Octopus mind

I don’t know how often this happens to you but have you ever had a plan to do something, then along the way you come up with another plan to do something else, then as you are going to do that thing, that other thing you told yourself you were going to do last week but never did comes up and then as you are starting it you remember that there was something that got you out of your bed. Yeah, I suffer from that thing. And maybe there is an aptly worded description for what I’m suffering from, but I’m sure I can do some research on it after I write this.

I am at that stage in life where I’m pressured to make the most of my youthful energy. To set my self up for success as it were. I’m supposed to be honing a skill or starting a business or working for someone who will pay me well…one day, or learning a bit more because what I know now isn’t enough. It has all been quite overwhelming. From childhood, I have always known myself to be a slow learner. Maybe because I lack discipline, or maybe I can’t process information at terrible speeds unless it’s a moving image. Nevertheless, I have always had the desire to learn so many things that just don’t coordinate, or don’t make sense in a highly departmentalised institution. Even so, the speed at which I learn things means that by the time I’m competent at something, half my supposed lifespan will have passed me by. In which, by then, I’m supposed to have “lived and loved”, things you can’t seem to do in this world without money. Without money, you can’t even access the best learning tools and environment because you have to pay someone to provide that, and I must add, rightly so. This “Someone” spent years learning what the best way to do something is and suffered all the failures so that you don’t have to; now you have to make their life better. A small price to pay for growth, I would think.

Anyway, just like the topic for today, I got distracted with my ramblings. I wanted to talk about the idea of an octopus mind. A place where your brain feels like it can carry out eight million conscious tasks at the same time. I want to learn a new language, I want to learn how to become a decent cook, I want to learn how to write code, I want to become a better photographer, I want to learn how to become a better writer, I want to learn graphic design, I want to pick up a martial art and I want to become a better reader. In today’s world, each of these aspirations is an entire career, well-paying and impactful in its own way, with a library’s worth of books to read and learn from. Where do you start? What do you start with? Especially because you are also living in the same world where the amount of control over elements you can exert your will on is limited to how much you don’t care about other people and about how much them not caring about you, you can withstand.

My octopus mind grows new limbs every morning and finds a new path every midday. It has calculated and foreseen a new career path and all the amazing things I can and will do if I take this path in life, and all the things I can suffer from there as well. But it also means that my mind can’t rest on one idea and try to perfect it.

I recall coming across the Japanese idea of Kaizen in the 2003 film “The Last Samurai”, where people living the life of the samurai woke up every day to do the one thing they loved and were meant to only get better at it. To be fair, they also lived in communities where they had shared responsibilities such as farming or hunting for food and cleaning the houses, or construction. But in my life, I have to wake up and make money for someone else and be paid less than 1% of what I’m producing and yes that is the whole point of Capitalism but it being such a wide spread idea that our environment bends towards that it’s demands should make one think about the alternatives.

What can I do to get hold of this Octopus? My inability to be really good at any one thing or even see how good I am at one of them keeps me from enjoying the benefits of having a singular vision for my future. Maybe, therein lies the problem? Maybe there is no singular path, and we just walk where one forms before us. We walk through the doors that open for us and believe them to be divine intervention when it’s simply the impossible probabilities of nature dictating what we are going to do next.

The Idea of a singular path falls into another Japanese philosophy. The concept of Ikigai. Now I don’t know whether these guys were the brainchild of the concept but the idea is that finding your purpose in life should be measured by elements of “What the world needs”, “What you love”, “What you’re good at”, and “What you can get paid to do”. The intersection of these elements is said to be where you can find your answer. Of course, as with anything in life, it is easier said than done, but I think having a sense of the aforementioned ideas can be the first step in trying to tame the octopus mind and maybe even get it to swim.

Anyway, until next time.

Written by Denzel Maniple Everd