Homeostasis

I like the word sustainable and this other word homeostasis popped up in my consciousness recently. You already know homeostasis is synonymous with balance and it’s word associated with health, at least in my wacky vocabulary.

More often than not we are moving from crisis to crisis. One drama or problem after another. Another unexpected bill or expense another thing that disturbs us from our state of rest(if we can get it). Never a moment where everything is in its proper place and calm. This just raises our stress levels and causes us in effect to become ill. It also causes us to loose discipline as we try to treat our stress with self medication, that may turn into abuse, whether food, drugs or other.

I believe minimalism to be a great way to eliminate a good chunk of the many variables that come our way. Minimalism is mostly referred to as a way of saving money but that is only one of the many benefits. It also lowers the amount of worry and stress. The more stuff you have to deal with the less rested you are.

The human body, in relation to digestion for example is minimalist in my opinion. When we eat, the body extracts the nutrients and eliminates the excess. If we are constantly accumulating stuff and bills and stresses and disturbances it is in effect a body that is eating but not eliminating waste. We hoard things that we may never use, people that are useless(or harmful) and stuff we may not want. Its constipation.

Accept it or not, we are heavily influenced by our environment, social circles. Remember watching Saturday morning cartoons and the toys that used to be advertised. That is how you knew what toys you wanted for Christmas. The desire for the stuff was implanted into your head. Likewise your friends may tell you about this new stuff or exercise or diet they are on. This is a thought implanted into you to now investigate if not try whatever you discussed. Recently I watched a documentary called Drugs Inc, where in one episode a musician who himself was a MDMA user said that many of his fans revealed to him that they became MDMA users because the musician mentioned it in his songs. So that was an example of how those fans increased the disorder in their lives by bringing in more stuff. Stuff that they acquired because they were influenced.

I wrote a post yesterday about Miley Cyrus who in her music also referred to Molly which is a colloquial for MDMA. Being a celebrity means dealing with a lot of stuff, people, money, appointments, contracts, obligations etc. So its understandable how they could happen to self medicate to the point of abuse. Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Jim Belushi, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, etc. Nothing is absolute as in the same documentary I mentioned there were homeless people who had nothing in terms of material possession that were self medicating, but their situation may have devolved from a state where they had much and lost it due to choosing the wrong cooping mechanism namely drugs. I don’t specifically want to discuss psychotropic drugs but I do want to mention that they can cause mental illness. There are many other things we use to cope but ultimately it involves consumption or practice(for lack of a better word).

Excess is abusive to the self because it causes illness as mentioned above. Minimalism can help us to put bigger spaces between the crises, have all our bills in order, reduce our impulse to self medicate. How does this relate to dating and relationships. Well the longest relationship you will have is with yourself, so understandably you want to treat yourself well. Eliminating the excess is a path to wellness.

Business is personal

Thanks to credit cards and predatory lending, we almost never have an instance where we are without some form of capital. As a result the majority of us are carrying some form of debt. It’s as much a part of life as taxes, and death.

Some lucky people take a job at any, or no pay just for the joy of doing the work. While most of us take a job with heavy interest in the compensation, because we have all those debts mentioned a while ago, bills and wants to pay for.

A significant amount of marriages fail over finances. I don’t have the exact statistic but I heard something in the 65% range. Once I heard a pastor say sex was the cause of the failure of 75% of marriages but I find that very hard to believe unless the sex was extramarital. Anyhow, money is a significant part of a relationship.

Its difficult if not weird to flat out asked someone how much money and debt they have when you start dating but the answer has to be investigated. This in not gold digging, this is an attempt to determine if your fiscal habits are compatible and whether you will be helping each other or hindering.

Does this person have a job, do they have marketable skills or talents(realistically), o they have a chemical dependency, do they have an expensive hobby, do they have a YOLO attitude towards money? These things can be observed without a direct question about their assets.

They say a fool and his money are soon parted. Additionally someone who is foolish with money will be a burden and tear apart a relationship.

Nothing to lose but your loneliness

Cat ladies of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your loneliness. There are a lot of good guys. Unfortunately many have become corrupted by pornography, misogyny, and a host of other social afflictions resulting from them projecting their lack of luck with the ladies on others.

If you catch one of these guys before they become a mass shooter or extremist you can possibly tame him. The thing you cannot do when you get into a relationship with him is give him too much of a hard time or too much confidence. Just the right balance of encouragement and discouragement will get you that long term friend. Preventing him from being influenced or corrupted by consumerism is very important. You yourself will have to restrict yourself from the mas consumption and trend following.

I say this because there are parallels with upgrading to the next shiny gadget and him upgrading to the next woman. If you practice a lifestyle of being satisfied with something that works and he also follows the same lifestyle, then he will not think to upgrade to the next model when the opportunity arises.

Consumerism, following trends, materialism, bad-credit, social-media and all that is associated with the aforementioned are your relationship’s enemy. You have to discipline yourself to get to your goal.