Succeeding through non-Success? WTF? -- Stream of Confusionsciousness

by phil on Monday Oct 27, 2003 11:25 AM
self-programming

Can you succeed at something by choosing to not succeed? Uh.... listen... here's my scrap sheet of that idea.

Is it possible to change your metric of success in order to succeed better by those metrics? Does that even make sense?

Read more if you want to see this confusion manifest.

For exmple, I am trying to relax, the goal is to relax, but if I try to relax, then I won't.. the metric should be being relaxed, but if the metric of success interferes with the success itself, then your screwed

...

Okay, we're not machines I know... the metric of success has to be constant, other wise the game is over.

Even if the metric of success intereferes with your ability to succeed, you need that there, otherwise there is no game.. I mean, that's a contradiction right?

I want x. In order to get x, I have to not want x. x has to not be important.

By wanting x, you then pursue x. In order to get x, then i have to not pursue it. So if I want x, I have to not want it.. contradiction.

But what do I even mean that that's a contradiction? Let's see... let's do this logically...

I seek x
To get x, I shouldn't seek
I don't pursue x.

But that doesn't make sense, by asking the question, "what's the way to get x? by not pursuing it" I ask that question only when I want to pursue it. By "not pursuing" I'm in a way pursing it. Which yeah, it IS a contradiction right?

If I want something, I have to reduce my want of it. Which would disable my ability to reduce my want of it.

I'm confused.

Comments

teedeepee said on November 4, 2003 7:44 AM:

Read, then watch Palahniuk's Fight Club again... A good example of succeeding through non-success.

Self-deprecation, self-hurt and self-destruction; failing by modern day consumerist standards so as to better succeed at feeling alive. Succeeding at *not being* (yet another drone in a flock of corporate sheep), not succeeding at being (the ultimate experience is the character's semi-death). This very contradiction between wanting to live fully and the means to achieve this (by putting your body at physical stake) appears vividly in the chaos surrounding the fight club organization as well as in the confusion in the narrator's schizophrenic mind.

That's my $.02 on a mindfucking read and a kickass flick.