Calmness as a tunnel of spikes.

Whenever people ask me why I do my "Jedi Thing", I most often say "to gain calmness".
They then ask me, "how do you gain calmness?" (or some reply like that), and I reply, "I think of calmness as a tunnel of spikes".


Imagine yourself in a different type of world. A world controlled by your own thoughts alone. You are a master of all options, yet you find yourself, without your permission, in a tunnel of spikes.

In contrast to what you might initially think, based upon the rules of our world,
the spikes are controlled by your thoughts. Specifically, they are controlled by your level of calmness.

When you are calm, the spikes remain still and there is more than enough room for you to walk along the cool, level tunnel. But as your calmness gets replaced with chaos, nervousness, anxiety, etc., the spikes start shaking! They're bright, shining needle-like points rattling and spinning!! The more excited and nervous you get, the more they start caving in!!! You try to calm down, BUT YOU CAN'T!!!! ("You're about to be impaled!", you think to yourself!!!!! How can you be calm at a time like THIS?!?!?!???)

Eventually, when you reach the threshold of chaos and sink into an uncontrollable and undisciplined level of nervousness, the spikes cave in

stabbing and piercing through you from every possible angle and every possible location on your brutally mutilated body...


"So why think of calmness as a tunnel of spikes?" might you ask?

Calmness is necessary. You're life depends on it.

Haha, the last line made me laugh. The explanation gets rather graphic though :laugh:

It makes a lot of sense. That said, the analogy makes calmness a sort of temporary measure with a sense of imminent doom lurking...those spikes are still there, only just still enough for you to pass through safely.

I like to think that true calmness is less limited and frees you from the stresses of emotion...perhaps when true calmness is achieved, the spikes completely retract.

To think of calmness and the loss of control being separated by such fine margins makes calmness harder to achieve, I think. If we are already busy worrying about what might happen as we become less calm, how can we have any hope of actually achieving calmness?

Visualisation is a really important tool that our minds can employ. A tunnel of spikes doesn't quite work for me personally because I need to depict the ultimate goal of calmness as more of a liberating thing, rather than an "I must tread very carefully in order to maintain it" kind of thing.

But I do understand perfectly how the analogy describes calmness, and if it works for you then great!

Actually, V-Tog, this doesn't really work for me...."humor section", bud?

Just to clarify, I actually tell this to people if they're joking around, in which case I match that type of behavior and joke around too. As you've pointed out yourself, this is a TERRIBLY trapped view of life, and I meant it to sound that way.

I find it funny when people try to take it seriously, and they get all stiff and are like "I MUST BE CALM, I CAN'T GET NERVOUS!!?!".

In general, I find counter intuitiveness OUTRAGEOUSLY humorous. Not necessarily because it's a happy sort of funny. Rather, because it's so ridiculous that when I find myself in a counter intuitive situation, I feel embarrassed and laugh at myself.

For example, I remember having a crush on a girl and being like "I CAN'T TELL HER I CAN'T TELL HER I CAN'T TELL ANYONE". Eventually. I told her. :blush: