The first of two caboose-inspired pieces.

I like to think about things that are invisible to us, by which I mean we take things for granted to such an extent that we lose conscious awareness and become blind to it.

It happens a lot with (not so) trivial things, day-to-day things like how you live, and with whom. Woven subtly through hundreds of unconscious daily rituals are the most important hours of your life, running parallel to your awareness like two train tracks.

These train tracks locate you within the chaos of life and transport you through time. They are forged from everything you no longer question but continue to do. They link you to moments that are familiar, moments that are unmistakably your life, which is most of them. Alloyed with your self-identity and therefore invisible.

In many cases when someone asks me how to be happier, I ask them to describe their day. “Just a normal day, nothing special, eat-work-sleep-repeat basically.” So we start at the beginning: what do you do when you awaken each morning? Then what?

Piece by piece the normal day comes into view full of hidden intricacy. In other words – how do you normally spend your entire 24 hours, down to the last minute, in a way uniquely your own? Answering a question like that can make many things obvious.

In my experience most, but not all, unhappy people have unhappy train tracks: their day contains a lot of invisible unhappy things. Most happy people have happy train tracks. Do we get to forge them ourselves? 

The train tracks of children are laid down by their parents, predisposition, government, environment, genetics, and the family dog. Then school happens. Then work happens. Everything happens and some of it bends our tracks, and we scarcely notice. Even if we feel the bends we forget why we feel. It becomes invisible again. chik chik… pok pok…

Changing tracks
Self-reflection, honesty, journaling, and brave (vulnerable) conversations will be faster than psychedelics. If you like to use apps then this one might help. Good therapists are experts at seeing your invisibles and helping you to see too.