No Strings Attached

A few months ago, Bianca, my 5 year old daughter, learned how to tie a knot. I wouldn’t have noticed that if it wasn’t for a very obvious change in her playing: one day, I found the living door tied up with a red string to the first chair in the room. Actually, the string was tied to a toy computer which was sitting on the chair, but you got the idea. A red string tying together the door knob and the chair. Kinda obvious, you couldn’t miss it.

I wanted to lift the string up on my way in because I had something to do in the living but I suddenly heard Bianca: “No way, dad! No trespassing! You gotta tell me the code.”. “What code?”. “You know, the passing code”. “Oh, that code, I said. Which one should be? Does *Bianca* works?”. “Of course”, she said, and she gently untied the knot. I could safely pass into the living room, while the red string was lying on the door, unattached to anything.

From that day on, every once in a while, Bianca tied something with something else. Usually, this was happening in the living, and the tied objects were either doors or chairs. The strings were dividing the living room space in new areas, forcing me (and her, of course) to chose different paths across the room. In a playful and apparently chaotic way, the room geography was changed every time she was playing like this.

The more I was leaving her unsupervised, just by herself, the more complicated the string structures became. After a few weeks I deliberately started to observe this new game of her. It always started in the same place, from the living door and then it was extended. Sometimes the strings were forming new structures with all the chairs, in a strange web of red strings. Sometimes the doors of the kitchen and bathroom were involved too, on different levels, reminding me of the “invisible” red lasers in the James Bond movies.

Fact is that every time I was allowing her to form these new structures, the room was completely changed. And there was no way to destroy these structures. Of course, not without some serious resistance from her. And noise. Gradually, I adapted. I learned how to walk in the room without changing the new models, leaving her game untouched. In the end, I learned there were only 2 ways to overcome the chaotic red web: 1 – by telling the “code” which gave me a free pass, and 2 – by cleaning up the room after she was living, making it all clean and shiny for the next playing adventure.

The Inner Strings

The other day, after I told the “code” and she untied a knot for the thousandth time, something stroke me. Although nothing was changed in her game, I sat down and looked at the structure again. With a very different eye, this time. And I suddenly realized that I was doing the same thing, only in a different place. In my mind. And those strings and knots, well, those were just what we call “synapses”.

The more I was looking at Bianca’s strings model, the clearer my intuition became. All the things that we’re telling to ourselves, are just strings tied up from one spot of our mind to another. We learn a new word by tying the sound to a mental representation. We remember a scene from our childhood by tying it up to the smell of a madeleine. We give names to people and things. We identify actions by following the strings with which we tied them up in our minds. Suddenly, I got dizzy. I just realized that my mind was completely similar with the living room, only a few million times bigger. And not only my mind, any mind in the world.

The only difference is that we don’t have the comfort of cleaning it up. There is no “mind dad” who, after we gently go to sleep, will make the living room neat and shiny for our next play. Most of the time, we’re tying up knots on top of other knots. We’re building incredibly complicated structures in our heads and, at some point, we even forget how the initial architecture of our mental room was. The geography we create in our heads takes over reality. And, just like Bianca, we have an incredibly hard time to destroy these models. We forcefully resist to any attempt to freshen up our space and let go.

Because, deep down, we start to believe that our fragile structures, created just because we know how to tie a knot, are a replacement for the real life.

For instance, we start to believe that somebody hurt us long ago and that string is tied up to the “anger” chair. So every time we see that person, or, even worse, every time we think at that person, we just go and sit on the “anger” chair. That’s where the string is leading us.

Or, we tie a knot from the door of self-esteem to the chair of money. Every time we want to enter that door, we are driven to the money chair. Because there is no other connection between self-esteem and money in our mind. This is how we hard wired it. This is how we tied up the knot.

Or, at times, we tie up the chair of “love” to a certain person in our lives. When the real person disappears, the string will go down the floor, unattached, and we will lose the chair of “love” all together. You know, that chair was always there. We’re all equipped with it, just like a basic facility in any normal house. But since the string was gone, we just stop using it. Sometimes we may tie it up to another person, but not without a lot of resistance and frustration.

The Unlearning

Fact is our mental structures are incredibly difficult to modify. The knots are so strong and some of them are tied up so long ago, that we forgot how to untie them. This internal structure has taken over our internal geography years ago and we don’t know anymore where the real bed is, where the chairs are, where are the doors and why some of them are stuck. Truth is, we are the ones who blocked them all, we are the ones who created that incredibly complicated structure, but we just forgot one very important thing.

To clean it up every once in a while.

Living our life the way we want, which translates into tying up our own knots to the structures we choose, is exhilarating. Just like Bianca’s game, we get an enormous amount of joy out of it. But, just as Bianca’s game, we should never forget that this is just a game. A new one will start tomorrow. And then the day after tomorrow. And so on.

If we keep the old structures, we’ll eventually run out of space. We’ll choke. As a matter of fact, we even invented words for this specific situation. I think one of them it’s “depression”. Another one would be “illness”. And even another word for this would be “unhappy”. All these words are just representations of a super crowded internal playground, one so complicated and so erratic that we don’t know our way out of it anymore.

Take It Out

As I was sitting on my chair, still puzzled by my intuition, the outside world slowly started to get in. Light and small sounds were finding their way into my senses. And I just realized that the real living room was even more crowded than 5 minutes ago. Apparently, Bianca found some new strings she was just getting ready to “attack” library shelves. At this point, I got up.

“Would you come with me outside, Bianca?”

“Why? I’m playing very nice here, dad.”

“Hmm, I have an even better game for you, and it involves the same strings and knots. Interested?”

“Yes, yes, yes”, she cried. And she even forgot to ask me for the code, as I was untying everything in the room.

Five minutes later, with a few dozens of strings and a very clean living room, we went outside, in the backyard.

“Would you help me to tie up the vineyard”? I asked.

“Of course, vineyard is my favorite!”, she answered.

I looked up inside. The living room was clean and neat again. Everything was in its place. It looked like a really good space to rest and enjoy. Like a living room should be, anyway.

I looked up outside. The vineyard was a wreck, with branches pointing erratically in different directions. Could seriously use a strong hand to give it some structure. So, we started to put our knowledge and experience in knots to some good work.

“Are we going to have grapes this fall, dad?”, she asked me at some point.

“Yes, my soul, I answered. We will”.

How To Keep Your Mind Virus Free

Viruses are wonderful living creatures. I know you wouldn’t expected this as a starting sentence, but this the bare truth: in terms of biological life, viruses are one of the most fascinating and powerful living beings.

Unfortunately, we, humans, seem to have a rather hard time with them. Why? Because we’re on a constant battle to take over the world. Sometimes we win, sometimes the viruses win. But if you take a closer look you’re going to discover some wonderful things about viruses, that even we, humans, can’t say we have at this moment. For instance, the ability to identify and inhabit an appropriate host or to modify some inner key characteristics in order to adapt to new conditions.

Yes, viruses are a very interesting topic but today I’m not going to talk about viruses as living creatures. Not even about computer viruses. Today I’m going to talk about mind viruses, or, more precisely, how to keep your mind clean from them.

This is the third follow-up to this article: How To Run The Best Version Of Yourself, in which I’m using a computer-human metaphor for personal development. You can find the first two articles here:

How To Defrag Your Mind In 5 Easy Steps
How To Maintain And Upgrade Your Life Device Drivers

What Is A Mind Virus?

The simplest way to describe a mind virus is an addiction. A repeated action, with a consistent harming potential, most of the time performed without our will. Smoking, over drinking, or fighting are good examples of a mind virus. Mind viruses are learned behaviors which are self-propagating and slowly consuming the host. But addictions are only the most visible, and not the most dangerous mind virus.

The most dangerous viruses are those who are spreading without our knowledge and, even more, without easy to spot symptoms. I mean, smoking and over drinking are so easy to spot, they have a very clear pathology. You can’t miss them. But how can you identify a mind virus which constantly prevents you from being happy? Or a mind virus which creates limiting beliefs about money? Or a virus which constantly makes you feel powerless and defeated?

How To Identify A Mind Virus

First of all, a mind virus is something you “caught” from somebody else. Viruses are spreading from host to host. You aren’t born with them. So, the first step in identifying a repetitive behavior as a mind virus would be to identify its origin. Did we have this behavior since we were born? Or we learned it in school, or at work? Most of the time we get mind viruses from social interaction.

Second, a mind virus is able to adjust to various changes of the host. I think in technical terms this is called polymorphism, but we’re just call it adaptability. If you tried various approaches towards a specific toxic behavior, to no success, that could be a pretty good sign we’re dealing with a mind virus and not with an isolated deviation.

And third, a very common characteristic of a mind virus would be its ability to replicate itself. It will actually try to propagate itself onto other people around us. And, to some extent, we will help it big time, without knowing, of course. There will be a certain vibe of “I’m right and you’re wrong” every time we’ll be in that mind virus sequence. For instance, if our mind virus is creating limiting beliefs about money, we will reinforce these beliefs constantly while talking with others : “don’t you know money is so difficult to make?”.

Mind Virus Prevention

The easiest way to cure an illness is to prevent it. That’s equally true for mind viruses so here are some simple prevention measures which could significantly minimize the chances to be contaminated:

• chose safe surroundings. Don’t join groups which seems “infected” or which are good mediums for mind virus spreading (groups which are indiscriminately propagate all sort of ideas, theories or approaches, without backing them up with solid experience and/or arguments).
• verify your information sources are often as you can. Many mind viruses are spreading because of your ignorance or laziness. You take for granted anything you read, hear or see and the next second you realize you just caught a nasty mind virus without even knowing it.
• do your own experiments. In terms of mind viruses, experiments are like vaccines: they allow you to practice a little bit of something, just to get a glimpse of it and, if you don’t like it, you can move on. But because you took the time to try it first, now you’re immune.

Mind Virus Diagnose

Ok, but what happens if we actually caught a virus? How can we tell? How do we know we have a mind virus and not something else?

First of all, try to analyze if there’s something toxic in that specific behavior. If we’re talking about simple things like addictions (smoking, drinking or over-fighting) that’s easy. You already feel at the physical level you’re doing something wrong. But what happens when we’re dealing with a much subtle mind virus, like one who will prevent you have more money by creating limiting beliefs about wealth?

In this case, you should assess your life for longer periods of times. Let’s say you’re a person who never had too much money. You may blame this on your current environment, to the world financial crisis or to bad luck. But if you’re really analyzing what’s holding you back, and see that this lack of money somehow followed you despite the environment, world progress or good luck, you’ll most likely find that at the core of this situation is a mind virus. A toxic, acquired behavior which adjusts if you try to change and feeds itself with your own misery and sadness.

Another way to diagnose a mind virus would be to test its “host” penetration. The biggest challenge in identifying a mind virus is that we can always mistake it as a form of original thinking. No, it’s not a virus, this is how we really are. But testing this “host” penetration will help us see if what we’re thinking it’s just a borrowed pack of nonsenses which are making our life a living hell, or an internal conviction.

Just look around and try to identify the same behavior in other people. Let’s say your mind virus is about relationships. Which you consider something difficult to obtain, maintain and get satisfaction from. Try to see if there are other people having the same approach. Try to see if there are people which are treating relationships the same way you are. If there’s a mind virus involved, you will identify those people, but you will immediately spot the gap between their real potential as human beings and their toxic behavior. Sometimes it’s easy to spot the illness in somebody else before accepting that you’re having it too.

Curing A Mind Virus Disease

Ok, we failed to prevent a contamination, we correctly diagnosed that we do have a mind virus infection, now what? We have to cure it.

A mind virus illness manifests itself in the form of a constant, toxic activity. To cure the illness all we have to do is to put an end to the associated activity. Without it, the mind virus won’t get enough “food” and will eventually die.

Suppose we have a mind virus which prevents us traveling because, well, in order to travel you have to have time. Now, the associated activity of this mind virus is… yes, a job! What do we have to do in order to kill this virus? Kill the job, exactly! Once you won’t have a job anymore (attention: I didn’t say: once you don’t have money, I said once you don’t have a job, because you can make money outside of a job pretty well) the virus won’t be able to manifest, and you can safely start to travel around the world.

Now, not always the associated activity of a virus would be so easy to spot, but most of the time we will get enough hints to look in the right direction. There will be some trial and error, but if we’re really after that mind virus, we will find its associated activity.

How we stop that activity is beyond the scope of the article. Replacing an activity with another one is most of the time a question of habits and their management. If you want to know more about how to create a habit, you may want to start with this article: How To Create A Habit In 15 Days.

Mind Virus Rebounds

As in any other illness, there will be rebounds. Every now and then, our emotional body will be weakened and, since we had this sensitive terrain before, it will be easier to get the same virus again. We grew some sort of sensitivity over a specific virus.

I don’t think there’s a problem with that, as long as we’re aware. If we know we are sensitive to a certain virus, getting it again at certain time intervals won’t be a huge surprise. The good news is that we already beat it before, so every time we get a rebound we’re going to get rid of it easier and easier.

As long as we’re working on it, of course.

A Personal Example

One of the most resilient mind viruses I had was about “not being good enough”. This mind virus infection made me prove all the time that I have to deserve everything I get. Everything worth having was for me something that I had to fight for. Every time I wanted to express my individuality I had to prove something to somebody. Either by making more money than the average, either by acting riskier. Bottom line: because I was thinking I wasn’t good enough as I was, I always pushed things up trying to prove myself worthy of attention.

Diagnose:

At first, I thought this was part of my personality. This is how I am, a bold and courageous individual. I do stuff because I can and because I’m better than others. Alas, that wasn’t true.

At some point, after a few years in which I took more and more risks just to prove myself worthy of… I don’t even remember of what, I realized there’s a pattern. Every time I was feeling insecure and alone, I was pushing it more. Every time I was in need of relaxation and acceptance I was striving more. Yes, there was a pattern.

But this pattern alone couldn’t tell me if it was a mind virus or just… well, a pattern. So, I started to identify the “host” penetration. I started to look around for people exhibiting the same behavior like me. People who were courageous, yet eager to prove themselves worthy of attention at all cost. It wasn’t long until I find them, in the same circles like me (most of them were entrepreneurs too). Seeing them from the outside made me realize instantly that this was a mind virus: it was so easy to spot the difference between what they wanted (acceptance and validation) and what they did (taking more risks).

Cure

Once I realized my company (and my whole approach as an entrepreneur) was the result of some mind virus, making me push things just to prove myself worthy of attention, I just decided to let go. I didn’t need any title (entrepreneur, business man, etc) to make me feel better. I was ok the way I was. So, I decided to sell the company I created, after 10 years of managing it.

In a few months after I sold the company, things started to improve. I realized I survived without pushing it and taking risks in exchange of attention. I realized I can be a decent person without proving my worth every day. I realized I am good enough just the way I am.

Rebounds

Every now and then this mind virus rebounds. It’s less than 2 years since I finished my role as an entrepreneur and I suspect there are still some uncut strings attaching me from the past. Right now, the rebounds are taking a different form: if I’m not able to finish some tasks, I feel sad.

But I’m working on it.