We know a great deal about personal transformation. We may not have worked out, on a deep, integrative level, every aspect of human growth and performance, but we do understand, to a very high degree, how to wave that magic wand of targeted stressors to elicit very predictable changes in the human mind-body. And while the inner workings of this mind-body are still a black box, we can, to a large degree of accuracy, prescribe certain actions and practices and habits and expect very specific adaptations.
And so we know, as is thoroughly dissected and programmatized in The Essence of Lightness, that we can unburden our bodies and minds of negative stress imposed through our environments (up to a point), and access, through the taking on of constructive, positive stressors and through the cultivation of sensitivity, a personal sense of weightlessness in life.
This story gets complicated, however, if there are considerable external reasons for not feeling weightless, beyond the issue of individual knowledge and effort (which are dissected in my first two books). If the reason for your depression is poverty stemming from a lack of skills or education, this is a big problem not well solved through mind-body training. You may attain a state of peace where externalities don’t bother you that much, but that state alone is unlikely to resolve the external problem without actions directed outside of oneself.
Further, if your grocery store only sells Twinkies and you happen to be morbidly obese, this is a problem not well solved through foundational mind-body training alone. So, while the mind-body has miraculous powers of insight and perspective that can overcome the most oppressive of environments, sometimes it’s easier to change the environment than it is to force oneself to reorient around constraints that are disadvantageous, unfair, unreasonable, or just plain stupid.
This text is extracted from The Law of the Die Nonfiction Appendix, which you can get for free by subscribing to my newsletter:
Law of the Die Available December 7th.
Tom Fazio