random rant related to self-help

This is the age of minds. Of consciousness. Of controlling our own minds. Of self-help. Of taking self-help seriously. There is too much information, too much change, etc, for an ordinary human brain. It's not a matter of getting old, not just a matter.. I think my brain is as spry as ever, but the problems it faces now are getting larger. Soon they'll be too big. I need to figure out how to deal with that. I need to figure out where I fit in.

What are the right goals to have in this environment? What is the right way to stay sane? What does it mean to stay sane?

These are some tools I use:

- Writing thoughts. Like this. Just writing what's on my mind. Being very honest about what's on my mind. That is one thing that is so tragic about today's society, is that we're so private. There are meme's like "Too Much Information". People say things like "don't burden ME with that", and it sounds cool, like they're being cool, and it's the stupid person who's saying too much about what's no their mind. But I think we have got that turned around. We should all be "burdening" each other with what's on our minds, and trying to make sense of it. That's real information, not just social grooming.

- Writing "unsent" letters. I read this in a book somewhere, maybe Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. The idea is, if you're in a relationship with someone, having difficulty, you might have a lot of anger towards them. And you might like to tell them all of this. But, the idea is to instead write it in a letter AND NOT SEND IT. Hopefully just writing it all out is enough -- that's the idea anyway.

- Accepting everything. Accepting sounds like thinking everything is good, or everything is true. That's not what I mean. More like, acknowledging everything. Thinking that everything could be true, and being ok with it if it were true. Related to this are things like forgiveness, But also accepting that I hate someone, if I do hate someone. Accepting things seems to change them, and make bad things go away.

- Face what seems to be true, no matter how bleak. I fell from the Mormon church, away from having an afterlife, into a world of death possibly being the end of everything for me. And I had to accept that, but I believe I'm in a richer more meaningful world now, with even larger potential happiness. Though, it didn't always seem so. And, frankly, I could be wrong, or hiding from the truth. Still, I generally find that facing bleak fears reveals a rosy rainbow on the other side that is even better than the former reality would have been without the fear in the first place. Or something like that.

Things I've tried:

- Being positive. I get into little manic episodes of positivity and think, wow, if I could just remain positive, I could do anything. But, I fail to remain positive. I simply can't seem to sustain it. I'm not sure it's possible. I'm not even sure it's actually a good idea.