Chris Rushton .com

I recently got dropped from my PhD place. This sucks. I could rant about a whole bunch of stuff I’m unhappy about with the decision but that wouldn’t serve any purpose or give any value to anyone so I’m going to hit you with some weird shit that I’ve started to notice to me since this happened.

Closure

I have not had any closure on the matter.  My supervisor has not even bothered to write me an email saying she’s disappointed in me or thanking me for my work or that she’s sorry it’s not worked out or even that she’s trying to appeal my case because the department was unable to give me the tools I needed to do my work.  I’m pretty angry about that but here’s the interesting thing.  I don’t think it is because this kind of behaviour is rude and disrespectful but more because it doesn’t give any closure.  I’ve been left hanging on a thread with no idea what’s going on after simply being told “we’re done here” by someone else.  I hate this hanging around in limbo.  I need to be able to move on.

I think it’s important when you reach a transition point in your life to close off any previous ties which link you to your old life.  That’s not to say you should tell all your friends to fuck off and die and that you hope you never see them again.  That’d just be stupid and unnecessary.  On the other hand it’d be weird to just wander off somewhere without telling anyone what’s going on.  My purpose is no longer Physics.  I know that but there is still some lingering uncertainty in the matter.  No doubt I would be happy to work in Physics again in the future, although for a different department at a different University, but I need to know that everything is finished, finally and totally.

Lack Of Purpose

David Deida once said that a man must be on his purpose.  I’ve always had a purpose until now and never truly understood what he was saying.  Even when I broke my leg and was rehabbing, my purpose was to rehab it as quickly as possible.  Secondly, my purpose was to accrue as many X-Box gamer points as possible and achieve top level on Battlefield Bad Company.  I now have no reason to get up in the morning.  I hate this but I’m still not going to get up and walk around for no reason.  My bed is warm and I can think a lot there.  I feel like I’m in the worst funk of my life and there’s nothing I can do about it.  I’m stood in a night club looking around and seeing really stunning women and just thinking ‘meh’.  Even before I’d think ‘my god she’s stunning, I need to go talk to her NOW’ (sometimes I might even go talk to her).

This apathy is worrying.  I really don’t know what I will do next.  Nothing is inspiring and I don’t have my usual spring in my step, clarity of thought and bright eyes (by the way, Cassadiaga is an excellent album by the artist Bright Eyes, linked at the bottom).  The closest thing I can get to a purpose is completing West Side For Skinny Bastards weight training program.  But that doesn’t count, it’s just lifting weights and a goal to bench press 110kg, whilst important, is not something to live one’s life for.  I can’t even go running because I try to keep my slightly fragile knee together for playing American Football.

David Deida is spot on when he talks about purpose.  I don’t feel whole.  Something is missing that was there before.  I need a new purpose but I think I’m being held back by the lack of closure from the last purpose.  I honestly don’t understand how unemployed people can exist like this.  I feel like half a man.  I feel pathetic and weak, traits I don’t value and don’t want to be embodying.

Regrets

One thing I most definitely noticed was that I was not the person the most saddened by this.  In fact I was a little relieved.  I’ve been having to deal with some total nonsense associated with the project which I most certainly didn’t sign on for and I will be happy to see the back of that.  I’ve also been disillusioned with the project for a long time.  I don’t feel that it was worth my time for the most part.  That I could be helping the world and humanity so much more by doing other things.

The next question is clearly do I have any regrets and I can honestly say my only regret is taking the project on in the first place.  It was a bad decision based on emotion over logic and I was not as thorough as I could have been.  I also naively expected that when I was told I would be able to pursue my interest in theoretical modelling, this would be the case.  This now frees up my life to find a purpose that I am more passionate about and pursue it with total presence, undistracted by little things.  Star formation, whilst interesting in it’s own right, will not save the world and my work might have made the lives of a few people more complete but wouldn’t have really affected me either way.

Any other regrets?  Absolutely not.  I went through the course until now with a clarity of purpose and although there were times when this was slightly clouded, it didn’t take much to make it clear again.  By acting honestly and consciously through my own true intentions I was able to do exactly what I wanted to do in the way that I felt it was best.  This is the power of having a purpose and being on it.

David Deida also said that sometimes ones purpose changes and when this happens, it is important to get out with the minimal stress to those around you.  I don’t feel that this has been the case.  I have left too many open threads in my work which need closing off.  I have no intention of finishing this myself, especially considering I’d be doing it for free (something I’d have been happy to do before I started the research and had to deal with the nonsense), but I would like to know that the work will be done in the future or that they are closing the project.  Once I know this I will most likely put star formation to bed in my mind and my only exposure in the future will be if someone writes about it on the BBC website.

Lessons

So what have I learned from this that I can share with my readers?

1. A purpose is mandatory.  Life without a purpose is a life of mediocrity.  It is wishy washy and indecisive.  Compared to the alternative, a life of clarity, consciousness and decisiveness there is no competition.  If you are living a life with purpose, you will appreciate this.  If you can’t very quickly identify what your purpose is now, perhaps you should try and find one.  There is an exercise here which I may try again later this week.  It didn’t help me last time but I believe it really will now I have no clear purpose, or am not aware of my purpose.
2. A purpose can change.  When a purpose changes it is important to tie up the old purpose in a clean and efficient way so you are not held back by old anchors to it.
3. Decisions to do with purpose need to be based on logic as well as emotion.  Just because something seems right does not always mean it is right.  It’s important to make mistakes and to learn from them so abandoning all emotion is a bad idea but a decision based purely on the emotion of the moment can be more trouble than it’s worth
4. Acting honestly and consciously, doing what you believe to be for the best at all times, gives you strength through adversity.  It would be so easy to beat myself up and question every action I took over the last year, many of which were very unorthodox.  I have total faith in myself however and know that I did the right thing so I am not beating myself up in any way.  There are people I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on though
5. Failure is OK.  This is probably the first major thing I’ve ‘failed’ at but I’m still alive and breathing.  I will pull through this and probably sooner rather than later.

The thing that has really struck me has been the weirdness and emptiness that I have felt without a purpose and how I really don’t like it.  I want my purpose back as soon as possible!  A life without purpose is no good to anyone.  You owe it to yourself and I owe it to myself to live a life with purpose and ambition, wether that purpose is to be a good parent to your children or to make millions by buying up incorrectly priced securities on the international markets.  This post struck a chord with you?  Perhaps you need to think about your purpose, if it’s really the best one for you or if you’re kidding yourself.  GET ON IT!

Let’s face it.  Our country is fucked up at the moment and I fully believe that the Conservative Liberal Coalition was the best general election result for the country and i hope that they will drag us out of the mess created by the Labour government and their inept leader Gordon Brown, but I still think I could do a better job than any of the politicians that are currently running the country.  Unfortunately I will never have a chance to govern because I don’t believe in playing the party political game to get in power.  I’ve decided to call myself the individualist ‘party’ in a nod to Ayn Rand, who’s book The Fountainhead has inspired a lot of my sociological views.

So for shits and giggles, I have decided to outline exactly what I would do if someone came to my front door tomorrow and told me that I was to be running the country for the next five years.  This is a radical approach to governing a country and since it will never come to pass, I can be as honest as I want.  Today I am going to write about my key political points and education.  This will form the foundation of the future work I will write

continue reading…

I hope you like the reference in my title. For those that didn’t get it, it references a book called ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ by Robert Pirsig You can get the book on Amazon, here. It’s only £6, and a great book.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: 25th Anniversary Edition: An Inquiry into Values

Anyway, enough rambling and onto the meat of the post.

I’ve recently started playing electric guitar again.  There are a few posts on this site about classical guitar, my first instrumental love, but I really wanted to share something with you about electric guitar too.

Cluttered Guitar Setups

I used to have it all.  Seriously.  I had every little gadget I could afford when I was playing guitar.  My setup was something along the lines of  Line 6 Pod 2.0 (32 Amplifier Models), TC Electronics G Major (A billion effects combinations), a BBE Sonic Maximiser, a Marshall stereo power amp and a Buddha Wah pedal for fun.

This is a pretty decent setup, possibly excluding the POD, but my god is it complicated to set up and move around.  Not to mention if something goes wrong.  However I can simulate whatever the hell sounds I want on it.  From whale sounds to playing in a Cathedral, I could do it.

Now

I share  a house with friends who don’t always appreciate loud music.  I’ve had to scale down considerably.  I chose to keep the wah pedal from before, buy a Q-Zone Envelope Filter and have a simple 5 Watt Class A Peavy tube amp which cost £80. Considerably less complicated to set up and much much lighter.  I’ve also changed guitars from an 80s shred monster of an Ibanez RG550 to a more classly looking Telecaster Re-Issue.

Simplicity And Guitar Playing

I was so hesitant to do this.  I love my effects units.  I still have them and don’t plan on selling them any time soon.

As soon as I plugged my guitar into my amp and started to play, the clarity was amazing.  Not getting hung up on what type of reverb and how many repetitions on my delay was not something I expected to look forward to.  I’m a geek.  I love that shit.  It really amuses me.  However, the effortless nature of playing without all the crutches of effects was really eye opening.  It reminded me of this quote.

We can make this complicated.  We can make this VERY complicated, or we can make it simple

I say let’s make it simple.

The really interesting thing was that once I started throwing in random sounds and effects, they simply added to the overall beauty of the sound.  Putting new accents and variations on things that were already of a high quality, rather than just messing with it for the sake of messing with it.

Simplicity and The Art of Living

This is (in all but name) a personal development blog.  I hate the term but it is what it is.  I’m just trying to write the most useful things I learn in the most entertaining way I can.  What does this mean? Is it possible to simplify life to a level where we have perfect clarity?

For me, I like a bit of spice.  I still have 2 effects on my board and I like to use them.  These effects are no longer my crutch.  I believe the same is true for life.  It’s nice to have cool stuff to play with.  I can see an XBox and a really pimp lamp from where I’m sitting (actually laying) right now and I’m writing this on an over priced but very pretty Linux based computer (that’s a Mac).  Cool stuff is important but it shouldn’t become the crutch for living your life.  They should be there to accentuate what is already good in your life.

You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

Have I used that quote before in another post?  Maybe.  I like it.  A lot.  Tyler Durden has got a point, but if you rock.  You might as well rock and wear some nice khakis or live in a cool flat too.  Just so long as you aren’t using these things to create your own identity.

Any Other Business

It’s been a while since I posted anything here but I have not been idle.  I have started up a graphics design website called http://www.uninhibiteddesigns.co.uk where I want to put my graphic work.  I also hope to turn the designs into high end t-shirts.  Think AFFLICTION design but with less attachment to MMA fighters.  Slightly cooler and more ‘romantic’ in a libertine sort of way, but still badass and sexy as fuck.

Go out and enjoy yourselves people!!!