The Mind and Its Problems

When did you first become aware of the problems in your life?

For a child, a scraped knee or a broken bone might hurt and thus be regraded as a “problem;” but, as an adult, problems become something different, don’t they?

Anxieties. Insecurities. Issues. Humans, at any age, can be regarded as having ‘problems’ (the ‘problem’ of hunger, for example, is universal). But, as you get older, and your consciousness develops alongside your self-identity, the idea of problems mean something very different to when you were a child.

A different day, a different argument. A different day, a different heartbreak. A different day, a different goal you failed to achieve.

Somehow, by some force, problems stopped being instantaneous events. Children seem to walk through life blissfully; life only occasionally hits them with a small rock that causes them to cry or feel sad.

Adults, on the other hand, seem to walk their entire life weighed down by a bag of rocks. Trudging and struggling through every day under the weight of all their anxieties and insecurities.

Have you ever considered why ‘positive talk’ is such a pervasive phenomenon in society? Why are people so hell-bent on things like motivation and affirmations? You’ve almost certainly heard the phrase

“Today is a gift. That is why they call it the present.”

Why? Why are we so obsessed with all this positivity-focused lip service?

The answer is actually quite simple; however, it doesn’t sound nice to human ears. That’s why we don’t like to confront it.

Life is not really a ‘positive’ thing.

If life really was all that great — if life and the present really were a gift — why exert all this energy talking about it?

When something is obviously true, do you obsess over it? Suppose you pick up a leaf from the floor: Would you go running around talking to people about how this thing you picked up is indeed a leaf?

No. Because it’s not remarkable; it’s obvious.

That which is true is not espoused from a voice of desperation. Only falsehood is. Positive thinking, motivational speeches, and affirmations — at least in the common forms shilled by society — are practised through gritted teeth.

Life is not inherently good or enjoyable. And this is precisely why people exert so much effort trying to make it so.

Life is problematic because we humans have things we call problems. But what, really, are problems?

They are the things we create. This mind — this consciousness we have — is like nothing else.

“Everything starts — and ends with — the mind.”

All things that occur in the world obey the laws of the universe: All objects can be reduced to their particle forms and understood as scientific matter.

But what about the mind? To really understand what I’m trying to ask with this question, an example may be helpful.

Suppose a car crashes into you whilst you are crossing the road. The objects involved in this event and their movements can be understood as scientific matters. Newton’s laws of motion can explain the movement path of the car through time. When the car collided with you and broke your bones, our understanding of chemistry and bonds allows us to understand why and how your bones broke. When you later arrive at the hospital, our understanding of human biology allows us to gauge how long it might take before you can walk again,

All of this is to understand an event that occurred in space-time as a scientific matter.

But is that all there is? Certainly not. In fact, to you, the person who experienced the car crash, all this scientific understanding is secondary. Because, foremost, this event caused you to feel something. Something beyond just physical pain. Something seemingly beyond scientific matter.

What do you feel as you lay on the hospital bed with broken legs? What do you feel as you contemplate the days before things are back to normal? What does the fear of never being able to walk again feel like?

What’s really going on here? The science tells us that all this thinking — this exercising of the mind — requires chemical energy. Indeed, it does. The science can even tell us what physical parts of the brain are active for this thinking to take place. Indeed, an MRI scan will show you this.

The discipline of psychology might even make an attempt at understanding how the events of your life, perhaps with a specific focus on your upbringing, can partially explain the thoughts you are currently having and how you process this traumatic event.

Now, I’m not here to deride the subject of psychology, but it must be noted that it is not a real science. The same boiling water that turns pasta soft hardens the egg. Psychology can posit theories that make best guesses and draw correlations, but how can it ever hope to wholly explain every individual, all their thoughts, and the intricate workings of the mind?

Science has its unmistakable value and purpose. But can you show me a discipline that wholly explains everything you felt as a result of this car crash? Why is it that another person could have experienced an identical car crash, yet the emotional pain they felt and how they processed the trauma differs to your experience?

We have entered the realm of the mind. The understanding of consciousness. The understanding of how you experience reality.

Were you ever bored at school? Did you find certain lessons boring because the subject felt absurdly irrelevant to your every day life?

Let’s go even further. The TV shows, music videos, and latest schoolyard gossip: Did you ever really have a sincere interest in any of it?

Does a human being really have a sincere interest in anything?

Perhaps only one. Perhaps because it is the only thing there is.

Reality. Your reality, and your mind that creates it.

What else really is there? What exists in your life that is not created, or at least filtered, by the mind?

Humans spend their days obsessing about this, that, and everything…

Why not examine the thing that creates this, that, and everything?