Desire vs. habit

There are two separate parts to recovery, one is overcoming the desire to eat, and secondly, overcoming the habits of eating. At any one time, we have both, but in different strengths.
These are beyond hunger, insulin induced hunger, and beyond clear of all those addictions where hyperpalatable or food chemicals induce us to eat. (sugar, grains, acellular carbohydrates, omega 6 oils, dairy). Grabbing a piece of fruit on the way from the table after a meal is habit, as is portion size, more feelings, and the like.

Living only on natural foods reduces the desires. But then there is bloody habits to overcome. And environment. And food pushers. Is it any wounder that so many through up their hands and return to pre-contemplation stage. Epictetus says there are two vices blacker than the rest, lack of persistence, and lack of self control, and he goes on to talk about developing self-control though assents, desires, and impulses. Lose all desires, expectations, delusions and stick to what is up to us.   Enough.

Just for Today

With maturity we should be moving from irrational to rational, emotional to logic and rational though, in understanding, intent, speech and actions.

Just for today is a concept that allows us to get through rough bits of life. We can labor hard through short term issues for a bit. I can do, just for today, what I could not bear for a lifetime. (if in doubt of which one, try a furry animal)

or someone else take:

Living just for today relieves the burden of the past and the fear of the future. We learned to take whatever actions are necessary and to leave the results in the hands of fate, nature, other people. The theists puts in god, the non-theists, nature.

But is this not living in the present, without hope for or fear of the future? (stoic description) The down side of hope maybe creation of a delusion, that delusion being that things will be better in the future. They may be different, and not better. We are better to deal with reality verses living with a delusion. Any god pusher thinks that it is better to live in a delusion with irrational hope, ... is better than facing reality.

Now to those who through (or should that be throw, as to pitch) in a what if it never gets better? Well, we have a choice, live or leave. We always have that choice, and if it is logical, perhaps to return ourselves to where we came from, may be the best answer, while we are able and the choice is up to us.

Just for today, I will try to understand the logic. But what do I know?

Some thing are up to us, some are not

Some thing are up to us, some are not. From this principle, Epictetus and the Stoics build up a great deal of relief from garbage. That which is not up to us is of no concern, we cannot do anything about us but we can protect ourselves against much of the effects, but that is a topic for another day.

Now what is up to us. The lowest form is assent to a simple proposition. Eat his, not that. No sugar, no grains gives a great deal of relief. It is up to me if I take the next bite or go away. I cannot sit in front of food and not eat. I can go away. If it is too smokey in the kitchen, leave. What others think is not up to me.

It is our culture and environment that creates these unhealthy situations. I can only live in my environment.  

Choice is always up to me. The problem arises when I want something, and I chose it. But hold on, desire is up to me also. There we have the big three, assent, desire, impulse, and all else is built on those. Taking thing back to first principles shows what the problem may be, uncontrolled desires, or lack of training about control of desire.

Now where is there training available about desire control. Marcus 6.13 talks about it, the dead body of an ox, the seeds of trees, fruits of a weed, picked, soaked in HFCS and dried, the fat in the lactate of bovines, separated and congealed, or fermented the gut of a sheep; not to appetizing. (beef, nuts, dried cranberries, butter, cheese)    

Spirtual (Philosophical) Life

The spiritual (philosophical) life is no theory, you still must live it. (or something like that, Bill Wilson.)

Well how different is that? I was planning to live anyway, eat three meals a day, work a bit, holiday a bit. etc.

BB pg 68, two center paragraphs, Bill tells us how to live, which demonstrates his philosophy of life. Yah sure, if you swallow god. Something else perhaps, if you are not christian. Or if you take refuge in Buddha thoughts, and seek refuge with Vimalasara with Eight Step Recovery, or with the stoics; Rufus, Epictetus, Marcus and Seneca. Odd thing is when we study and live some things are up to us and some things are not, all the shit falls away, and we are left with logic. Rational Recovery, SMART, Peele, Horvath, and the like all help, but it is I that must live my life.

Other around me do not make this easy, they make it blood difficult. Well perhaps it is time to become agreeable and do nothing others want me to do beyond my duty.  Screw it, nobody cares anyway.

A MOVIE EVERONE SHOULD WATCH

http://www.dietdoctor.com/movie-junk-food-industry-fears

Food SMART?

Is there any interest in in SMART reworked for overeating issues?

You could be in at the start of such an organization.  Considerable effort would be required to get such an operation up and running. The methods used by SMART are helpful for the overeating, but also is a diet free of sugar, grains and all calorie dense carbohydrates. But also philosophy is wonderful for reduction of the emotions, desires, and impulses. 

SMART http://www.smartrecovery.org/intro/

If anyone is interested please let me know. comment below or fredtully at gmail.com

Sanity Can Be Learned

"Return us to sanity."  but  but ... were we ever sane? The stoics describe a thought system based entirely on logic, reason, but there are no text books any more. There is an order that we must learn this information in, so that it can make sense. Some of the statements made are just totally foreign to modern thought, they do not seem rational, until we realize that the words did not mean quite the same things in modern times as they did a mere 80 years ago, when some of this was translated. English has changed that fast. How can we keep up?

Sanity can be learned. It is a learned skill, a collection of arbitrary knowledge, behaviors, actions, that are time and situation dependent, as defined by our culture, and now the mass media. There main objective is to sell product. There main message is buy, buy, buy. But what if we stop listening to them? And occupy our mind, our directing mind, with understanding this eating / food/ excess desire problem?  What happens to desire? Well, it is within our control, or partly so. Cuing, tempting, baiting may not be, but we have the power of assent or rejection of the mob intelligence, or the action of the masses. It is a learned skill.

The stoics tell us there are things within our power, and some things are not. Within our power (control, responsibility) are our judgements, our desires, our impulses, our interpretation of the input from our senses (judgements), our opinions, our understand of what is right and what is not, (our belief and value system) and from there we can build all the compound beliefs, value, principals, and the like. Start with the simplest form of judgement, assent or rejection of a propitiation, and we have control from there, as we build on that thoughts, concepts, ideas.

Suppose we receive joy from doing something right. Then if we always do right, because it is right to do right, we can live in a state of joy. We need to string those moments of present time into history. Virtue is always right, and if we always do right we should always be in a state of joy. If our thoughts are always virtuous, we should be able to stay in a state of joy. Virtue alone is necessary and sufficient to experience joy, one thought at a time, strung together in a non ending stream to produce tranquility and sanity. Philosophy is a full time undertaking, and thus a way of life.  Sanity can be learned.