Brian Johnson explores the inner drive to grow and evolve, drawing on the Yoga Bindu Upanishad, Steven Pressfield, and Eric Butterworth. He argues that humans have an evolutionary imperative pushing them toward constant development, ending with a call to action: grow, grow, grow, evolve, evolve, evolve.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. This morning I started my day pretty much like every other day. Of course today started last night with the PM bookend, eat early, shut down, complete digital sunset, etc. Then family time and highlight of that included me watching Emerson and Eleanor in the bath while mom was on a little self care walk. Emerson decided to give himself a super deep clean versus the normal soak and light wash. I asked him what the special occasion was. His response and I got an ab workout. Laughing so hard as I got ready to type the next line, he says well every once a year or so you need to get really clean. Me stifling laughter replies, oh yeah, that's a good point. And he replies yeah, if you go two or three years without it, you get really dirty. True story. I couldn't make that up if I tried. Love kids. Especially mine. So back to this morning. I got up early but now after my 10 hours in bed, somehow setting a new personal best aura readiness score of 98, I'm still kind of flabbergasted at how fun it's been to learn how to game the ring while feeling qualitative benefits in addition to the numerical optimizations and using the inevitable dips as opportunities to get even more clarity on what variables in my routines work and don't work. So anyway, then I did my meditation new anchor. Thank you. Then I did my Quick Movement series. Then I started the old Timex watch on another a.m. one 90 minute deep work session. I started that with a quick glance at the stack of kind words I've received from you and our other optimizers. I have that stack on the upper left corner of my desk at all times. It's a constant source of inspiration. Then I did my quick five minute carpe diem journaling, capturing my identities, virtues and behaviors for energy, work, and love with a bonus thank you reflection on what's working in each of those areas. Then I opened up Eknath Eswaran's Words to Live by to read a couple pages of spiritual inspiration before jumping into plus one creation. And that gets us to the point of today's PLOS one. Here's the passage I read and reflected on this morning. It started with a quote from Yoga Bindu Upanishad Like a ball batted back and forth, a human being is batted by two forces within. Then Eswan reflects on that gem by saying, as human beings, we have a divided nature, partly physical but essentially spiritual. We are constantly batted by two conflicting forces. One force is the fierce downward thrust of our past conditioning as separate, self oriented physical creatures. Yet built into our very nature is an inner drive that will not let us be satisfied with the life governed only by biological laws. Some inner evolutionary imperative is constantly exhorting us to grow, to reach for the highest that we can conceive. Now that last line got an underline from me. Some inner evolutionary imperative is constantly exhorting us to grow, to reach for the highest that we can conceive. Then I thought of Steven Pressfield's great parallel wisdom from the War of Art where he tells us, I quote, kabbalists believe that above every blade of grass is an angel crying grow, grow. Pressfield says, I'll go further. I believe that above the entire human race is one super angel crying evolve, evolve. Then as I typed all of that out, I thought of Eric Butterworth and his wisdom on the same theme in spiritual economics. He tells us, I quote, it is interesting to note that there is mounting evidence for the existence of syntropy through the influence of which forms tend to reach higher and higher levels of organization, order and dynamic harmony. A Nobel Prize winning biologist once referred to it as an innate drive in living matter to. To perfect itself. And today many are calling attention to a psychological drive toward synthesis, toward wholeness and self perfection. And that's today's plus one. Let's take a moment to see the two forces within ourselves. And let's choose to pay a special attention to that inner evolutionary imperative that is constantly exhorting us to grow and to reach for the highest that we can conceive. Let's all say it and live it together. Grow, grow, grow, evolve, evolve, evolve.
