Accepting equinamity

 Topic - Accepting equinamity (We can write a book on this) sending a rough start and content to work and refine on further later.

Equinamity means  calm mental state even under pressure, includes composure, calmness, serenity, poise, tranquility, and aplomb, all suggesting evenness of emotions and steadiness, especially when facing difficulty.

Every cues that we get from universe can easily contribute to situations that can be termed as pressure or difficulty.

If we eliminate all cues, and look at our soul in isolation, then a lot of our mental pressure would go away. Probably that is why being lost in something feels magical, be it getting into the flow state at work or just being lost in our dreams or being absorbed in a piece of fiction in movie or novel or even when one is intoxicated. Shutting off the cues can ease us up. But we cannot function with all the cues being shut. So we need to upskill ourselves to tackle and analyse the cues better so that despite getting em all, we are mindful and do not allow it to affect us. Don't shut off the cues, embrace it.

Comparison

A big contributor to mental unrest is around conscious and sub conscious comparison of ourselves with other humans and organisms.

With social media amplifying and facilitating the cues, that unrest is higher than ever. A conscious comparison can be very visible in the FOMO culture of following and craving what others are doing. It shapes our subconscious to crave more, to be ahead of the curve, to strive more, earn more to satisfy the craving of it all.

Looking up to someone or Looking down on someone, both can have benefits and issues.

We need to fix our intent to ease up the mental stress.

Sometimes doing the right thing for wrong reasons can ruin things!

Let me explain with a very basic example. One might have a  bike which can go to 200kmph, but they probably won't go to that speed. And that's probably the right thing to do. But the reasoning that one uses to explain themselves can be very different. It can be due to govt regulations, traffic laws or due to the fear of accident or due to the mere worthlessness of driving that fast. If your reason is just govt regulation, then if you get a chance to drive on an unmonitored place, you might do it and risk your life! The fear reason is important! If you are driven by fear, then you'd still have the craving to drive fast and would add to your mental pressure. Some day when you feel brave, you can overcome your fear and go for it. The risk is still the same!  But if your reason to not drive at 200kmph was out of sheer indifference and lack of worth of the act, then you are probably safer than others who have had different reasons.

The example can be poor, and you might wanna debate on bits and pieces, maybe you have a better example to explain the  reasoning of "Right things done with wrong intent can often lead to things being wrong" and Why fixing our intent is so important for easing up our mental stress.

Having different perspectives and reasoning to understand something allows us to understand it better.

Coming back to the comparison problem.

Things are very complicated and interesting if we try to decode how we compare ourself with other humans or organisms.

Comparison on the positive side might feel a good motivation booster, aspirational.

On the negative side, it can lead to demotivation, sadness, anger, regret, etc.

Double edged sword indeed! And it can vary from case to case. But my hypothesis is that any sort of comparison is bad, coz another variant of my initial hypotheses that I explained using the example also feels right to me.

"Wrong things done with right intent can often lead to things being wrong".

Even though one might have the right intent of getting motivation from Elon Musks of the world, it still is bad, coz it can easily backfire when your goal post appear too far away and compell you to give up after lots and lots of failed attempts.

So if we have established that comparison is a wrong thing in absolute terms, irrespective of the intent or short term outcome, let's use our first hypothesis of "Right things done with wrong intent can often lead to things being wrong".

So if you are not comparing yourself with Elon coz  you feel "I can never reach the level of Elon Musk, so why compare myself with him at all?" then you are doing the right thing with wrong intent and the effect of it would be undermining yourself, limiting yourself, shunning your potential!

To gauge the right intent not to compare ourself with others lets dig deeper into Jain philosophy's karm theory. Karm theory dictates that our state is because of our karm. State might have different variables and different variables can be in isolation recorded at different times coz of different actions we did with different intent in different points of time.

These different karm variables can have different parameters like their nature that dictates the effect (positive or negative, and specifics of the impact area), intensity, maturity time, duration, etc.

The fact that the variables are recorded in isolation proves that an organism's species, positioning in that species and phase of life does not reflect their true karmic balance.

A super charismatic rich healthy person who might appear to have a really good karmic account balance, can very easily be having really bad balance, it's just that their good variables are maturing right now. We can never evaluate the dormant variables that would mature down the line.

Therefore, we would never be able truly comprehend one's karmic balance. And what you don't know you cannot compare!

So if you see a poor sick person, you are not in a position to be more kind to them than you should be towards a rich arrogant person! Coz if you look at their karmic balance it might be same or opposite of what might appear to us!

Since what we see is not the whole truth, how can we rationally build a conclusion?

If we think about what's the problem in comparing, then Comparison is fine, seeing truth for what it is is fine! I wanted to prove that we can never find the complete truth, and hence comparison is futile!

Now lemme circle back at the first hypothesis. Not comparing coz we can't is again prolly a wrong intent!

It is again like giving up and shunning ourselves.

Let's think about the right intent, maybe comparing is of no use coz it's just not worth it, like racing your bike at 200kmph or eating a very tasty meal can be not crave worthy for a saint!

That brings us to the third hypothesis

Maybe doing things without comparison is the right way?

Comparison can be leveraged to course correct one's approach, learn from other's mistake and get motivation, but it should be done mindfully
Intent should be very clear and well thought!

There is another stream of events that makes us think ill about others or ourselves. It is about dealing with the cards someone is being dealt or the instincts that we have, urges, cravings, or just things that we have been doing for so long that it does not seem possible to do anything about it. In those scenarios understanding what lies in free will and what does not can help in building equinamity. One should spend some time on Free will and how to think about it.