Addictive Personality

A link to this video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFvsd6IUoH4

Last blog I talked about the end of the world: with the idea that the multiverse contains multiple branching timelines from one instant to the many possible "next"s, perhaps within that bush-like branching structure there are other versions of our universe where the celebrated predictions of the end that have failed to materialize up to now really did come to pass?

This same concept can also be taken to the personal level: what does this all mean if there are really multiple versions of "me" out there? This is one of the important ideas I get into in my book: once people have had their minds boggled by seeing a way to imagine ten dimensions, they often ask "So what? How does all this have anything to do with me?".

In "Imagining the Tenth Dimension", there are a number of chapters that explore that question in various ways. Here's a quote from chapter five, "Memes, Music, and Memory":

Sometimes people get caught in loops of addiction and abuse that trap them into circles, causing them to go back again and again to bad relationships, alcohol, or other drugs, with a feeling that there’s no way out. This is one of the pitfalls that the fifth dimension can set for people, as it offers an easy path to fold back to the same negative repetitions over and over again. There’s not much to say about this except that the fifth dimension offers many paths for escape as well, and the hardest part of the problem is usually identifying what is triggering the negative repetition and finding a way to break the pattern. Unquestionably, this is a serious issue, and anyone who is having to deal with the negative repercussions of an addiction of any kind should seek help wherever they can find it. The good news is, there are always multiple fifth-dimensional paths available, and the one that leads back into the negative repetition is never the only option.

This idea is also touched on in chapter nine, "How Much Control Do We Have?":

Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, then, hope for the future and having an optimistic outlook on life–these take on a significant new weight when viewed in terms of each of us being a quantum observer. A defeatist mindset will become self-fulfilling as subtle choices are made in our selection of which fifth-dimensional path we end up travelling upon. Depression, stress, injury and addiction can close our minds to the possibilities of “where can we go from here”, and life can become a long dark ladder descending into no future at all. For someone trapped in those realities, this information offers very little comfort, and may even seem irritating or irrelevant, which is unfortunate because that is the situation where an appreciation of the possibilities each of us has opening out before us could be the most useful. You can call it simplistic, but sometimes the simplest things are also the most true: a person’s health, a person’s career, and a person’s life will all be massively affected by whether that person has a positive or a negative outlook. If each of us is collapsing out our own personal reality from quantum waves of indeterminacy purely through the act of observation, then it should be obvious that the choices each of us make will be determined by our own mindset.

One of the 26 songs listed at the end of the book is also related to this idea, and this blog entry started with a video of me singing that song. Here are the lyrics:


ADDICTIVE PERSONALITY
words and music (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

Now it’s really only natural
It’s always been the same
That when something makes you feel good
You want that something again
But when that something starts to hurt you
And you just can’t let it go
And you wake up feelin poorly
But you wake up wantin more

Addictive personality, Addictive personality
Addictive personality
Addictive
Personality

Is it nature, is it nurture
That got you to this place
Where you’re tradin your tomorrows
For what you’re trapped into today?
Is it the constant inundation
Of the media machine
Is it the way that you were brought up
Or just something in your genes?

Addictive personality, Addictive personality
Addictive personality
Addictive
Personality

Every day is a new day
Every day you’re back to one
And today can be the new day
When you say you’re finally done
Or you can find some more excuses
That today will be the same
Cause it’s easy to continue
When you say you’re not to blame

Addictive personality, Addictive personality
Addictive personality
Addictive
Personality


Enjoy the journey,

Rob