The Perfectly Bearable Anonymity of Being

"When a society is rich, its people don't need to work with their hands; they can devote themselves to activities of the spirit. We have more and more universities and more and more students. If students are going to earn degrees, they've got to come up with dissertation topics. And since dissertations can be written about everything under the sun, the number of topics is infinite. Sheets of paper covered with words pile up in archives sadder than cemeteries, because no one ever visits them, not even on All Souls' Day. Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity."

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, p. 103
By Milan Kundera
Published 1984

I haven't read this book, but it's high on the list of the many I want to. Regarding the book as a whole, I have nothing to base my opinions on besides this quotation, which will leave me either misinterpreting or simply reinventing his thoughts in my own way. 

Freedom or paralysis is inevitable when realizing the daunting "madness of quantity" in this world. For me, paralysis came first. I've been really hung up on this recently. I believe we underestimate the sheer quantity of everything out there; we know, but we don't truly believe. 

The madness of quantity keeps going on and on infinitely in all areas of life. No matter how diligently I aspire toward any specific goal, I will always be met with competition. I will always find someone farther ahead who knows more and can do better.  

Freedom, in its brilliant simplicity, was when I realized...that doesn't matter. In fact, it's better that way. 

The world became a richer place, in my opinion. It's like listening to music just to listen to it, without caring who wrote it, or who's singing it. Instead, to just take in the pleasurable ebbing and flowing of the harmonies and melodies as they collide, creating sounds that miraculously communicate meaning to me.   

Fame is the modern equivalent of immortality. To be heard, seen, or recognized--anywhere--prevents one from disappearing altogether. American society is built on a competitive culture, a culture that is spreading dangerously fast. Recognition, in whatever form, is just another part of the game. 

Yet, there is basis for wanting to be discovered. As Kundra pointed out, so much has been lost due to sheer numbers and inescapable anonymity. Not all can be famous.

I would argue there is absolute freedom in anonymity. When I can embrace my wisp-like existence, I am left content. It is true, my highly time-invested senior thesis will be buried in a cemetery of countless others after next year. There's not much I can do about it but embrace the process, learn, grow, stretch myself, and not worry about its impact on the world.  

Perhaps this is how I would define art (of life and other things): the creation of something for it's own sake, not your own or anyone else's. 

When my expectations dissolved, so did the person I was "meant to be". Somehow, this mysterious presumption had adhered itself to the back of my mind like superglue. I was convicted I really needed to go out with a bang. As a result, I spent a lot of time wearing myself out and feeling disappointed, guilty, and ashamed. Inevitably, I was failing (already!). 

Accepting one's mediocrity shouldn't equate to depression and purposelessness. Quite the contrary, actually. I strive to forget about myself. When I am taken out of the picture, there is nothing left. Nothing, except a pure, translucent reflection of the real Creator Himself. He is the noun, I am the verb. 

Dear reader, I encourage you (as well as myself), to enjoy the act of doing not being; of writing, not being a writer; of running, not being a runner. When the verb becomes a noun that identifies who you are, it changes your perspective. It confuses you. It limits you. Are you a mother, or are you mothering? Do you see the difference? One confines into a subjective definition (one that should be only His), the other compels into a developing action (one that can be yours). 

Do you define your actions, or do your actions define you? 

The former is merely a perception of who you believe you are; the latter is the reality everyone else actually sees.  

..
{dm}

Getting Over More Than Just Jet Lag

Now is the season of graduations and weddings; with these milestones come a readjustment from familiarity into something new and completely different. Change is an absolute of life; regardless of circumstances, we know life never stops changing. Right now, I am trying to figure out how to move from something new and completely different (traveling Asia for 5 months), to settling back into the familiar.

Since being back, there are aspects about small-town America I have come to appreciate. Below is a list of comforting things about the U.S. you also may be taking for granted:

1. Understanding and being understood by everyone - yes, English!
2. Grunting, pointing, and charades are unnecessary in daily life
3. The ability to read...everything
4. Drinking water straight from the faucet
5. An expanded wardrobe
6. Friends and family being awake the same time you are
7. Understanding the rules of traffic
8. No bones in your meat / knowing what kind of meat you're eating
9. Dirt roads / green, wide-open fields / clean, fresh air
10. Actually waiting in a line
11. Putting your feet on furniture
12. Blending in with the people around you
13. The general understanding that running is a common and acceptable recreational activity - something not unusual or worthy of overt staring

Also, here is a list of things about Asia that I already miss:

1. Public transportation
2. New experiences / the adventure aspect
3. Thai food - authentic curry!!
4. Job opportunities
5. Milk tea
6. Cheap, real fruit smoothies
7. Unpredictability of daily life
8. Successfully ordering mocha-flavored ice cream in Mandarin at McDonald's
9. Mentally converting Chinese yuan or Thai baht into USD and feeling very satisfied with how little I spent
10. Meeting other expats with intriguing stories

The strangest thing about change is we are often unaware that it's constantly taking place. I didn't feel like I was growing or changing in Asia—I was just living. Yet, when I was finally taken out of the new and unfamiliar, I found that even the previously known and understood had changed, or at least my perception of it.

I was expecting to be mildly depressed after returning home. I anticipated that the transition back into normal American life would be quite difficult...if not boring. Those feelings haven't set in yet. Granted, it hasn't even been a week.

However, I think my worldview has changed, which might save me from my fears of disheartenment. I shared a moment of this realization in my last post (Lost in Chiang Mai).

A good word to describe my life during and after traveling: deflated.

It's the little, mundane, pointless, insignificant, annoying trivialities that make up the majority of our lives. Yet, these meaningless moments are where purpose is found, we can't escape them, no matter where we are.

We don't need to make the mundane magnificent, we just need to acknowledging that the mundane is the reality of life. There's no need to search for something better; instead, we should stop for once and say, I want to be in this moment. I want to be present in the moments, not because they are thrilling or captivating to the imagination, but because they are life—they are what it means to be human—not to simply exist, but to appreciate one's own existence.

Even the most exciting experiences will eventually become ordinary. Excitement is not enough. The human condition requires more.

Change—whether it's graduating, a death in the family, taking off your socks, getting married, travelling to Europe, or replacing your toothbrush—constantly takes place. Even if we don't like the change at first, we know it's in the discomfort of the unknown that we grow.

We also grow in the small moments of life. Everything was once unfamiliar. No matter how great or small our experiences might be, the unfamiliar eventually must become familiar. As a result, our world constantly stretches outward; the small ways are just as important as the big ones.

I suppose that's where I'm at right now: acknowledging the fact that I don't need to be far away or engaged in stimulating experiences to grow. Even the magnificent becomes mundane eventually. Also, in the mundaneness, there is still so much to learn—it's just harder and less fashionable.

“How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.” ― Elizabeth Lesser

{dm}

Of What I Cannot See

"The carving of the jack 'o lantern," he explained, "represents the cross-cultural incident of three nations--the Indian family, the Pakistani man, and an American tradition--coming together in an intentional way."

The class remained quiet.

"See, the Indian girl had never carved a pumpkin before, neither had Mr. Pirzada. They were trying to embrace this different culture, even though they did not feel America was truly their home. India an Pakistan were at war with each other at the time, but in America, this didn't matter, they were taking on the American way. The carving of the pumpkin together was a symbol of unity."

There are moments in my life, more often than I'd care to admit, when I feel dumb. There are several instances on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:05-3:30 that I certainly do not feel intelligent.

I looked at the title of the book, making sure I read the right story. I admit I did remember reading about the pumpkin, but never once did I imagine it was anything more than a carved pumpkin. A symbol of unity? What if the author just wanted the characters to carve a pumpkin together? How do we know it was anything more than that?

This is my multi-cultural literature class. This is the place where I feel dumb.

He went on to talk about the significance of the candy and the witch costumes. My brain was exploding. I liked the story, but I hadn't thought about what the jack 'o lantern, or the candy, or the Halloween costumes represented, not once. Apparently, they had significant symbolic meaning.

I suddenly felt anxious. It bothered me that I had so completely failed to notice the significance of these details.

To overlook literature is one thing, but what else do I miss? Not just while reading brilliant stories that could be unpacked for an hour and a half, revealing world-shaking truths about Indian and Pakistani culture, but in life in general. What don't I see?

Reader, life can be mundane, yes? Life can feel meaningless.
Purposeless.
Pointless.
Vain.
Hollow.
Insignificant.
Trivial...

Perhaps it is.

I mentioned in a previous blog post from this summer that I was reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. From what I gathered, the point the author made in his book was there is no point. He seemed to insult the classics, deeming all of the symbolism authors build around their novels as ridiculous.   

It would seem the power of the pointless has found its way into the newest additions of "classic" literature today. Could this be the general opinion of the late 20th and early 21st century? Is this the newest voice, not only in modern literature, but society as a whole? Is there power in pointlessness? 

Contemplating, there I sat in my multi-cultural literature class, at liberal arts university, receiving a classical education, learning about the symbolism of jack 'o lanterns and candy corn. 

What if your life was a novel. What would it mean when you drop your apple and it bruises, or when you trip on the third step going to your room, or how about when you put chicken on your sandwich instead of turkey? 

Maybe I am mocking symbolism a little. I shouldn't be. I know that it is both powerful and necessary. I also know that I am not good at finding it, or articulating its significance. Learning to see the magnificent in the mundane is never an easy thing. Yet, perhaps in time I will find the value in searching. 

“Pull a thread here and you’ll find it’s attached to the rest of the world.” 
― Nadeem Aslam, The Wasted Vigil

“Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity.”
― Stephen King, On Writing

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
― Sigmund Freud

    

--

{dm}

The Other Half

You knew I had to write about it eventually: relationships. Particularly those between a guy and a girl. Buckle up. This could be a wild ride.

Romantic relationships are an inevitable part of life for most of us. According to the experts, who you marry will determine 90% of your happiness. I guess I'll let you decided whether or not that is actually true.

On that note, let me just say I really admire Glen Hansard's music. I'm going to use his lyrics to explain my thoughts. He is probably most famous for his song, "Falling Slowly".

Here's the first few lines of the song: 

I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that 

It is the great mystery of the "other", the unknown personality. They could be anybody. At first, all you have is a face, a physique, and maybe a conversation. In your head, you are able to attribute countless wonderful qualities to this person. Inevitably, they are dashing, magnificent, brilliant, charming, invigorating. They bring out the best in you. You see yourself as a better person if you could be with them. It is at these [magical?] times of love that the gender groups in our society breach the social gap, they are willing to fuse together...at last!

But wait...

I must admit, I am a critic of love. Feel free to shake your finger at me. I'm not a hater, just very critical. I admit, I've been a skeptic all my life. Maybe I'm too much of a realist. I believe there is danger in the expectations we put on relationships. Are we all really a "sinking boat" like Hansard refers to later in his song? Do we need someone else to guide us home, to keep us from reaching the rocky depths of the figurative ocean of...life?

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice
You've made it now

Well, it's possible. It's possible love can prevent you from...sinking. Gosh, I love these analogies. But what if love doesn't? Or, what happens if it stops doing that for you? What if the beautiful mystery of the person is solved, and we are left with "eh...".

If your life is anything like mine, you've grown up hearing that relationships and marriage should be all about the other person. Period. No exceptions. No excuses. But we like being selfish...so how does that work?

I'm not married, but this is how I understand it: There is no perfect person for you out there. I'll go ahead and pop the destiny bubble. No matter who you end up with, nobody is going to reflate your sinking boat completely. This isn't news for any of us (I hope).

So what? I submit we start by taking a different perspective on relationships in general. What is this concept of "other"? Part of being in a relationship, being married, is about seeing yourself in that person. It's about letting that person become so much a part of who you are, you would not do anything to that person you would not do to yourself because they are you. Or at least, that's the way you see it.

Doesn't this sound familiar? What's the Golden Rule again? Maybe we're on to something...

This might help counteract our selfishness a little. Being in a relationship, getting married, is like adding an extension to yourself. So you better choose wisely, right? Right. That's not funny.

Single people: Perhaps you see yourselves as sinking vessels needing to be rescued. You're lonely, after all. Being alone sounds like an awful idea.

But doesn't adding one sinking boat to another sinking boat equal two sinking boats? Or are there roles here, the savior and the...savee (save-ee); the one who does the saving and the one who needs to be saved? If that's the case, which is which? Who gets to decide? 

Like I said, I'm very critical. 

All I know is I can't save anyone. I'll burn out real fast. And this is true vice-versa, no one could save me either. If you're sinking, and I'm sinking, and there's no one to guide us home.....did I mention divorce rates yet?  

So what? Even if we do change our perspective, what difference does it make? If our goal is to "self-actualize", to become the best we can humanly be (by the way, this shouldn't be the goal), getting rid of this extended "self" might be the smartest step. Again, divorce rates...

Is this where I should bring up the Bible? Is the answer Jesus...or is it a squirrel...? 

I'm going to leave you with this quote: 

The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether [even the extended self i.e. life-partner]. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters...The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself [the life-partner-self too], and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death [yours and theirs], death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing [whatever expectation, hope, or standard you are holding in regard to that life-partner of yours]. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself [you know who], and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”- By C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity

Give up your other self. Your husband. Your wife. Whoever. It is only when you stop holding these ideals for them (as we often hold for ourselves), these wants, longings, desires of what they could fulfill if only...

Let that die. Replace it with Christ. Because, you see, if you are in fact truly Christ's, then, when you look for yourself in a relationship, it is not really you at all, it is Christ (because your life is Christ's, every single part). In order for you to see them in light of who they were meant to be, you must put Christ there. When you look for Christ in them, you will find Him.

and with Him everything else thrown in. 

--

{dm}

Fight Club

Certain songs, movies, and books have a way of inspiring me and forcing me to stop and think. Most of the time it's very unexpected, and I'm not always good at expressing why the work moves me so much, or why I love it, I just know that I do. It's like the song/movie/book reaches a deeper part of who I am and what I desire, even if I wasn't aware of it at first.

One of my favorite authors once said: "You don't just read a good story. A good story reads you." - C.S. Lewis

With all that said, I watched Fight Club this weekend. It was one of those movies that sort of slapped me in the face, shook me up a little, and challenged my way of thinking. In fact, I can honestly say it inspired me. If you've seen it, you're either laughing at me right now, or maybe a little worried. The movie is about a man who suffers from insomnia, is highly emotionally unstable, and basically goes crazy and destroys half of a city at the end of the story, with several bizarre, erotic, and violent scenes in between. I don't even know if I'd recommend watching it, but it spoke a truth to me. A truth I want to share.

Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God d*** it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh** we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Tyler Durden: It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. 

Tyler Durden: You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your f***ing khakis. 

Narrator: When people think you're dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just...
Marla Singer: - instead of just waiting for their turn to speak? 

Tyler Durden: The things you own end up owning you. 

Tyler Durden: God D***! We just had a near-life experience, fellas.

Narrator: I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I ran some more. 

Tyler Durden: Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space. 

Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvet is?
Narrator: It's a comforter...
Tyler Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
Narrator: ...Consumers?
Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. We're the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession. 

Narrator: Look, nobody takes this more seriously than me. That condo was my life, okay? I loved every stick of furniture in that place. That was not just a bunch of stuff that got destroyed, it was ME!
[voice-over]
Narrator: I'd like to thank the Academy...

Tyler Durden: We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
Narrator: Martha Stewart.
Tyler Durden: F*** Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So f*** off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns.

Narrator: You had to give it to him: he had a plan. And it started to make sense, in a Tyler sort of way. No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide. 

Tyler Durden: Self improvement is masturbation. Now self destruction... 

Tyler Durden: Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!

Narrator: Every evening I died, and every evening I was born again, resurrected. 

Tyler Durden: Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.

Narrator: Most of the week we were Ozzie and Harriet, but every Saturday night we were finding something out: we were finding out more and more that we were not alone. It used to be that when I came home angry and depressed I'd just clean my condo, polish my Scandinavian furniture. I should have been looking for a new condo. I should have been haggling with my insurance company. I should have been upset about my nice, neat, flaming little sh**. But I wasn't. 

Narrator: It's just, when you buy furniture, you tell yourself, that's it. That's the last sofa I'm gonna need. Whatever else happens, I've got that sofa problem handled. 

Tyler Durden: Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned- Tyler.


I'll be honest, there was a lot about the movie that I didn't agree with too. Still, these lines reflect a truth that cannot be ignored. It is easy to scorn at the crudeness, to scoff and deride such a philosophy. After all, such a way of thinking creates problems, chaos...nothingness. Still, I would like to challenge your way of thinking. These lines hit me with a truth: it's not just about the stuff. It about what the stuff means to us. We would work until our death for not merely basic necessities, but the best, the finest the world could offer. We have been told this will fulfill us. We believe it will. Our thoughts consume us with things, and those things enslave us. Truth is hard to swallow, it's hard to come to its terms. Even more, it's hard to change a lifestyle once the truth is known. 

I find it fascinating how Fight Club, originally a book written by Chuck Palahniuk, completely non-religious, shows a truth about Christianity that possibly no other Christian book ever has. The purpose of the story was perhaps to reveal how small-minded, control-hungry, and ignorant we are. How we do not accept the reality of death, and how we live as if we will just keep on living forever. Palahniuk shows how this is empty. Not only this, it shackles our thinking. We become dull, numb to life and the reality of its end. How? How can we waste it seeking optimal comfort in...stuff? I want to live in such a way that inspires people. There is so little value in things. I want to give people courage to do things they never believed they could. I want people to want more from their lives. I want people to stop and think. Life can be a whirlwind of things to do, places to be, people to please, but we have control to stop it. I want people to not only know what they believe, but claim it! If you are Christ's, then for his sake, live! But not for comfort, not for the world. Whatever it takes. Think of the parable of the man who sold everything he owned for a single pearl. The single pearl--the Kingdom (Matt. 13:45-46). Live without reservation. Live in full. The small comforts you cling to will rule your life. Let go.  

Because after all, "It's only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything."

Also, I really want to read this book.  

Yours truly,
{dm}

Surviving

It's safe to say we've all felt alone at one point in life. I have. Do you know the feeling? It's a sort of insecurity in the pit of your stomach, you're not sure where you belong, and you feel as though the world is avoiding you. Maybe it only comes out occasionally, when you're in a new place or with people you don't know, or maybe it's a constant, nagging, perpetual pressure deep down inside you. Regardless of the intensity, this feeling can be nerve-racking, daunting, and unwelcome. What is it about being alone that we fear so much? What exactly does the term mean, to be "alone"? I believe deep down in the core of our being lies the innate desire for acceptance, a term that perhaps we have come to more accurately define as love. When we feel alone, we feel unloved. 

Ahaha! This picture is great. 

I wonder, is love an instinct? Do we have a choice but to love and desire love? I compare my desires to animals’ natural tendencies. For example, the mother bear. She would risk her life to protect her cubs. Does the mother love her cubs, or is it out of instinct she would sacrifice her life for them? Also, consider geese. Once a goose has found a partner, the two stay together for life. Is that love? Is that commitment? Do they have a choice or is it something they were born with, something hidden in their genetic code? There are also many animals who do not share such tendencies. Alligators and turtles lay their eggs and leave. Most animals have several mates over their lifetime.

As I consider this, I find there is a connection in which everything comes together: survival. 

Animals act the way they do in order to survive, to continue their life, their species.  


Humans are social creatures. We desire to be together, and it's not just because of the way we were raised, it's in our nature. I think love is instinctive, in fact it is necessary. I believe humans were given the ability to love in order to survive, and not just as an individual, as a race. 


Consider humanity with me. The concept of humanity holds a vast definition. Humankind is so different in every sense of the word. Think about the different cultures from continent to continent, nation to nation, family to family, person to person. And yet, we are unmistakably connected, undeniably united by our humanness. No matter where we come from, we come in groups, groups connected by a bond. Perhaps that bond is love, perhaps it is survival. I believe it's both. 

If animals use their inherent abilities for survival, isn't it safe to assume that humans do or should as well? Yet, as humans, existing is more elaborate, more confusing, and much more extreme. 


For example, we possess the ability to create complex thoughts. We have the ability to not only survive, but live on a completely different plane of metaphysical concepts. We question things outside ourselves. We advance, we invent things. We question our purpose for existing, where we came from, and how we came to be. 


If we have so much complexity, so much knowledge not necessary for our physical survival, then whey is it there? I think I'm beginning to understand. As a global studies major, I study different cultures. Last spring I took a cultural anthropology class. During the class I learned that there are certain "cultural universals" shared with all people groups everywhere on the planet. One of the cultural universals was the belief in a higher power, or a force greater than humans. Could our advanced ability to think be another tool, another inborn necessity for survival? Not physical, bodily survival, but survival of our soul? Why else would we maintain such knowledge? 


I believe people are eternal, not physically, but on a different level we barely understand. We were given our ability to consider higher powers and the concept of "eternal" in order to survive. 


And just as we have a desire to be loved by others, to not feel "alone" in every sense of the word, we innately desire something greater too. Perhaps the desire for love is born from something far beyond ourselves, a deeply hidden, subconscious passion. A bond, not between humans, but between the human and the Eternally Divine. Maybe this is a longing that cannot be completely fulfilled in this lifetime. And as one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, put it: 

        ::::

These are just my thoughts recently. I tend to be a deep thinker, topics like this fascinate me.

Share your thoughts too if you'd like!

{dm}

Stereotypes: we find the need to define things by words so we fall back on language to create concepts about things that really don't exist.

The Spiral of Life

I have come to the conclusion that life does not progress as one straight line. It is a spiral. You continue to learn and discover things that you already know, you are just learning about them on new, more enlightening levels, as if you're climbing a spiral staircase. Every time you go all the way around the spiral of life, your understanding increases, you experience a transformation, and you advance to a new level of thought. Thus, each time you loop around the circle again, you see things differently. You have a different perspective that allows you to understand life more completely. The more times you get around the spiral, the higher you go and the more vantage points you will experience.

Vulnerable

"A thousand men can’t undress a naked man." ~Greek Proverb

Figuratively speaking, if we are honest, there is nothing to hide. The more we expose ourselves, the less we are violated by those who try to uncover us themselves.

Silent Words

Some people have asked me what I am thinking about when I'm quiet. I can only look at them and smile, I'm not thinking about one thing, it's a million things all at once. There are no words to explain, so I say, "nothing."

Language is too limited for human understanding. Humans are capable of processing information at a much higher level. I wish there were more ways to communicated rather than merely words. If only there was a stronger, clearer way to transmit thought.

Opposites

There is no such thing as darkness, only the absence of light. I wonder if there is really no such thing as death either, only the absence of life. Could it be true in the reverse, that light is merely the lack of darkness, life merely the absence of death? Can darkness and death exist without the light and the living, or is the one dependent on the other? What is the meaning of death if there were no such thing as life? 


Maybe I should stop asking so many questions...

Thoughts about Thinking

Today something profound (if not obvious) hit me. I thought I should share. I like to use metaphors to get my ideas across. So...

Imagine you are in a dark auditorium. You have only a small, dim flashlight that allows you to see only a little portion of the concert hall. That flashlight is our human knowledge. The dark auditorium is is the world. Slowly, over time, our little flashlight has become steadily brighter. Our knowledge enlightens us to things that we previously never knew existed. It is an obvious fact that over the course of human history, people have not become smarter, they have become more knowledgable. Today we know about things that never existed to us five years ago. With more and more knowledge being discovered, researched, and proven, humanity is tapping into another world that is somewhat irrelevant to our physical lives. With our physical needs of food and shelter satisfied, we now have the luxury of applying our minds. We have developed from naming places and things to defining thoughts and concepts like "enthnocentricism" and "cultural relativism." We identify and define a complete world outside our own. We fill libraries and hard-drives with overwhelming amounts of information that essentially only pertain to the metaphysical.

The world of thought is limitless.

Random Thoughts Today

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." --Goethe

Read that statement again and think about what you love. Granted, I have no idea who Goethe is/was, but he's right.

I don't feel like I have to break his statement down into my own words. Sometimes words cannot more fully describe an idea. Sometimes less words are more powerful. That's why I like poetry. Good poetry  captures powerful imagery and compacts it into small stanzas. Words have power. Yet, poetry gives an emotional impression words usually don't have. Poetry composed into music is even better. Lyrics really do matter.

Mind over Matter

"The mind is not contained to the cranium. Its province is of the infinite imaginative spirit."

Perhaps the spirit knows things the mind cannot truly comprehend. No man believes they are truly incapable, unimportant and purposeless. Their mind might accept it, but the spirit never can. The spirit is destined to be defined by greatness and meaning. The human destination is determining what greatness is, and striving for it. Often it is not what we hoped for, not what we expected. The greatest spirits of humankind are often those anonymous faces that never knew recognition.

Emotions can be dishonest. Don't trust them. They will whisper half truths. They're tempting, almost viable. But there is a subtle fault in their banters. If nothing else, be wary of them. A wise person will calm fluctuating emotions and wait until the morning, when all is new and clear and certain. Allow the voice of reason to be heard.

Yet, I give fair warning of reason as well. Often, he handicaps the greatest desires of one's heart. Perhaps together emotion and reason are at their best. Combined, they bring forth purposeful passion which changes lives.