About Raptitude

Welcome to Raptitude.com, a blog to help people enjoy being human.

What is Raptitude?

“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”

-Albert Einstein

If only somebody had taught me this in kindergarten: There is a simple, crucial fact that would eventually end a long spell of misery and dullness in my life twenty-something years later.  If I had known it then, I could have avoided a lot of suffering and floundering.  Life is all about the pursuit of happiness, and we learn from our parents, teachers and peers how to go about this pursuit. Unfortunately they can only teach us what they know, and they don’t always know best.

School taught me all kinds of useful facts about mathematics and science and English, and everything else I supposedly needed to live a stable, prosperous adult life.  But if their job was to prepare me to be a healthy, happy person, I think they missed the most important point.  Perhaps they didn’t realize it themselves.  Luckily it only took about a quarter century of trial and error to figure it out:

Happiness is a skill, not a commodity.

That is, it’s not something you get, it’s something you do.  A person’s level of happiness is determined by how skilled they are at cultivating happiness, not by their circumstances or resources.  I guess somewhere along the line I got happiness confused with gratification.  Gratification is nothing more than the feeling of getting something you want, whether it’s good for you or not.

Gratification is easy to find.  As we grow up we discover sources of it all over the place: on the TV, at the mall, in computer games, in vacations, in arguments with people, in alcohol, in success and money, in friends and lovers.  But the pleasure that comes with it is always gone so fast.  It usually has a significant cost in terms of money and time, and very often our health.

Genuine happiness is always light and easy.  It has no cost, no hangover, no negative effects on our relationships, our bank account or our self-control.  Happiness is sustainable, whereas gratification is not.  We need a steady stream of gratification if pleasure is going to be our source of happiness.

Trying to create this steady flow of pleasure is a losing battle, but it is the norm in the western world.  People commonly eat and drink themselves into poor health and addiction.  Others work forty, fifty, or sixty hours a week at a job they don’t like, so that eventually they can enjoy a few weeks of vacation,  a shinier car or more enviable furniture.  The good feelings these pleasures provide will usually last only a tiny fraction of the time it took to earn them.

For most of us, the pursuit of happiness resembles the familiar pattern of want, acquire, get bored, want, acquire, get bored.  We just don’t know any better.  Particularly in North American societies, gratification is king, and most of us are not aware of any other reliable way to feel good.

We have all experienced true happiness.  Even the most chronically miserable people stumble into it from time to time.  You may have discovered it while relaxing on the back porch on a summer evening, or watching your child play at a recital, or maybe while walking the dog.  When we are in that state, we know that real happiness is more than just pleasure.  It is a state of clarity and purity, of abundance and love.  It is the distinct sense that everything is right in the world.

Whether we know it or not, it is what everyone lives for.

It seems to be very elusive, completely absent most of the time, showing up only when conditions allow.  This is true, the conditions must be right, but those conditions are internal, not external.   Anybody, so long as they are willing to examine their habits and beliefs, can cultivate real happiness.

Raptitude.com is my way of sharing what I’ve learned about creating happiness and ease in life, and my way of connecting with others from whom I can learn more.

As you might expect, people have been exploring methods for achieving happiness for centuries.  Much has been discovered, but very often the lessons become hopelessly confused with mythology, religious doctrine and cryptic parables.  Raptitude is my best effort to distill this wisdom, as well as my own discoveries, into plain, actionable language.

Community is fundamental to the Raptitude experience.  I know there are others out there who understand (or at least suspect) that life does not have to be as difficult as we make it.  I would like to use this site to interact with those people and have them interact with each other.  Wisdom from others has triggered extraordinary changes in my life and I want this site to facilitate such groundbreaking exchanges between its readers.

Also essential to Raptitude is the idea of experimentation.  Concepts and ideas can be useful and encouraging, but it is the application of those ideas that effect big improvements in one’s life.  It can be very revealing (and fun) to try on a new habit or technique for a week or two (or four), and observe the results.  I will conduct experiments in my own life and post my observations and conclusions, and I would love to hear about your experiments too.

There is a broader picture here.  This kind of personal development is not just about improving your own quality of life.  It is about improving humanity.  Cruelty, violence, addiction and hatred are symptoms of a critical lack of the kinds of skills and wisdom I’m talking about.  Humanity is still accustomed to the power-and-domination approach our savage ancestors used, and our cultures still reflect it.  Anger, mistrust, and selfishness are great engines for keeping a person alive, but not for much else.  The old ways are conducive to survival, but not happiness.  Survival is easy in the developed world, so these old drives only get in our way.  Happiness is a relatively new art form, and it takes a more intelligent, less impulsive approach.

There are better things on the horizon for humanity, and it starts with the outliers: the minority of people who are willing to question the status quo of misery and frustration, and who can see that there is a smarter way.  Let’s start with you and me, and see what we can do.

Who is David Cain?

I am just a regular guy who beat up his biggest demon.

Not long ago, my life was cruising along somewhere between ‘dull’ and ‘awful’.  I found myself in a depression for no apparent reason.  It was especially frustrating in that it seemed to come out of nowhere. There was no traumatic event or desperate conditions that triggered it, so I had nobody to blame, no enemy to rally against. My misery just seemed so automatic, like it was planned, programmed into me.

Although there were times when my dissatisfaction overwhelmed me and caused me to act out, most of my suffering was internal and private.  There were times when it was unbearable, but mostly it was just a long, dull ache for a better version of my life.  An external observer probably would have guessed I was just a timid person.  I was, but it didn’t feel like me.

So I made changes.  I read, studied, experimented, pondered.  I struggled, stewed, yearned, desired.  I observed, adjusted, refined, relearned.  After a while, things started to click.  One breakthrough led to another, and now I am living that better version of my life.  I haven’t achieved everything I want yet, in fact I feel like I’m just scratching the surface of the realm of goals and achievements.  But I have finally become somebody who has it in him.  I feel limitless.

I am not enlightened.  I am no new age guru or motivational speaker.  I still have faults, vices, and bad habits.  I have foul moods now and then, I don’t keep my apartment as tidy as I’d like, I’m occasionally cranky, narrow-minded or self-righteous.  Sometimes I’m too modest, other times I’m a bit overbearing.  So, I haven’t quite reached perfection, but I have made astounding improvements to my quality of life and my potential just by discovering new ways to look at life and its dilemmas.

The most dramatic change has been this:

I no longer find life difficult.

It has its frustrating bits, and I still lose my temper now and then, but I never feel hopeless or disillusioned.  All difficulty is as short-lived as my passing moods.  No slumps, no ruts, no depression.

Life has its ups and downs, but there is a certain level of frustration and despair that I know I will never reach again.  I know that I have sufficient perspective to deal with anything that happens.  I don’t fear the future anymore, and I don’t let my past upset me.

You can’t really measure quality of life precisely, but in terms of how much time I spend in an easy, relaxed, happy state, I’d say I’ve experienced a ten- or twenty-fold increase.  And my progress seems to be accelerating.  This last year in particular has been incredible.  I can officially say I’m no longer shy.   I’m more able to be myself than ever.  My dreams have never felt closer.

Most importantly, I now enjoy the in-between moments.  I enjoy waiting for a friend to show up.  I enjoy climbing up the stairs.  I enjoy sitting in the theatre before the movie starts.

As for personal details, I’m in my late twenties, a Canadian boy from the Red River valley.  I like cities and culture, people and places.  Nature and art.  Craftsmanship and sportsmanship.  My penmanship is not so good.

I appreciate quality in all forms: in people, in language, in humor, in design and in handiwork.  Laughing is probably my favorite thing to do.  I love travel and exploration.  I love the internet.  I love food and wine and beer.  I love flowers and football and mountains and concerts.  I play guitar, I snowboard, I swing kettlebells around in my apartment.  I read.  I love languages; I’m learning French at the moment, Spanish is next.  English was my first love.

I’m a huge music fan.  I love Radiohead, The White Stripes, Jimi Hendrix, Soundgarden, Simon & Garfunkel, Nine Inch Nails, Beck, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Vivaldi, The Doors, Pearl Jam, Modest Mouse, Pink Floyd, Mozart, Talking Heads, The Tragically Hip, Portishead, Tool, and Ween, for starters.

You can contact me via email: david@raptitude DOT com

Or just leave a comment in a post!

Thank you for coming, make yourself at home.