Limitless

Obstacles of the mind.

“Where could I arrive if limitations simply didn’t exist?”

Kapil Gupta

This is not a painting of Eddie Morra.

I love the film Limitless (2011). I’ve seen it a couple of handfuls of times at least. As someone who struggled with shyness from childhood until fairly recently, the lost 29-year-old man child who first watched the film when it came out, yearned for the possibility to be limitless, or fearlessness. I related to the protagonist, Eddie Morra, an aspiring artist (writer) who was always struggling to get things moving, waiting for his life to start, he was just getting by.

Then (spoiler alert – I would hope most people know of this film by now) he takes an untested pill that gives him access to 100% of his brainpower. He cleans up his flat, finishes his book manuscript in an evening, tidies up his appearance and makes one million dollars in the stock market practically overnight. What 29-year-old man wouldn’t want that?

The pill is enticing as it’s effects are instant. No one wants to slog at being creative, clever, charming and charismatic. Most people think they either are something or they aren’t something. It all depends on how much you want something I guess? From experience, my willpower has never lasted that long. Gym sessions have been stopped in their tracks when I’ve forced things. The times when I’ve been to the gym for a streak of 6 months or so, I’ve truly wanted to go, and I did the exercises that I wanted to do. Not the exercises I thought I should do.

“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

Bruce Lee

When I think of willpower, it feels like a struggle, it’s hard, it’s not enjoyable. When I do something I enjoy it and it’s effortless, easy, and often fun. You don’t have to try.

I used to watch these videos of men who were Navy Seals, like Jocko Willick and David Goggins. I kind of felt like they were limitless, they made it into the seals, then went on tour and came back to tell the tale. But as I get wiser in my old age, I’d rather be myself, and not beat myself up for not being Goggins. In one of the last videos I saw of Goggins, I felt sorry for him. I’m not undermining his achievements at all, He’s awesome! It’s just that he had a really hard time as a kid, his dad was very violent and used to beat up him and his mum. I didn’t feel sorry for him because of that, he seemed to be at peace with it, it’s just that he can’t seem to relax. He says that if he thinks about doing something challenging and he has that voice that says “I can’t do it” he forces his way through and does it anyway. That feels exhausting to me. However, it’s all about context.

We write about other people and we think we know what they’re like from reading about them and watching their videos. Maybe they are happy with the way they live. Maybe it has become a habit and it’s just become so much easier now. I don’t know. What I am interested in, are the limitations that stop us from doing the things we want to do.

For many years, I was very limited. Moving to Bristol in 2003 after finishing college, I kinda expected to get a job right away. When that didn’t happen, I ended up feeling useless and depressed. Being very shy didn’t help the equation either, I would feel anxious going to job agencies and asking for work. A strong memory comes to mind, where I walked past a particular agency, looked in the window to see well-dressed, attractive recruitment consultants, didn’t feel confident enough to go in and went back home to my flat.

From the outside in, it could’ve easily looked like I was lazy, not working for periods of time and watching the film Sexy Beast nearly every day for comfort (don’t ask me why!). Another strong memory comes to mind where I tried calling a job ad in the newspaper but got all tongue tied and hung up. I felt useless, absolutely useless.

Anyway, this post is not going to go into my life story. I explained the above as you can see, I’ve had massive mental limitations in my life. So I’ve been on a journey trying to break through these limits and how I feel about myself and how my life is, is worlds apart now as it was 21 years ago. Sometimes we ‘grow out of’ our destructive behaviours we had as a teen or young adult, but by golly, I had to fight tooth and nail at first to get the flywheel moving.

Since then, I’ve always thought about our collective limitations, habits and unconscious routines. We’re most comfortable going through the motions aren’t we? Our day to day routines may not be perfect but they’re certainly familiar. There may be suffering but even that is often comfortable, speaking from experience.

I’ve done so much personal development over the years. But where I stand now, I feel like my art is my driving force in life. Of course having a wonderful wife and child are my locus of life but art comes from a deep need to express and be creative. I need this too, otherwise I would feel like something was missing.

Let’s get back to being limitless…

I often read Kapil Gupta and to paraphrase, he says that we didn’t try hard to get limitations in our psyche, so in effect, we don’t need to try hard to undo the limitations we have. It all comes with understanding. It comes with the realisation that limitations aren’t as real as we think they are.

I’ve not found limitless but my shyness is not debilitating as it was, I might be too shy to do something specific, but I have no issue with job interviews, going into job agencies and the like.

We are used to incremental changes in our lives, we work our way up the corporate layer, we get that little bit better at playing tennis after a certain amount of practice, we get better with playing guitar over time. I remember Kapil Gupta saying that the great sprinter, Usain Bolt didn’t take his ability to it’s highest of heights, because as soon as he knew he was ahead of his competitors, he’d slow down slightly as he knew he’d won. He could’ve gone further.

I’ll leave you with this…

“Every human being is born with and actually lives with a very magical and grand possibility”

Comment below:

1. Would you take the limitless pill knowing the side effects?

2. What would you do whilst on the limitless pill?

3. What is holding you back? Is it true?

Love to you,

SLART

Siddha (2019) – 42 cm x 29.7 cm – Brush pens on white paper by

SLART