity” aphorism are also forgetting long game strategy. Only by hanging in there can one become the last man standing. All big things have small beginnings. Find a way to have a vision of something worth striving for, and commit to that vision. Overcome obstacles and adversarial circumstances, not just for personal survival but for achievement of a grand goal which is of service to all mankind. It is always darkest before dawn, Perseverance!

Keep on Keepin’ on also goes back to the tie-dye, flowers and beads, bell bottom jeans hippie cultures of the 60’s. That slogan is present in song lyrics and counterculture posters, magazines, comic books and beat poetry. It stared out as a defiant rallying cry against the establishment and a mantra of support for hippie ideals of peace love and understanding. Martin Luther King used it famously. That prescient expression acquired new meaning as the long hairs were assimilated into mainstream society and their protest songs became elevator music.

There is a paradox when bad becomes good: good things can come from bad events. This happens every day. We might beware of getting into the habits of jumping to conclusions and making pre- formed judgments. One might look past the blind repetition part of this so called definition and take a look at the insanity of unreasonable expectations. Perhaps all it takes is a new viewpoint a change in perspective, looking at the behavior pattern from a new paradigm. Just consider an event bad and know that something good will come from it.

Sometimes one must do the best with the information that one has to work with, Many times that information becomes obsolete or drastically revised through constructive learning, Changing ones viewpoint necessarily entails changing definitions of this or that meaning of success and failure. Let there be new dimensions of comprehension and we will see how astonishingly possible our dreams and aspirations really are.

On a universal unity consciousness level one is proactively choosing from almost infinite field of pure potential experiences and selecting possible actions not only of our own but actions by all the others around us. There is a message in the madness of others which one insinuates upon themselves; their projection of insanity is something that you are saying to yourself about your situation. So what is it that you are telling yourself? You always know what you are doing subliminally, even though you may not be cognizant of that subtle awareness of intention. You may not even be conscientiously aware of your own intentions and find out about them through feedback from other individuals.

It is fear that creates the accusations of insanity in our lives. So even if you make no mistakes, you will suffer from the negative influence of bad actors since you chose those particular probabilities of those bad actors and inadvertently sustained bad actor work. In a perverse way bad actors are extraordinarily generous souls who play heinous roles so that we can learn from them. And the only point of suffering is to learn how not to do it again. You may not like bad actors but you have chosen their particular downward spiral probabilities for your own carefully designed purposes. There is a message for you in their madness, their insanity, that you are saying to yourself. So what is it that you are saying to yourself with your instigation of their actions, the actions of others, bad actor actions that you have conjured up.

On a universal unity consciousness level, we are scripting life’s one act play, choosing from an almost infinite field of pure potentiality, selecting possibilities for ourselves, and the actions of others towards us: possible actions from a universal field of pure potentiality. Bad actors serve to show that the cycle of victim/domination is not productive, beneficial or sustainable for self or other. The downward spiral of repetition/expectation insanity can be can be replaced with perseverance of proactive creativity in making your dreams and goals a reality.

Perseverance is a focus of intention that is much greater than a personal sense of purpose or an individual determination to produce a desired result. Perseverance is an accommodation of one’s life experience with higher vibrational energies within the universe. Rather than being a downward spiral into failure and insanity, the “keep on keepin’ on” of perseverance is a way of communicating and participating with an omnipresent and spiritual level. A level of purpose unfolding, not by brute force or sheer will power, guts and determination, but by a process of attainment through “allowing”. In this way, dreams and desires that emanate from the universal field become realized and actualized through our conscious participatory experience.

Regarding the repetition/expectation definition, if we pay attention and identify issues of unrealistic expectations before they become discordant self fulfilling prophesies, behavior patterns that become definitions of insanity, there is nothing wrong with Keeping on Keepin’ On with positive thoughts and good energies. Good energy is the light that dispels downward spirals into contempt and insanity.

Fred Jay Ross fredjayross@gmail.com

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