Take it easy, man! Your thoughts?

[DigitalBuddha]

In the meantime, getting back to discussing Dudeism.

So dudes, I was wondering what your thoughts were on what it means to take it easy? What do you do to take it easy?

Thoughts, dudes?

[PriorRestraint]

It's almost two things -- there are activities that I do in order to take it easy, like nap, read, snuggle with my kids, etc., and then there's a way in which you can do pretty much anything with an "easy" mindset or attitude.

I can bum around the house in an uptight manner, and I can work my ass off but still be easy and abiding internally. It may not always look like laying in a hammock with a buzz on.

Easy can be a state of mind, and also a choice. Most people just make a habit, or take a perverse, masochistic pride, in "taking things hard" so to speak. Caring too much, standards too high, rushing, fear, etc etc. Luckily it can also become a habit to live in an easier mindset, and when we stray, to choose to let it go and return to easy...

In the meantime, getting back to discussing Dudeism.

So dudes, I was wondering what your thoughts were on what it means to take it easy? What do you do to take it easy?

Thoughts, dudes?

[BikerDude]

Hmm good question.
In the most literal sense I'd have to put it close to the concept of abiding.
Not letting shit get you down. Literally taking IT (life, strikes and gutters etc) easy. Not sweating shit.
In the colloquial sense (parlance of our times) it seems to generally indicate activities. Relaxation generally.
"Calm down. Take it easy many."
Or "I'm going to camp and take it easy."
And I am. Exactly that.
Beer, tunes and the rest is 100% up in the air.

[RandoRock]

To me a former Co-worker of mine said it best. Don't sweat the petty things, pet the sweaty things. To me it's always been about rolling with the changes, sure things get fucked up but it only really matters if we let those things drag us down. Bills, Work, Obligations, and what have ya all are important and all take some form of priority but I don't let any of those things make my life hard. It's not always easy and I have to remind myself that at the end of the day it all ends the same so why stress?

[Brother D]

Realising nothing is fucked, it's cool, (providing I don't make an ass outta myself).

[Big the Cat]

Channeling a wiser fella than myself, Epicurus, thinking about what is really important to me and saying fuck it to all the other stuff. For me:

Important: independence, friends, basic necessities, working as little as possible, being a moral person, idling, music, video games, TV, learning (not necessarily school), shelter

Not Important (to me): a house, children (in that I don't intend to have them, though if that's your bag, cool) the fucking money, pleasing certain other people, that promotion, a car

Though admittedly, I'm pretty privileged to be able to say "the fucking money" is not important.

[thevideoartist]

I've been listening to a lot of Alan Watts lately.  I think there's a lot to be said for how he recognizes so much of what we worry about in life to be illusions.  Money is an illusion, we had to invent it to represent the value of goods and services for trade, but the thing in and of itself has no value (even when it was backed by gold, why is gold valuable?  People trading it weren't using it for anything, they just all decided that gold was a standard of value.  When someone buys gold with money that was supposed to be backed by gold, what was actually being spent?  You get the picture.)  Social status is another illusion, how our peers perceive us is completely subjective.  And if someone would see us in a negative light and depending on how we feel about the person we may take that as a compliment (I hope members of the KKK would not think I'm a great person because I don't respect people from that organization and would take pride in that.  If someone arbitrarily takes a dislike to me, I can choose not to care and that means I've lost nothing, even if I do care I've lost nothing).  Even the things we don't consciously stress out about are illusions: how we perceive light and color is an illusion, otherwise the eyes wouldn't be so easy to trick.  The screen you're reading this on right now creates the illusion of movement when you scroll up and down or when you play back videos which are just a collection of still frames that your brain mistakes for motion.  Here's my point dude: Take anything that you're worried about or anything interrupting your cool and you can always find a way to realize that it just doesn't exist except in our own minds.

I think taking it easy, no matter what you're doing, is just a perpetual mindfulness of how all our perceptions of reality are illusory and hence unimportant in the grandest of schemes.  You might just call it "the whole derned human comedy".  This means that the things we enjoy, like having an oat soda, burning a jay, playing a game, taking a nap, jerking off manually, etc.  These things will not become escapes or addictions, they will supplement our already mellow and mindful existence and not be some kind of vehicle to get us to "taking it easy"... we will already be there and since we are, we want to spend our time in complimentary ways.