I misspoke while teaching at Esalen and instead of citing the famous research study on happiness entitled “Accident Victims and Lottery Winners” inadvertently referred to it as “Accident Winners and Lottery Victims.” I thought that the irony of calling heavily-scarred survivors of near-fatal car accidents like myself “winners” while calling lottery winners “victims” would be an enticing new workshop title.
Similarly, I recently thought about creating a new workshop on authenticity and happiness with the ironic title, “Life is Weird, Other People are Jerks, and Nobody Really Knows Anything About Anything.”
With a title like this, the workshop would teach fresh perspectives on how to lower daily expectations in order to increase happiness. For example, when 712 million people on our little planet live in extreme poverty — on less than $2.15 per day — the fact that I can walk down Montana Avenue and enjoy a $4 coffee is nothing short of a miracle. When you expect nothing, miracles abound.
I do not think that unexpectance or disexpectance equals enlightenment, but it sure is a great remedy to help alleviate depression and anxiety. After all, expectations are disappointments looking for a place to happen. Reality isn’t here to cater to our whims; reality is rather indifferent to our minuscule existences.
But we are all “here” — “alive” (whatever that means) — so we should shuffle around this mortal coil with a resigned grace of someone who knows that the game is rigged but we must play full-out anyway. If you have read my booksyou know that that is my definition of “awakening,” learning how to surf the inherent paradoxes of life gracefully, graciously, and with ease.
So here are three reframings that I would emphasize in the workshop that would ultimately result in greater appreciation, authenticity, and happiness: 1. Life is weird 2. Other people are jerks, and 3. Nobody really knows anything about anything.
Life is Weird
Reality — out “there” — does not provide coherence; it just is. Actually it is fairly amorphous, chaotic. A butterfly flaps its wings in Osaka and there is an earthquake in Peru. Most of us engage in Sisyphean quests to make sense of the senseless, to understand why accidents happen, to see Jesus’s face in a graham cracker, to see patterns in apparent randomness and accept them as “meaning” something.
A bird flies into a window and we think it is an omen. A stranger smiles at us — a rarity on Montana Avenue thanks to earbuds and Beats headphones — and for a millisecond we think they are our soulmates and we are experiencing a cosmic connection. All explanations dissolve into absurdity. The bird wasn’t delivering a prophecy; it was either misguided or myopic or both. The stranger wasn’t our soulmate; they were probably smiling about the treats from the salad bar in the bag they were carrying.
We all have belief systems regarding how the universe is operating. On one hand, phenomena could occur randomly; at the other extreme, they could be fated. If life is random, then it seems rather meaningless; if fated, then it seems meaningful, but often as horrific as it can be beautiful.
Between chance and fate lies a gray area, likely beyond human comprehension. Assigning minute responsibilities to a god may lend solace, but I am unpersuaded that it is efficacious — god is probably busy doing other things—and nobody wants to fall into the spiritual bypass trap. Perhaps embracing the complexities of karma and probability waves collapsing is the best we can do to explain why certain events in our lives manifest as they do.
So if destiny isn’t the way the universe is operating and we are not pawns in some bizarre god’s chess game with unknown rules, and the universe isn’t unfolding completely at random, then why do events transpire the way they do? Since we can never be 100% certain of why reality unfolds the way it does, it is best to believe — like physicists studying spooky action at a distance — that “Life is weird.”
Other People are Jerks
When we do something we are aware of the intention behind our action. In general, we regard ourselves as non-jerks, so if something goes awry we deem it an accident or mistake and give ourselves as pass. When other people engage in similar behavior we often ascribe intentionality to them and deem them jerks.
Secondly, when our friends, loved ones, clients and patients recount how their coworkers stole credit for their idea, or that they are late because the first driver at a red light caused the ten people behind them to miss the green light because they were busy texting, what do we say? “What a jerk!” It is reflexive — a linguistic tic that affirms solidarity against the wide array of jerks misbehaving out there in the world.
The person at the red light thought that sending a text message was more important than the drivers behind them making it through the light. Everyone’s logic makes sense to them — even if it is warped beyond belief to everyone else. That doesn’t make them less of a jerk — it just means that we should make better use the of mirrors in our homes, always strive to be as compassionate as possible, and keep our sides of the street clean.
Nobody Really Knows Anything About Anything
Nietzsche suggested that we avoid adding more unknown to the already unknown, but human beings are not very adept at unknowing. We would rather be certain and wrong, than uncertain and accurate. Our attempts to understand, measure, and control reality may be just elaborate forms of denial.
That is why relativism should reign supreme in the carnival of chaos we call existence. That does not mean that every utterance in every clown car is viable or accurate; it means that everyone has their own perspective or colored lens through which they see the world.
Certainty — whether religious, scientific, or philosophical — is a mirage that evaporates upon closer inspection. Fundamentalists cling to dogmas like drowning men clutching to life-rafts and this rigidity foments conflict, wars fought over different interpretations of sacred texts or ideologies that promise utopias but instead end up creating dystopias.
The internet has accelerated this epistemological mayhem to warp speed. Paradigms shift overnight as algorithms churn out contradictory “truths” tailored to echo chambers. Yesterday’s wisdom becomes clichéd memes laid over images of a scantily-clad yoga teachers; academic experts with 40 years of experience are dethroned by influencers armed with lethal combinations of ignorance, certainty, charisma and capitalist moxie.
Can we relinquish — or at least tame — our minds’ craving for definitive narratives? Why can’t we just say, “It is what it is” or “Nobody really knows anything about anything”?
So seminarians would leave my new Esalen workshop with the mantra: “Life is weird, other people are jerks, and nobody really knows anything about anything.” Far from nihilistic despair, this weltanschauung offers clarity amidst chaos — a reminder that expectations are misguided and certainty is delusional.
The main takeaway would be to be 100% engaged in life but not attached to outcomes . Grasping or clinging to anything too tightly causes suffering. Everything is ephemeral and we must cherish the present moment even though all of our beliefs, actions and language will someday be looked upon the way you and I regard leeching, burning witches at the stake and reading “Beowulf.” We all need to pump the brakes a little bit, choose compassion over competition, and learn how to cultivate authentic happiness through secure loving relationships during our short time on planet earth.
