What happens when nothing "matters"?

Some really interesting things have been coming up in Hang lately. I will keep Hangs going forever, with minimal people showing up, as long as something interesting and out of left field shows up every so often. I never would have found this in my own, solitary rambles.

This is all theoretical ramblings.

We’re out riding about the plains of North Dakota or Wyoming and, “Hey, that looks interesting. Let’s go check it out.” We’re not looking for truth or the way or any of that nonsense. We’re just taking a POV and riding with it.

The POV is that people grow up making decisions based on reinforcing their Primal Character. 

Seems self-evident.

Which then leads to, “To what do you orientate your decision making if it’s not about reinforcing your Primal Character?”

If you’re engaging with Dojo, sooner or later, you’re going to get to this space, “I don’t have to make decisions that are about reinforcing my Primal Character.” 

You’ll probably go through a period where you are making decisions anti-Primal Character. 

But what do you do after that?

If all you’ve ever done is make decisions based on what matters to your Primal Character, what happens when nothing “matters”. 

Granted, there are millions of decisions that you make that don’t involve the Primal Character’s “this decision matters” meter. Which socks you put on first, how much salt you put on your eggs, which way you drive to work, etc. “It really doesn’t matter and I have a slight preference or habit that way so I’ll go that way.”

Then there’s the stuff that does involve the “this decision matters” meter.

There is a certain weight, a certain gravitas, a certain flavor to making decisions based on what is important to your Primal Character. It’s because you think it’s you. You have self-identified with your Primal Character. You are either making decisions which bring in good things or you are making decisions that keep bad things away. Making decisions that “matter” to you is a very different thing than making decisions because of a “simple” preference.

If you have achieved some degree of de-self-identification with your Primal Character, you will probably notice that some of the “oomph” has gone out of the decisions that used to matter. 

Life might become rather grey.

A lot of color might be gone from your decisional reality. 

From a Dojo perspective, a point could be to learn to make decisions from a new POV.

The old oomph point is about making decisions that matter to your Primal Character, that reinforce important points about your character.

What might be another orientation around which decisions are made?

What seems to trip people up the most about choosing new choice-orientations is that they keep referencing what it used to feel like when the choice-orientation was around reinforcing their Primal Character. 

That song don’t play here no more.

Like learning to appreciate sushi or learning to appreciate wine. 

It’s not going to feel natural. 

It’s not going to feel right.

It’s not going to feel like you.

Until it does.