The Rise and Ruin Of Logic

By John Lindhjem

Me, Myself, and Life’s Characters

I am “Thought” the adventurer
Let me tell you a tale about your birth…

Long ago, in a thorough search for more, Logic the separatist broke away from his roots and gave birth to his own children of madness. As Thought lays the foundation, Logic the capit

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publicious Book Publishing
• Release date: Mar 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9780648250906

John Lindhjem

John Lindhjem is an emerging self-help author who is on a lifelong mission to empower people to obliterate the obstacles between them and their infinite potential. He also strives to be a beacon of hope for those who have lost faith long ago. Deeply service-oriented since birth, he is an advocate of three key areas: growth, change, and spirituality. Needless to say, being of service to others is really at the core of everything he takes does, and he wouldn't have it any other way. John's love of writing was piqued as a child while writing letters to his father who was away more often than not. Soon, the written word became more than a method for communication with loved ones; it transformed into a purpose. The muse has been with him ever since, through both trough and crest. But the journey wasn't always so seamless. He still had an almost unquenchable thirst that he couldn't shake off...He yearned for spiritual experiences, and this yearning took him on a long voyage of colossal self-growth and awakening. In the midst of that transformation, he truly witnessed the madness behind the rat race and the self-sabotaging nature of society's pursuit of monetary wealth. This is what inspired him to pick up that pen, which wound up being one of the most pivotal moments of his entire life. Throughout the course of his multifaceted career, John has dabbled in an array of different industries, from marketing and manual labour, to tourism and fashion media. It's this diverse background that has made him into the humble, dedicated individual he is today. Outside of motivating others through the power of words, John is immersed in various entrepreneurial ventures, including establishing a Norway-based health food cafe and a Peru-based travel agency. He is also quite the creative mind with an avid interest in painting, decorating, and fashion modelling. Some more avid interests include Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Martial Arts, and tennis. However, travelling is one of John's greatest passions. For as long as he can remember, travel has literally been his life. Venturing out of his homeland early on, he went on countless adventures to Asia, India, Europe, and South America. While each area offered its own one-of-a-kind experiences, Norway wound up becoming his go-to destination. John Lindhjem is a forward-thinking man with a vision to help his readers look beyond the system and their self-imposed limits. To him, it isn't a matter of thinking outside the box; it's a matter of doing away with that box once and for all.

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PART TWO

ON INNER HAPPINESS, AND TRUE HAPPINESS

CHAPTER 1

Happiness Is Within. Oh Please?

Waking

up every morning can be a bore—depressing, if you aren’t satisfied with the life you are currently living. It’s hard to face everyday life when you feel discouraged, as though your life is purposeless. In other words, life without joy isn’t worth living! And this is why you feel frustrated. No matter how hard you try to shake off the feeling of impending doom hovering around you, it sticks to you like honey to a bee. Maybe time is running out on you, or maybe you just weren’t destined to be happy.

Like me, you can’t seem to locate the inner happiness you’ve been told is within you, and no matter how hard you try to search, it appears to be an effort in futility. Welcome to the real world. But could it be otherwise? Can we live better lives? Or have we been sold an irrefutable lie? Do we hope in vain? These are the fleeting questions running through our minds each moment of every day, as we try to figure out why life treats us so.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been told to find happiness within me, not to depend on external sources of joy—and this message is sometimes passed across subtly; other times, not so subtly. It has been implied that I am strong, and my inner strength will suffice me no matter how terrible life throws blows at me. Depending on external sources of happiness has been made to look like something only weak people partake in; and heaven forbid that I be thought of as weak!

It irks me to discover that even if I tore myself completely apart, I still could never find that happiness everyone so eagerly lets me know is found within myself. It is frustrating when you come to a conclusion—one you reach with a certain fear of unbridled reality; that your inner tank of happiness might not carry you beyond a certain level, and what if you need to progress further? How would you move on with clarity of purpose if the strength required is neither found in you nor can be drawn from somewhere else? A classic description of being stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea!

Several of us battling with this issue have considered ourselves to be somewhat broken beyond repair; perhaps that could account for why we lack the strength we are told we possess intrinsically. But this can’t be true because the ones who aren’t ‘broken’ can’t seem to still find this hidden source of inner happiness that would provide the solution to all of life’s problems; therefore, we need to look in another direction to help us in this quest.

After years of weighing these thoughts, of searching every nook and cranny of my mind for the happiness that ought to spring forth effortlessly from me, I have discovered one thing; which I suspected all along, but didn’t have the nerve to voice out: We have been lied to. Indeed, this is a painful realisation because even kids hold on tightly to a belief that there’s happiness on the inside of them, and are taught that if they want to be happy, all they need to do is bring out that happy store from within. What then happens when it runs out, or to what would we account depression?

Would we then say that anyone who’s gotten depressed is at fault because they didn’t draw out of their stores of inner joy? This further buttresses the point that we have been sold a cheap lie, one which we’ve clung on to for several years. For some reason, someone influential in the thought realm chose to play an expensive joke on us, and we’re now the butt of all jokes about inner happiness! It’s not true—was never true—and will never be true that the only way to be happy is to look within ourselves. That sounds crude, doesn’t it? Before you completely dismiss my thoughts, read a little further.

Aren’t you curious that a human being like you is refuting with boldness something you always thought to be true? Why would I take the pain to write a book about it, if I didn’t deem it true, and if I haven’t experienced it first-hand? Aren’t you bored of being sold a lie? All the talk about happiness being within us has gotten way out of context. We may as well eat lunch at the rubbish dump because if it’s horrible looking on the outside, well, then that shouldn’t matter since happiness is within, right? After all, your inner joy would supersede all external and environmental factors, and put you in a superior position mentally than anything that would have killed your joy externally.

It doesn’t matter if another person is nasty to you, happiness is within. Cling to it, and you’d never lose the compass of your life. How false! Just look at the inner beauty of everything—even a snake—and you’ll find the beautiful spirit within the thing that doesn’t look so beautiful on the outside. Oh, what crap! Yes, a nagging feeling within us tells us how untrue it is. Somehow, we still choose to believe otherwise. We want to believe that somewhere within us is a source of unquenchable joy; but when we lay down at night, we can’t escape from that gnawing feeling of uncertainty, telling us how wrong we are, how unwise we are to believe in a lie.

Here’s how simple it is to understand. When you do something you enjoy, you feel the joy or happiness within. Happiness or joy also needs a source outside of yourself. Something circumstantial. Implying that in ourselves, we do not have joy might seem rather crude, but if we faced facts right from the onset, we might not have to deal with several of the issues that end up plaguing us.

Still don’t believe me? Okay, how about a simple exercise: Tell a man who is in a jail that happiness is within. You know what answer you’ll get. Man, this is Hell. And he’s right. We know he’s right because if we were in his state, we would also feel like crap; unquestionably! And so, why do we tell ourselves otherwise, and somehow believe that we can find joy in an abyss? Why do we somehow choose the lie over the truth and to what end? Let’s get this really clear. You’re not a floating Spirit yet, hovering around in some beautiful cosmic energy, eating light as food and living off this inner happiness boringness stuff. Even if you want to live outside of your true reality, it will always present itself to you, and you’ve got to accept it regardless!

You have a body, right? It has needs. It needs things to be happy, at peace or in joy whatever you wish to imagine this happiness saga to be. This is a crucial, inescapable part of the concept of humanity. It could be truck-loads of money or tsunamis of attention. But there’s something that makes you tick; something that gets you, that makes you feel loved. This is what brings out a smile out of the deep crevices of your heart, oh how it warms your heart! It is your heart’s language, and regardless, whenever this language is spoken to you, you’d budge. It’s reflexive.

What I advise? Find this thing that totally gets you going and for nothing in this world should you abandon it! The truth is, we don’t live within, we live out– out there, but feel the outer, within. So living out there, the world will depend on its outer things to be happy within, right? I mean, you got something inside you that qualifies happiness of the world out there. It can’t just be totally aloof and independent of what’s going on in your everyday life. It doesn’t work that way. The law is that the external affects the internal. Your outside world plays a crucial role in how your internal environment is framed.

We can’t just be detached about everything and ignore the world like some Gandhi. After all, we are special, right? We can’t just ignore bad road works and too much traffic, take in deep breaths and say happiness is within, can we? No matter how much we wish this were the truth—it simply isn’t. So, how can you just go In, and expect to be happy there? That sounds more like withdrawing and retreating than inner happiness! It might as well be smart to agree that this is what you’re doing—withdrawing, instead of assuming that the world around you doesn’t matter at all.

I remember all those crap jobs I had and those tough days. I told myself, John, happiness is within. Guess what? I didn’t find it. All I found were many thoughts… Did I find peace between thoughts? Yes, I certainly did. Did I find a sense of happiness discovering the origin and meaning of thinking? Indeed, that too! But that was only the beginning. Despite that, looking deep into myself to produce unending joy didn’t give me anything worthwhile; if anything, it only frustrated me some more. I discovered several years ago that I loved the good life—but really, who doesn’t?

We somehow trick ourselves into believing that our situations in life don’t play any role in how we feel, but we know we are wrong; only if we admit it to ourselves. But admitting it is hard, mostly because we like to act all noble and make others believe that we are okay with whatever life throws our way, when in fact, we would fight tooth and nail against anything that doesn’t fill us with the kind of joy we’d love to have.

But I am not saying something. I am not implying that you can NEVER find happiness within yourself alone. No. I am only saying that to assume the only place you’d ever find happiness is within yourself, is sheer fallacy. To place that responsibility solely on your inner self is something that’s scary for even the best of us to carry. Don’t be told or fooled that’s it’s all within. Like I said, happiness is somewhere. I didn’t say it’s within, or out there, but it’s somewhere. It is in both places.

Inner happiness is also dependent on outer circumstances. For example, you have time and money to go on a yoga retreat, to have a facial, join a tennis club or go to a day spa and have champagne lunch with your friends to feel inner happiness; and you think you wouldn’t be happy? Trust me; you’ll be over the moon, awash with joy! And no sir, that joy didn’t come from an internal source—it came from outside of you, and it is only wise to accept this.

Let’s use another example; most people are happier in a love relationship than they are alone. Though when it’s bad, you wish you were alone. They get to share happiness together whereas people too much alone only contemplate and dream about happiness, or begin creating one with their own nirvana states, hence conflicting views and call this different levels and states of happiness. There is a slight difference between the two, and I bet if you are an (inner) happier alone type, then you have a pet cat, dog, fish tank, a birdcage, a ton of single friends or the TV blaring in the background to keep you company while falling asleep to a Tony Robbins or Eckhart Tolle podcast. But let’s keep this simple…So then—is happiness to be found on the outside, also? Indeed it is!

How can we claim inner happiness without the outer world’s reflection of things? I am not talking about just physical happiness. Inner happiness is a laugh to the poor man who sleeps on the street. He’ll ask you for two bucks to buy him a coffee. That is the start of inner happiness for the poor man. Happiness is not within. Happiness is felt within.

Have you seen those facial expressions when lovers first meet? Can you recollect the kind of almost uncontrollable joy seen on their faces when they hug after a long time of missing each other? Do you recall that moment yourself? Have you seen that momentary euphoria floating across that person’s face? Was that not happiness? It came from out there. But they sure felt it within! Do you get my point?

Although the joy welled up inside them before it showed on the outside, it surely came from them being happy about what was happening around them, a.k.a. meeting the love of their lives. So, I guess we can keep ignoring all the things that make us unhappy that are going on in the world, and pretending or kidding ourselves that happiness is within. But we know that it’s playing pretence, and no one wants to play pretence forever, right? Even if you choose to do something so naïve, we aren’t getting any younger, and sooner or later, age will catch up on you while you’re acting the fool!

One day long ago, we were told, go find a happy life. We marry, get that dream job, and buy that dream destination. We take costly vacations somewhere in the Bahamas and show the world that we can be happy in spite of whatever is happening around us. We simply recreate our own versions of reality, and live by it! Then a saint comes along and says, happiness is not there, it is within. He or she tells you how you’d need to forsake this costly life that you’ve chosen and seek for the kind of joy that can only be found deep within your soul. They tell you how it is vain to choose to remain in your current state when you could be achieving much more! But he or she is not within, they are an object also, like the happiness thing, telling you all about the inner happiness stuff.

We ain’t gonna get anywhere like this repeating old talk about happiness within. You see, even the one pointing you towards a weird definition of inner happiness is also not internal, but an external source. How then would you even believe the logic that happiness can or is only an internal concept? What about the people in your life that make you happy? Or is that also something wrong? Accepting that to be happy is to embrace both the external and the internal is what this book will focus on.

Here, I will help you understand why you must never restrict your joy to what you feel on the inside, or what happens on the outside. This is the secret to living above depression, to living away from a mindset of defeat that plagues several people today. I only have one assignment/task for you. Drop all your preconceived notions about happiness at the doorstep as you begin to read the chapters of this book. Prepare your mind for a radical transformation, as you soak in life-changing concepts and details, and get a reinforcement of some things you previously thought or knew to be true. Nonetheless, prepare for a juggling mind-ride, and some not-so-pleasant truths. I exist to make your life better, not necessarily to give you a fleeting form of happiness—you have chocolate for that! Enough about misconceptions. Let’s get things straight.

CHAPTER 2

My Inner Happiness Story

If I were to make an educated guess, I’d say everyone has had their share of good and bad days; and while we can all agree that life is about the perception of events, we still would agree that for some people, life is harder than for most others. Yet, most people have memories of bad times fresher in their brains than memories of relatively better times. Why’s that? Ironically, this is irrespective of whether you’ve had more of good times than bad times—it simply cuts across the board; everyone seems to remember what hurt them, and feel the sting pretty deeply.

Yet, sometimes, living entails doing nothing, save meditation. It entails like I am doing today, lying on a sofa as I type, almost totally oblivious to all that’s going on around me save the background music wafting softly past my right ear like the sound and smell of chicken being fried all at once. I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes, doing nothing is also satisfying. It is easy to get into the mentality that the only people who work hard are those within our sphere. It’s called ‘superiority mentality’. We simply bask in the glory of shared excellence, believing that because we belong to a certain circle, we deserve happiness.

It is so easy to assume that for us to be truly happy, we have to ‘deserve’ it; meaning we have worked for it, and the external world now rewards us for the strength we have consistently displayed. How wrong is that? Very wrong!

I have been on both sides of the fence; crapping myself out, working so hard it hurts so I could deserve to be happy; and also, working on the other end, doing absolutely nothing because I believed that I didn’t have to do anything to get the joy I needed to feel within me. At the end of both test scenarios, I ended up feeling miserable. None of them filled me with as much joy as I’d anticipated they would. It really frustrated me to see that going to either extreme didn’t bring me the much-desired happiness—how insane is that! After a while, I picked myself up out of my mire of helplessness and began to ask deep questions such as Is there a way out of this?

More than anything else, I have always loved to provide solutions to life problems and to help people see the way out of specific challenges, so for me, it became a challenge, a curious goal I had to get to the end of. I worked with such frenzy—reading different material, discarding and reiterating bits and pieces of information until I had enough knowledge to put together a short book that I believe would help you understand why we search for happiness; and what you should and shouldn’t do on your search for the pretty elusive thing called happiness.

Like me, you have probably lived on one end of the spectrum; and that’s why you bought this book—it could even be your last attempt at believing in humanity and letting the world have your trust for the last time, because God help you, you’ve done all you know how to do; yet you haven’t gotten a solution or even an answer! But inner happiness is a faux just like living a dream life is not all it’s made out to be. It has been so glossed up to make us assume that if we try a bit harder here, or do something different there, we’d soon achieve it with such clarity that we never thought