Sometimes I forget that I am only 22 and wonder why I haven't figured life out yet! I've dabbled in so many different "ways of being" and each time I thought "this is it! This is what I've been searching for all along!" When I went to Santa Cruz I fell in love with the West, the laid-back-lifestyle, the people, the consant go-with-the-flowness. When I got involved in theater I fell in love with the perpetual pursuit of getting in touch with myself, with being in the moment and the "nothing held back" imperative that it demands. While dancing or doing gymnastics I fell in love with the therapeutic mental and physical effort that I was forced to expend. In school, I fell in love with learning and thought that knowing and intuiting things would uncover the truth about life. Then I fell in love with yoga and the meditative, spiritual stillness that it offered. So I've been in love with music, sports, theater, spirituality, learning, health/wellness, dancing.... lots of different things. Being good at most of these things helped me come to the "conclusion" that I had discovered what life was really all about and who "I" really was. And I think that "being in love" necessarily means that that one thing, that one way of being and knowing, specifically the thing or person that you are in love with, takes precedence and priority over everything else. When you are in love, everything else fades away into the background and your focus is on the thing you are in love with.
I've had a number...3 I'd say... of really spectacular relationships (although the other person might not agree haha).... the kind that realy help you grow, know yourself, experience different parts of yourself, question things, love life.... they all had their ups and downs and FELT really good at times. Sometimes they were SO good that they made me wonder if I could ever experience a love, a feeling like this ever again. BUT there was always something that seemed to be missing.
I think I've finally discovered what that is.
I think that one of the things I am really good at is emptying myself. I like being alone, silence, stillness, having a lot of wonderful friends, but not a lot of close ones, nothingness. This is ultaimtely what god wants. "Be still and know that I am god." If we are consumed by lots of "stuff" then we can't know God becuase we are too busy worrying about how we are goig to deal with all of our baggage (material and immaterial). I think this strength is a product of a lot of things... of Christianity, yoga, meditation, and, as of recently, of trying to find a way to deal with my parents divorce. I think that God works in mysterious ways and truly does not close a door without opening up a window.
In order to "fall in love" with a person, place, experience, with life in general, which is finite, I think you have to FIRST fall in love with God, who is infinite. The problem I had in each of these relationships, I think, was that I had emptied myself and allowed the other person to fill me up with whatever they brought to the table and I thought that it was God's will that I love another person so much that I accept them for who they were AND adopt their chosen lifestyle as my own. I was essentially using relationships to help me discover the truth in life.
Anyway, while "empying myself" (physically,m mentally spiritually) is a good practice and a great thing to master, it, like anything in life, can be used for good or for not-so-good purposes. The problem with this approach is that human beings are relative in respect to their perspectives, emotions, decisions, and "truthts" about life. Human beings are notorious meaning makers and we constantly look to the external world and the constantly shifting tides of cultural change as offerings to which we can respond and use to find truth in life. God offers something more constant, something lasting and fulfilling, a way of functioning that takes the external world into account, that uses the external world without allowing it to use us. Being godly means living in the world, not of the world, and this is going to be an important apporach to functioning in this crazy, chaotic, insane, relativistic world, especially now since it is changing more rapidly than ever before. We are going to need SOMETHING consistent, some guidelines for living that allow us to make sense of the chaos and God can ultimately offer us this.
Soooooooooo i'm graduating in about 2 weeks! Where the heck did those 4 years go? Anyway, I've (obviously) been thinking a lot about the future - the person i want to create for myself, the experiences i want to shape my life, the direction I want to move in, etc.etc. I think I'm headed in a good direction because the underlying question that is ultimately driving all of my decisions is "how is this going to bring my closer to God?" A non-religious person might ask "How is this going to bring me closer to enduring happiness or ultimate truth?" But ultimately, in my opinion, God IS enduring happiness and ultimate truth.
Human beings are ultimately concerned with finding lasting fulfillment. This is why we get married and go to college (among other things)... because we hope that these decisions will provide us with something that endures (a job, a family). God is constantly working through and with us in order achieve this goal, yet our misperceptions and ulterior intentions draw us away from our inherent role cocreators of this one action. God's goal is to work with us in order to help us experience peace, joy, love, happiness. This goal is achieved by living consciously in order to reduce the degree to which we are influenced by superficial perceptions. Yoga, meditation, and everything else that encompasses that "stillness" that allows us to truly know God are all things that are concerned with allowing intentionality to permeate our thoughts, actions, and reactions so that we can live consciously and move in a direction that drives us closer to our ultimate goal. By being actively present, aware, and receptive to the ways in which we respond to external stimuli we can understand ourselves better and then align ourselves in a more forward-moving direction. Consciousness precludes intentionality and allows us to choose a direction in which to move and discern right thinking from deluded thinking. “Evil spirits” often masquerade as "good spirits,” offering up finite sources of pleasure as surrogate sources of lasting fulfillment. Suffering ensues when we take our delusions to be correct discernment and then act according to our misguided perceptions. “The goal of yoga is to reduce the film of avidya in order to act correctly." Yoga seeks to resensitize ourselves to ourselves in order that we might develop a level of awareness that allows us to act intentionally towards the perfect love that God desires we discover.
I'm going to grad school in the fall at NYU, serving as Orthodox SAB rep for the NY/NJ region, and this summer..doing a play and training to run a marathon. Ultimately, all of these thing will help me grow in mind (grad school), body (marathon), and spirit (SAB rep), so that I can heighten/strengthen my experience of God in ever aspect of life on a multitude of different dimensions. I don't think that we can truly know God and experience him in our lives by simply reading the Bible - we have to know him by seeking to know ourselves on a multi-dimensional level (mind, body spirit).
The great thing about falling love with God is realizing that the reason why you've fallen in love with ANYTHING is because he has allowed you to. So being in love with theater, gymnastics, dance, health, a place, a person ultimately means being in love with God. And, where in the past I thought that all of these different things, these different lifestyles necessarilry contadicted each ohter, I understand now that they don't have to.
I've always maintained that I would drop everything -grad school, yoga, living in NYC if I fell in love. This is my ultimate goal in life - to fall in love. Now I know who I want to fall in love with FIRST. Then, maybe, but maybe not, this will allow me to fall in love with a person, with a living manifestation of God's one true love in another human being. Until then, I look forward to continuing to align myself with God.
Here are some questions that I've been pondering.. maybe someone else can offer a response to some of them...
1. I read somewhere that you know that you have fallen in love with God when your external actions/self matches/is in line with your inner actions/self and you experience an overwhelming sense of peace and joy... when there is no descrepancy between the two. So if you want to pursue a realtionship with someone should you ideally wait until you have achieved this goal or work at it with someone else in the confines of a relationship?
2. My constant struggle is one of "emptying myself" ...doing cleansing fasts or giving up facebook/the media..I move back and forth between fasting from the external world I guess and then using it for the purposes of self-creation.... I think that there is a fine line between being nothing and experiencing God in everything... We are nothing and we are everything at the same time..... Idk.
3. I really enjoy going on service trips.... i think that they are spiritually enriching and I would do them perpetually if I could, but I don't want to do them for the wrong reasons... is it too self-serving to want to go on a service trip in order to grow spiritually? should they be about service and not about me?
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, March 31, 2008
Yoga! Day 10,11, & 12!
There is a vast inner terrain that we can only truly be accessed when
we quiet the external world and strive to look inward. This is
especially true in NYC where we are constantly bombarded by external
stimuli 99.9% of the time. We took a spontaneous trip to the Catskills
for some non-asanaic yoga-ing this weekend. So far, This program has
done a great job of teaching me how to relinquish all expectations,
which is basically what we had to do on the trip. It was really a blind
act of trust. We stayed at a beautiful house up in the mountains,
surrounded by nature, a complete contrast to the NYC that is home to so
many of us and to our beautiful Yoga to the People abode. On Friday, we
settled in and gotacquainted with our surroundings and the wilderness
that would serve as the backdrop for Saturday's solitude. Saturday, we
went into silence.
silence really is a beautiful thing when
you pursue it with the right intentions. Greg reminded us that there is
a difference between being silence and being in silence. There is a
difference between not talking and not allowing our minds to chatter
away. Being silence is a pursuit of the latter. Being silent, I
discovered, came naturally to me. I live a pretty meditative lifestyle
during the school (on the train, at my internship , in yoga) so I'm used
to solitude. But "being silence" is something that I struggled with. My
mind is constantly chattering away, worrying about people or things in
my life, constantly making plans. My mind is constantly on the go.
Being silence means letting go of all this constantly chatter, ofsurrendering it all in exchange for that beautiful realm of inner quiet that is so beautiful once you realize it is there.
Undoubtedly,
the most profound parts of the weekend for me were our nature walks. On
the first one, Greg had us line up with our eyes closed, hold on to the
person in front of us, and allow them to guide us up the path. When we
got to the top, we opened our eyes and discovered an incredible view of
the town (or city? I don't know how much land is spanned) below. There
were acres andacres of farmland and roads and little cars that looked
like they were the size of ants crawling along. When you looked to
either side, you could tell that it went on infinitely. It was just one
little, tiny piece of land in the vast expanse. One little, tiny
glimpse of the universe,and everything about it was so miraculously
beautiful.
This journey up the hill with our eyes closed that
ended at this beautiful mountain ledge was symbolic of our journey into
silence. Our 24-hour journey into silence was just one tiny, little
glimpse of the vast inner terrain that lies beneath and beyond the
external reality that we so often spend our days wading in. We can only
really know ourselves when we seek to look inward and expect the
unexpected. Then we can soar to great heightsnd see glimpses of the eternal, of reality as it exists within rather than without.
Our silent journey taught me a thing or two about the Koshas
that Michel introduced us to. These are the 5 layers of our being that
are thought to cover our true self (Atman in Sanskrit); physical,pranamaya
(breath...life force), mental, wisdom, and then bliss. In yoga, and in
silence, we strive to surrender our physical wants and desires and
listen to our breath in hopes that we can silence our minds and truly
know so that we might experience the bliss of accessing this true self
that lies beneath these sheaths. Being silent was a step towards
accessing this true self. Just being, and just being in nature was
glorious. Someone wrote of the spontaneous empathy thatresulted from
being thrust into a situation where we couldn't express ourselves with
words. This was the most beautiful part of the process; all these
different people coming together from all walks of life in an exercise
in survival and togetherness.
In love,
Leila
we quiet the external world and strive to look inward. This is
especially true in NYC where we are constantly bombarded by external
stimuli 99.9% of the time. We took a spontaneous trip to the Catskills
for some non-asanaic yoga-ing this weekend. So far, This program has
done a great job of teaching me how to relinquish all expectations,
which is basically what we had to do on the trip. It was really a blind
act of trust. We stayed at a beautiful house up in the mountains,
surrounded by nature, a complete contrast to the NYC that is home to so
many of us and to our beautiful Yoga to the People abode. On Friday, we
settled in and gotacquainted with our surroundings and the wilderness
that would serve as the backdrop for Saturday's solitude. Saturday, we
went into silence.
silence really is a beautiful thing when
you pursue it with the right intentions. Greg reminded us that there is
a difference between being silence and being in silence. There is a
difference between not talking and not allowing our minds to chatter
away. Being silence is a pursuit of the latter. Being silent, I
discovered, came naturally to me. I live a pretty meditative lifestyle
during the school (on the train, at my internship , in yoga) so I'm used
to solitude. But "being silence" is something that I struggled with. My
mind is constantly chattering away, worrying about people or things in
my life, constantly making plans. My mind is constantly on the go.
Being silence means letting go of all this constantly chatter, ofsurrendering it all in exchange for that beautiful realm of inner quiet that is so beautiful once you realize it is there.
Undoubtedly,
the most profound parts of the weekend for me were our nature walks. On
the first one, Greg had us line up with our eyes closed, hold on to the
person in front of us, and allow them to guide us up the path. When we
got to the top, we opened our eyes and discovered an incredible view of
the town (or city? I don't know how much land is spanned) below. There
were acres andacres of farmland and roads and little cars that looked
like they were the size of ants crawling along. When you looked to
either side, you could tell that it went on infinitely. It was just one
little, tiny piece of land in the vast expanse. One little, tiny
glimpse of the universe,and everything about it was so miraculously
beautiful.
This journey up the hill with our eyes closed that
ended at this beautiful mountain ledge was symbolic of our journey into
silence. Our 24-hour journey into silence was just one tiny, little
glimpse of the vast inner terrain that lies beneath and beyond the
external reality that we so often spend our days wading in. We can only
really know ourselves when we seek to look inward and expect the
unexpected. Then we can soar to great heightsnd see glimpses of the eternal, of reality as it exists within rather than without.
Our silent journey taught me a thing or two about the Koshas
that Michel introduced us to. These are the 5 layers of our being that
are thought to cover our true self (Atman in Sanskrit); physical,pranamaya
(breath...life force), mental, wisdom, and then bliss. In yoga, and in
silence, we strive to surrender our physical wants and desires and
listen to our breath in hopes that we can silence our minds and truly
know so that we might experience the bliss of accessing this true self
that lies beneath these sheaths. Being silent was a step towards
accessing this true self. Just being, and just being in nature was
glorious. Someone wrote of the spontaneous empathy thatresulted from
being thrust into a situation where we couldn't express ourselves with
words. This was the most beautiful part of the process; all these
different people coming together from all walks of life in an exercise
in survival and togetherness.
In love,
Leila
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Inspiration and All That Jazz
Wow. Lots of stray thoughts/ideas/mental wanderings that have gone undocumented since my pre-new years, pre-christmas post. I could go about this in a number of ways I imagine. I could make this a stream-of-consciousness blog in which I track the last few weeks of my life and furiously type out all the mental meanderings that I can remember in a less than structured format. I could divide each "experience" into it's own seperate paragraph and develop them in a focused, structured manner. I could focus on one aspect of my life and create a blog around that one aspect which would be even more focued and developed than any of the previous ways of documenting my ideas. Or I could not write any of them down and save them for a rainy day.
While I'm busy deciding and since I broached the topic of rainy days... why do we "save things for rainy days" as if rainy days are less substantial (or more?) than sunny days. It's as if we have unconsciously saved all the things that we can't do on sunny days because we are too busy living life for "do-nothing" days aka rainy days. It's almost as if rain puts a "damper" on our lives (haha). It wets all over our daily time-tables. And water, as we have all experienced, oftentimes makes things weaker (ie. paper, floors [because they are less able to serve the purpose of providing a surface on which we can walk], feline self-esteem). But it can also make things stronger. Society has connotated rain negatively. We have to run away from it and "kill time" because it doesn't facilitate a "valuable" day.
Weather. Days. The media. Religion. Relationships. Holidays. Family. Homes. Identity. Books. Peace Corps. School. Paint. folk Singers. Opportunities. Time. So much to write about.
How about a meta paragraph. I broached the topic of rain because
1. I wasn't sure how to go about writing this blog
2. I knew I had alot of things to write about but I didn't know which one to start with.
3. I have a gap of unplanned extra time and I want to do something meaningful with it and I want to WANT to do something meaningful with it.
4. I mentioned the word rain because I was AWARE of the cliche yet seldom consciously used phrase "save it for a rainy day"
5. I wanted to use rain as a channel of inspiration that might inspire another channel of inspiration that might in turn create a spiral of inspiration that would eventually culminate in a readable blog which would serve as a concrete manifestation of abstract mental ideas that were only real to me because they are in my own head.
I like this blog because its very existence is inspiring. It inspires me to write. It inspires me to love to write. It inspires me to learn. It may or may not inspire others in some way, shape, or form (I don't know if it does, but one can only hope and one can only write as if it does). It inspires ideas that I never knew I had. I painted my room over break. I'd been meaning to paint it for a while now. Nobody really knew that though because I never really expressed the desire to paint it to anyone so it must have seemed like a spur of the moment type thing, but since I had a whole bunch of free time I decided to capitalize on the opportunity and "go green" =). Meta-idea: I'm writing about painting my room because I've just now come to terms with a word that I painted on my wall - 'creativity,' I knew it was important when I put it up, but I didn't really realize why or the extent of it's importance until just now really. And I remembered the word because I was inspired by the mental documentation that this blog enables, to write about inspiration. So since I have creativity on the brain. I think it's important. I think it's important because it's not always easy to love where you are, who you're with, or what you are doing. It's not always easy to love your circumstances, but if you are creative than you can find a way to do so. My mom told me I had to move a shitload of tires the other day. Granted that it was something that I SHOULD do because I moved them from where they were supposed to be in the first place, I had no desire to move them. I wanted to be doing something else, so
I decided to be creative. There were about 40 big-ass tires to move and they were heavy and the route from the garage to the swimming pool area where they belonged is annoying to traverse so I told myself that 1. moving them would be a good arms/leg workout. 2. moving them would allow me to ponder 3. moving them would allow me to decide how/what to ponder. 4. moving them would allow me the opportunity to be creative. 5. moving them would allow me the opportunity to either be grateful for the experience or ungrateful for the waste of time. I went with the former obviously. Here's another one... When I went to Arizona for Thanksgiving my Uncle took me and some others out ATVing through the Arizona/Mexico mountains. We were in the middle of nowhere with nothing but nature surrounding us on the back of these load, oftentimes uncomfortable machines. We weren't driving so all we had to do really was hold on and take in our surroundings. The view was absolutely breathtaking really, but it's difficult to have your breath taken away for 8 hours straight. So I had to be creative then too. What enjoyment could I possibly derive from being on the back of this machine in the middle of these mountains which were everything and nothing at the same time? I could be grateful for the experience or ungrateful for the waste of time. I went with the former again. (see a trend?) In the last blog I wrote I talked about identity and it's 3 forms (virtual, real-world, and projective wherein the former two beget the latter - basically, yu are who you are and you cannot change that - you are born into this world and into a set of circumstances - this is your real-world identity. But you can also weave in and out of difference experiences, relationships and envelop yourself in difference circumstances which inevitably beget other circumstances - this is your virtual identity. And when you embrace both together you get a projective identity. Note that I don't quite fully understand this triad which is why I keep trying to explain it). Sooooo I envisioned myself as a writer on the back of that ATV. I created scenarios in my head about the mountains and I tried to describe them in words. I was also chewing a piece of gum while I was out there. Gum doesn't last forever so about an hour or 2 into the ride it began to disintegrate into that paper like substance that gum eventually becomes when you chew it long enough. I wanted to spit it out so bad, but I convinced myself that doing so would somehow unforgiveably tarnish the pristine environment in which I was surrounded. I also convinced myself that swalloing the gum would enable me to create an awesome metaphor and make for a great story...something like "I can still feel the weight of that gum sitting in my stomach, but it is not so much the physical evidence that weighs down on me, but the beauty that drove me to do my own little part in preserving one of nature's most beautiful gifts to mankind." For integrity's sake I'll admit that I spit the gum out. But it's cool that I was able to squeeze so much out of that experience right???
Creativity is awesome! It enables us to make something out of "nothing," or maybe realize that there really is no nothing, only a continuous stream of unrecognized somethings. So why connote a rainy day as a a not-worth it day?
This break was so cool. I painted my room. I went to this amazing Christian retreat. I met some AWESOME people. I learned a lot about relationships and about myself. I contemplated doing a bunch of things. I meditated a lot. I went to church. I saw my family. I saw other people's familys. I saw a bunch of things around me that I had never taken the time to notice. I thought a lot. I watched movies. I did some yard work. I laughed. I learned. I loved. I lived.
I think it's worth noting that time changes your perspective on things dramatically. I "killed a lot of time" over this break. But was it really killing time? I think it might of been had I not let it inspire me. I think that everything has inspirational potential. For instance, I went to the mall a lot over break. I could easily brush this off as a "waste of time type endeavor." But it's not really. I learned a lot from it. It enabled me to ponder why going to the Danbury Fair Mall is sort of the instictual thing to do when you have "nothing else" to do. Is it the familiarity of the mall? Is it the people? The stores? The food? The parking experience? What IS it that brings us back there and why is going there considered such a waste of time by so many who think that we could be doing something much more valuable with our time (me included a lot of the time)?? What are those "much more valuable" things that we could be doing? Making money? Helping people? Doing work? Learning? Granted that if we spent all of our time walking around the mall then we would probably not amount to much (???), but I think that going to the mall is important for the very reason that it has inspirational potential. Going to the bathroom has inspirational potential. Wokring as inspirational potential. Sleeping as inspirational potential. Laughing, learning, loving, realizing what we laugh at/about, what we are learaning, how we learn, what we want to learn, how we love, what we love, all of these things are so inspirational.
So now the concept of creativity which I have consciously made manifest on the wall of my room is a stream of inspiration into the whole experience of painting my room which is a segway into all of these other topics. I guess this blog is about inspiration and the inspirational potential that every single life experience has. Sometimes I complain about "missed opportunities." The very fact that I am making them manifest and mourning missed opportunites in place of current opportunities is inspirational in and of itself because it enables me to blog about it. That's just one way that it's inspirational. It may also inspire me to stop complaining about them or maybe to capitalize on them. It inspires gratification growth really. I've had the same professor for 4 of my classes, for instance. She has given the same introduction in each one of her classes. I can repeat it virtually word for word. "My name is professor so-and-so and I've been teaching here for this many years and I decided to major in communications because I wasn't allowed to watch TV and I started as a history major and blah blah blah." It's interesting really and it sheds some light on who she is. But I could have easily zoned out any number of the 3 classes in which she gave the same introducton as that first class. But instead I decided to focus on something different, not just the absorption of the words that she was saying. In one class I focused on the intonations that she used to give the introduction. In another i focused on how I, myself was absorbing the information - what grabbed my attention and what didn't. In this last class I pictured myself giving an introduction like she did and how I might introduce myself to my students.
Inspirational potential. There really is some of that in every single relationship/experience/person/object/scene/circumstance in the whole wide world!
Life is sweet. Life is awesome. It's cool that we have all these opportunities to get inspired by. It's cool when we realize that that they are there for us to get inspired by. I painted a bunch of "inspirational" words on the wall of my room over break. The process was really cool and worth noting. I went to Home Depot to the cheap paint section where they sell the paint that was mixed wrong for discount prices because one man's trash is another man' s treasure right? I thought it would be groovy if I could create something great out of what someone else saw as a mistake. And what came out was this sweet green that looked real good against the black that I wrote my words in. One person described it as "mint chocolate chip icecream." Another called it "toothpaste." I like those childish descriptions. Perfecto. Anyway, I chose a bunch of "inspirational" words (including inspiration) to spray paint in this fancy calligraphy-esque font. Love, faith, hope, generosity, delight, enthusiasm. And I think I've come to the conclusion that they are all subsets of love. It's the greatest thing!
Tommorow I'm going to go back over this blog and replace all the "I's" with some other noun to make this blog a bit less ego-centric. If I'm going to write about concepts then why not make it more conceptual? More exposable? Maybe I won't. Maybe I will.
inspiration is groovy.
While I'm busy deciding and since I broached the topic of rainy days... why do we "save things for rainy days" as if rainy days are less substantial (or more?) than sunny days. It's as if we have unconsciously saved all the things that we can't do on sunny days because we are too busy living life for "do-nothing" days aka rainy days. It's almost as if rain puts a "damper" on our lives (haha). It wets all over our daily time-tables. And water, as we have all experienced, oftentimes makes things weaker (ie. paper, floors [because they are less able to serve the purpose of providing a surface on which we can walk], feline self-esteem). But it can also make things stronger. Society has connotated rain negatively. We have to run away from it and "kill time" because it doesn't facilitate a "valuable" day.
Weather. Days. The media. Religion. Relationships. Holidays. Family. Homes. Identity. Books. Peace Corps. School. Paint. folk Singers. Opportunities. Time. So much to write about.
How about a meta paragraph. I broached the topic of rain because
1. I wasn't sure how to go about writing this blog
2. I knew I had alot of things to write about but I didn't know which one to start with.
3. I have a gap of unplanned extra time and I want to do something meaningful with it and I want to WANT to do something meaningful with it.
4. I mentioned the word rain because I was AWARE of the cliche yet seldom consciously used phrase "save it for a rainy day"
5. I wanted to use rain as a channel of inspiration that might inspire another channel of inspiration that might in turn create a spiral of inspiration that would eventually culminate in a readable blog which would serve as a concrete manifestation of abstract mental ideas that were only real to me because they are in my own head.
I like this blog because its very existence is inspiring. It inspires me to write. It inspires me to love to write. It inspires me to learn. It may or may not inspire others in some way, shape, or form (I don't know if it does, but one can only hope and one can only write as if it does). It inspires ideas that I never knew I had. I painted my room over break. I'd been meaning to paint it for a while now. Nobody really knew that though because I never really expressed the desire to paint it to anyone so it must have seemed like a spur of the moment type thing, but since I had a whole bunch of free time I decided to capitalize on the opportunity and "go green" =). Meta-idea: I'm writing about painting my room because I've just now come to terms with a word that I painted on my wall - 'creativity,' I knew it was important when I put it up, but I didn't really realize why or the extent of it's importance until just now really. And I remembered the word because I was inspired by the mental documentation that this blog enables, to write about inspiration. So since I have creativity on the brain. I think it's important. I think it's important because it's not always easy to love where you are, who you're with, or what you are doing. It's not always easy to love your circumstances, but if you are creative than you can find a way to do so. My mom told me I had to move a shitload of tires the other day. Granted that it was something that I SHOULD do because I moved them from where they were supposed to be in the first place, I had no desire to move them. I wanted to be doing something else, so
I decided to be creative. There were about 40 big-ass tires to move and they were heavy and the route from the garage to the swimming pool area where they belonged is annoying to traverse so I told myself that 1. moving them would be a good arms/leg workout. 2. moving them would allow me to ponder 3. moving them would allow me to decide how/what to ponder. 4. moving them would allow me the opportunity to be creative. 5. moving them would allow me the opportunity to either be grateful for the experience or ungrateful for the waste of time. I went with the former obviously. Here's another one... When I went to Arizona for Thanksgiving my Uncle took me and some others out ATVing through the Arizona/Mexico mountains. We were in the middle of nowhere with nothing but nature surrounding us on the back of these load, oftentimes uncomfortable machines. We weren't driving so all we had to do really was hold on and take in our surroundings. The view was absolutely breathtaking really, but it's difficult to have your breath taken away for 8 hours straight. So I had to be creative then too. What enjoyment could I possibly derive from being on the back of this machine in the middle of these mountains which were everything and nothing at the same time? I could be grateful for the experience or ungrateful for the waste of time. I went with the former again. (see a trend?) In the last blog I wrote I talked about identity and it's 3 forms (virtual, real-world, and projective wherein the former two beget the latter - basically, yu are who you are and you cannot change that - you are born into this world and into a set of circumstances - this is your real-world identity. But you can also weave in and out of difference experiences, relationships and envelop yourself in difference circumstances which inevitably beget other circumstances - this is your virtual identity. And when you embrace both together you get a projective identity. Note that I don't quite fully understand this triad which is why I keep trying to explain it). Sooooo I envisioned myself as a writer on the back of that ATV. I created scenarios in my head about the mountains and I tried to describe them in words. I was also chewing a piece of gum while I was out there. Gum doesn't last forever so about an hour or 2 into the ride it began to disintegrate into that paper like substance that gum eventually becomes when you chew it long enough. I wanted to spit it out so bad, but I convinced myself that doing so would somehow unforgiveably tarnish the pristine environment in which I was surrounded. I also convinced myself that swalloing the gum would enable me to create an awesome metaphor and make for a great story...something like "I can still feel the weight of that gum sitting in my stomach, but it is not so much the physical evidence that weighs down on me, but the beauty that drove me to do my own little part in preserving one of nature's most beautiful gifts to mankind." For integrity's sake I'll admit that I spit the gum out. But it's cool that I was able to squeeze so much out of that experience right???
Creativity is awesome! It enables us to make something out of "nothing," or maybe realize that there really is no nothing, only a continuous stream of unrecognized somethings. So why connote a rainy day as a a not-worth it day?
This break was so cool. I painted my room. I went to this amazing Christian retreat. I met some AWESOME people. I learned a lot about relationships and about myself. I contemplated doing a bunch of things. I meditated a lot. I went to church. I saw my family. I saw other people's familys. I saw a bunch of things around me that I had never taken the time to notice. I thought a lot. I watched movies. I did some yard work. I laughed. I learned. I loved. I lived.
I think it's worth noting that time changes your perspective on things dramatically. I "killed a lot of time" over this break. But was it really killing time? I think it might of been had I not let it inspire me. I think that everything has inspirational potential. For instance, I went to the mall a lot over break. I could easily brush this off as a "waste of time type endeavor." But it's not really. I learned a lot from it. It enabled me to ponder why going to the Danbury Fair Mall is sort of the instictual thing to do when you have "nothing else" to do. Is it the familiarity of the mall? Is it the people? The stores? The food? The parking experience? What IS it that brings us back there and why is going there considered such a waste of time by so many who think that we could be doing something much more valuable with our time (me included a lot of the time)?? What are those "much more valuable" things that we could be doing? Making money? Helping people? Doing work? Learning? Granted that if we spent all of our time walking around the mall then we would probably not amount to much (???), but I think that going to the mall is important for the very reason that it has inspirational potential. Going to the bathroom has inspirational potential. Wokring as inspirational potential. Sleeping as inspirational potential. Laughing, learning, loving, realizing what we laugh at/about, what we are learaning, how we learn, what we want to learn, how we love, what we love, all of these things are so inspirational.
So now the concept of creativity which I have consciously made manifest on the wall of my room is a stream of inspiration into the whole experience of painting my room which is a segway into all of these other topics. I guess this blog is about inspiration and the inspirational potential that every single life experience has. Sometimes I complain about "missed opportunities." The very fact that I am making them manifest and mourning missed opportunites in place of current opportunities is inspirational in and of itself because it enables me to blog about it. That's just one way that it's inspirational. It may also inspire me to stop complaining about them or maybe to capitalize on them. It inspires gratification growth really. I've had the same professor for 4 of my classes, for instance. She has given the same introduction in each one of her classes. I can repeat it virtually word for word. "My name is professor so-and-so and I've been teaching here for this many years and I decided to major in communications because I wasn't allowed to watch TV and I started as a history major and blah blah blah." It's interesting really and it sheds some light on who she is. But I could have easily zoned out any number of the 3 classes in which she gave the same introducton as that first class. But instead I decided to focus on something different, not just the absorption of the words that she was saying. In one class I focused on the intonations that she used to give the introduction. In another i focused on how I, myself was absorbing the information - what grabbed my attention and what didn't. In this last class I pictured myself giving an introduction like she did and how I might introduce myself to my students.
Inspirational potential. There really is some of that in every single relationship/experience/person/object/scene/circumstance in the whole wide world!
Life is sweet. Life is awesome. It's cool that we have all these opportunities to get inspired by. It's cool when we realize that that they are there for us to get inspired by. I painted a bunch of "inspirational" words on the wall of my room over break. The process was really cool and worth noting. I went to Home Depot to the cheap paint section where they sell the paint that was mixed wrong for discount prices because one man's trash is another man' s treasure right? I thought it would be groovy if I could create something great out of what someone else saw as a mistake. And what came out was this sweet green that looked real good against the black that I wrote my words in. One person described it as "mint chocolate chip icecream." Another called it "toothpaste." I like those childish descriptions. Perfecto. Anyway, I chose a bunch of "inspirational" words (including inspiration) to spray paint in this fancy calligraphy-esque font. Love, faith, hope, generosity, delight, enthusiasm. And I think I've come to the conclusion that they are all subsets of love. It's the greatest thing!
Tommorow I'm going to go back over this blog and replace all the "I's" with some other noun to make this blog a bit less ego-centric. If I'm going to write about concepts then why not make it more conceptual? More exposable? Maybe I won't. Maybe I will.
inspiration is groovy.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
I Write, Therefore I Am
Who am I? Who are you? Do we only know we exist because we can think or love or speak or act? What factors determine who we are and are we only who we are relative to the people around us? If you had to define me what would you say? If I had to define you what would I say?
The most exciting thing about life is that we each have the ability to create our own identifies. Every birthday my mom reminds me that I was born "kicking and screaming." This identity, she claims, has followed me throughout the course of my life. That same rebellious, wild, tempestuous child has evolved into a rebellious, wild, tempestuous youth. Lately I feel like I've done a good job of suppressing this side of myself. This is in large part because of school. Identity, however, is trickier than this. We are constantly forging new identities. We forge them through relationships. The relationships we form with other people, media, books, games, new experiences, sports, work, play, theories, religions, perspectives, and other inanimate and animate objects ultimately shape how we choose to be at any given moment in time. Identity is constantly shifting. To describe a person as "happy" is a general assumption that offers a biased account of a person who inevitably is capable of many more diverse emotions than mere happiness. We choose who we are through the relationships we have.
I read a book the other day in which the author (James Paul Gee) identified three different ways in which identities are forged;
1. virtual identity
2. real-world identity
3. projective identity
The former two, when practiced together, beget the latter.
The projective identity is the space in which the learner can transcend the limitations both of the virtual identity and the learner’s own real-world identity. Life is about creating, not discovering and identity formation is a perpetual process. New relationships with people, things, and ideas offer new ways in which we can create ourselves. Different relationships allow us to take on different characters and see which one fits, to play different roles and then live vicariously through these different roles as we bring the virtual characters that we, as real-world characters have adopted as we experience projected character development in our little semiotic domains to life.
To live vicariously through oneself. Meta-living? I think we all do this to a certain degree. I certainly have done a lot of it. I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it can lead to important self-exploration that ultimately sheds light on our best (I hesitate to say true?) selves, the selves we most enjoy being. What we think we "should" be is oftentimes what we don't "want" to be. Can want and obligation coexist? They often seem like polar opposites. I guess what they have in common is opportunity. We have the opportunity to want or to not want just as we have the opportunity to be obliged or to not be obliged. Does opportunity exist infinitely? Sometimes it seems like it does. Other times it seems as if we are stuck between a rock and a hard place and our only option is to cut off a limb to escape ;)
I think that developing an eclectic mix of relationships is important, though not essential. If we don't experience as much as we can then how will we ever know which relationships we are best suited for? On the other hand, if we aspire to experience everything in an effort to determine what we are best suited for then we will miss out on the chance of experiencing things like commitment, deep-seeded love that evolves from longevity, attachment (which can be both a good and bad thing), and other, more narrowly defined opportunities like children (which are best begotten after marriage which is best forged after engagement which most successfully arises out of a relationship). Embracing one of these routes means that we inevitably have to give up the other. Some people spend a lifetime relocating to different places or entering different fields of study or forging different relationships. Others spend them staying committed to the towns, people, and jobs that they have known all their lives. The former induces diversity, worldliness, and a wisdom that can only be begotten by accepting the fact that commitment, longevity, familiarity, and deep-seeded attachment just aren't your thing. The latter generates all of these things and more. The whole concept of "home is where the heart is" can thus be interpreted in two ways. Often, this home is the familiar. For me, home is in Danbury, a place that houses my family, my church, and all the memories that I have created since childhood. This "home" only exists in my mind. I have attached meaning to Danbury, CT, to the gyms I attended, to 3 Brothers diner, the mall, Il Bacio, Candlewood lake, Main Street, the Green, and other places. What if all of these places were suddenly destroyed my a fluke tornado (sounds plausible right?) Would Danbury still be home to me even though none of the same places existed? I think the answer is yes because "home" is an abstract place that only exists in the hearts and minds of those who attach meaning to it. Home can be a person. Home can be a place. Home can be an idea. Home can be anything you want it to be, but ultimately, home is your own inner sanctum sanctorium. My best friend has moved all over the country. Her "home" may only be an abstract inner sanctuary because she has no physically familiar place that she can go back to when she feels lost in the world. Who knows? Who am I to define another [wo]mans home?
You are my home.
Where I retreat when I feel alone.
In whose absence, though never real, I nonetheless bemoan.
My place of solitude.
You exist eternally, as long as I exist.
Where I can love freely and in whom I may infintely repose.
You are my home.
The most exciting thing about life is that we each have the ability to create our own identifies. Every birthday my mom reminds me that I was born "kicking and screaming." This identity, she claims, has followed me throughout the course of my life. That same rebellious, wild, tempestuous child has evolved into a rebellious, wild, tempestuous youth. Lately I feel like I've done a good job of suppressing this side of myself. This is in large part because of school. Identity, however, is trickier than this. We are constantly forging new identities. We forge them through relationships. The relationships we form with other people, media, books, games, new experiences, sports, work, play, theories, religions, perspectives, and other inanimate and animate objects ultimately shape how we choose to be at any given moment in time. Identity is constantly shifting. To describe a person as "happy" is a general assumption that offers a biased account of a person who inevitably is capable of many more diverse emotions than mere happiness. We choose who we are through the relationships we have.
I read a book the other day in which the author (James Paul Gee) identified three different ways in which identities are forged;
1. virtual identity
2. real-world identity
3. projective identity
The former two, when practiced together, beget the latter.
The projective identity is the space in which the learner can transcend the limitations both of the virtual identity and the learner’s own real-world identity. Life is about creating, not discovering and identity formation is a perpetual process. New relationships with people, things, and ideas offer new ways in which we can create ourselves. Different relationships allow us to take on different characters and see which one fits, to play different roles and then live vicariously through these different roles as we bring the virtual characters that we, as real-world characters have adopted as we experience projected character development in our little semiotic domains to life.
To live vicariously through oneself. Meta-living? I think we all do this to a certain degree. I certainly have done a lot of it. I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it can lead to important self-exploration that ultimately sheds light on our best (I hesitate to say true?) selves, the selves we most enjoy being. What we think we "should" be is oftentimes what we don't "want" to be. Can want and obligation coexist? They often seem like polar opposites. I guess what they have in common is opportunity. We have the opportunity to want or to not want just as we have the opportunity to be obliged or to not be obliged. Does opportunity exist infinitely? Sometimes it seems like it does. Other times it seems as if we are stuck between a rock and a hard place and our only option is to cut off a limb to escape ;)
I think that developing an eclectic mix of relationships is important, though not essential. If we don't experience as much as we can then how will we ever know which relationships we are best suited for? On the other hand, if we aspire to experience everything in an effort to determine what we are best suited for then we will miss out on the chance of experiencing things like commitment, deep-seeded love that evolves from longevity, attachment (which can be both a good and bad thing), and other, more narrowly defined opportunities like children (which are best begotten after marriage which is best forged after engagement which most successfully arises out of a relationship). Embracing one of these routes means that we inevitably have to give up the other. Some people spend a lifetime relocating to different places or entering different fields of study or forging different relationships. Others spend them staying committed to the towns, people, and jobs that they have known all their lives. The former induces diversity, worldliness, and a wisdom that can only be begotten by accepting the fact that commitment, longevity, familiarity, and deep-seeded attachment just aren't your thing. The latter generates all of these things and more. The whole concept of "home is where the heart is" can thus be interpreted in two ways. Often, this home is the familiar. For me, home is in Danbury, a place that houses my family, my church, and all the memories that I have created since childhood. This "home" only exists in my mind. I have attached meaning to Danbury, CT, to the gyms I attended, to 3 Brothers diner, the mall, Il Bacio, Candlewood lake, Main Street, the Green, and other places. What if all of these places were suddenly destroyed my a fluke tornado (sounds plausible right?) Would Danbury still be home to me even though none of the same places existed? I think the answer is yes because "home" is an abstract place that only exists in the hearts and minds of those who attach meaning to it. Home can be a person. Home can be a place. Home can be an idea. Home can be anything you want it to be, but ultimately, home is your own inner sanctum sanctorium. My best friend has moved all over the country. Her "home" may only be an abstract inner sanctuary because she has no physically familiar place that she can go back to when she feels lost in the world. Who knows? Who am I to define another [wo]mans home?
You are my home.
Where I retreat when I feel alone.
In whose absence, though never real, I nonetheless bemoan.
My place of solitude.
You exist eternally, as long as I exist.
Where I can love freely and in whom I may infintely repose.
You are my home.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Transformation of Pum P. Kin to Jack O' Lantern
Hey, if the market can induce Christmas before Thanksgiving than I can prolong Halloween....
When we transform a pumpkin into a jacolantern, we gut out its heart and leave nothing but a hollow inside strewn with orange veins – remnants of the self it used to be. We poke out its eyes, leaving two hollow holes – windows to a soul that is not there. And we gut out its nose - but it is better that way because now he cannot smell the stench of rotting pumpkin juice – the stench of his own inevitable death. And he cannot see his own wrinkly face caving in upon itself, his own wrinkles birthing more wrinkles that cannot bear the weight of heavy pumpkin flesh that has been punctured with cookie-cutter pumpkin eyes that do not shift to show insecurity or slant to show animosity or soften at the sight of love. He is strong and brave and emotionless and unsentimental. He bears all. He has a face- we have given him a face. But what is a pretty pumpkin face without a pretty pumpkin soul? We take his pumpkin seeds – the sperm of his existence and chew them up and spit them out. We feast on little would-be pumpkin embryos. We abort the possibilities for other young pumpkins, yet we also ensure that there will be a few less soulless jacolanterns. But who is to say that they are fated to be soulless jacolanterns? Who is to say that they will not grow to be blue-ribbon winning pumpkins on display at the county fair, pumpkins whose skin is so tough that it cannot be punctured into faces on which feeling cannot be read? We are ensuring that the world will never know the capacities of pumpkins that never got the chance to be gutted. No wonder they are always scowling.
When we transform a pumpkin into a jacolantern, we gut out its heart and leave nothing but a hollow inside strewn with orange veins – remnants of the self it used to be. We poke out its eyes, leaving two hollow holes – windows to a soul that is not there. And we gut out its nose - but it is better that way because now he cannot smell the stench of rotting pumpkin juice – the stench of his own inevitable death. And he cannot see his own wrinkly face caving in upon itself, his own wrinkles birthing more wrinkles that cannot bear the weight of heavy pumpkin flesh that has been punctured with cookie-cutter pumpkin eyes that do not shift to show insecurity or slant to show animosity or soften at the sight of love. He is strong and brave and emotionless and unsentimental. He bears all. He has a face- we have given him a face. But what is a pretty pumpkin face without a pretty pumpkin soul? We take his pumpkin seeds – the sperm of his existence and chew them up and spit them out. We feast on little would-be pumpkin embryos. We abort the possibilities for other young pumpkins, yet we also ensure that there will be a few less soulless jacolanterns. But who is to say that they are fated to be soulless jacolanterns? Who is to say that they will not grow to be blue-ribbon winning pumpkins on display at the county fair, pumpkins whose skin is so tough that it cannot be punctured into faces on which feeling cannot be read? We are ensuring that the world will never know the capacities of pumpkins that never got the chance to be gutted. No wonder they are always scowling.
Dolla Billz Y'all
"The best things in life are free,
But you can give them to the birds and bees,
I want MONEY!
That's what I want. "
Well, not really. To say that money is the root of all evil would be a huge overstatement because it does us some good. I can pinpoint at least 10 glaringly evident disadvantageous to not having the concept of money in our vocabulary:
1. I wouldn't be able to quote songs like the one above because there would be no insipiration for them.
2. We wouldn't have a source from which to replicate monopoly money and so stuffing those money-holder cards with fake dollars would be a lot less funny.
3. My obsession with manipulating dollar bills into oragami cranes would have to be replaced by an obsession with manipulating the bills of oragami cranes into doll hairs.
4. We couldn't tie money onto the ends of strings and laugh when people try and reach for them while we pull them away.
5. Terms like "put your money where your mouth is" would have to be replaced with "put your lemon-cursted salmon where your mouth is" because food (lemon crusted salmon specifically) would replace money making this adage significantly less funny because lemon crusted salmon does, in fact, belong in the mouth.
6. honey, bunny, funny, punny, runny, and sunny would be down a rhyme.
Isn't it funny how the more we worry about having money, the less money we have? This is because the very thought that we need money automatically creates need. We think need into being. I never worry about money and I never seem to have it, but when I need it it alsways seems to be there. Like this week, for instance. I was done to my last dollar, literally. That very same day my Dad emailed me and put a few bucks into my account. I guess I'm lucky becasue I get to commute for free which saves me a shitload of money, but still, I never seem to want it, desire it, or think too often about it and I always seem to have enough to get by, to eat, and to donate a few bucks to Yoga to the People and church. Not that I WANT to live meagerly forever, I just don't see a problem with it right now and I don't sacrifice what I love to do or worry about the monetary fortunes that I will or will not fall into in the future.
Lets talk about Tom (my mentally challenged Uncle) for a minute. Tom works at Almost Family presumably putting caps on bottles. He gets a paychek every few weeks for about 5 dollars. This excites him beyond measure. He is completely content with whatever he receives and we (family) always make a big deal out of it proclaiming things like "WOW TOM!!! FIVE DOLLARS?! NO WAY!!!" He also has a bowl of pennies that he counts every night. This act might seem to peg him as frugile, but it is really indicative of the fact that he values the little things in life. He is the essence of "being." We got him a Popeye shirt last Christmas that said "I Yam What I Yam." This describes him perfectly.
Anyway, there is a lot of good that can come of money, but people abuse it.
Combatting this obsession with money is easy; choose gratification over supplication.
$$$$
But you can give them to the birds and bees,
I want MONEY!
That's what I want. "
Well, not really. To say that money is the root of all evil would be a huge overstatement because it does us some good. I can pinpoint at least 10 glaringly evident disadvantageous to not having the concept of money in our vocabulary:
1. I wouldn't be able to quote songs like the one above because there would be no insipiration for them.
2. We wouldn't have a source from which to replicate monopoly money and so stuffing those money-holder cards with fake dollars would be a lot less funny.
3. My obsession with manipulating dollar bills into oragami cranes would have to be replaced by an obsession with manipulating the bills of oragami cranes into doll hairs.
4. We couldn't tie money onto the ends of strings and laugh when people try and reach for them while we pull them away.
5. Terms like "put your money where your mouth is" would have to be replaced with "put your lemon-cursted salmon where your mouth is" because food (lemon crusted salmon specifically) would replace money making this adage significantly less funny because lemon crusted salmon does, in fact, belong in the mouth.
6. honey, bunny, funny, punny, runny, and sunny would be down a rhyme.
Isn't it funny how the more we worry about having money, the less money we have? This is because the very thought that we need money automatically creates need. We think need into being. I never worry about money and I never seem to have it, but when I need it it alsways seems to be there. Like this week, for instance. I was done to my last dollar, literally. That very same day my Dad emailed me and put a few bucks into my account. I guess I'm lucky becasue I get to commute for free which saves me a shitload of money, but still, I never seem to want it, desire it, or think too often about it and I always seem to have enough to get by, to eat, and to donate a few bucks to Yoga to the People and church. Not that I WANT to live meagerly forever, I just don't see a problem with it right now and I don't sacrifice what I love to do or worry about the monetary fortunes that I will or will not fall into in the future.
Lets talk about Tom (my mentally challenged Uncle) for a minute. Tom works at Almost Family presumably putting caps on bottles. He gets a paychek every few weeks for about 5 dollars. This excites him beyond measure. He is completely content with whatever he receives and we (family) always make a big deal out of it proclaiming things like "WOW TOM!!! FIVE DOLLARS?! NO WAY!!!" He also has a bowl of pennies that he counts every night. This act might seem to peg him as frugile, but it is really indicative of the fact that he values the little things in life. He is the essence of "being." We got him a Popeye shirt last Christmas that said "I Yam What I Yam." This describes him perfectly.
Anyway, there is a lot of good that can come of money, but people abuse it.
Combatting this obsession with money is easy; choose gratification over supplication.
$$$$
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Insanity, your Honor!
Insanity is subjective.
There once was a king who was loved and respected by all the people he ruled for his fair and just principles. They adorned him with food, jewelry, and clothing. He ruled from within the gates of his own kingdom and had a private river from which he drank. His subjects drank from their own river. One day, the water that his subjects drank from became contamined and, after drinking it, they all went insane. The king, from his throne, had no idea. The people began to loath the King and they called him a tyrant and thought that he and his principles were insane. They stopped sending him gifts and began to rebel against his authority.
One day, the King decided to wander into the village where his people were. The walk down made him thirsty, so he dedcided to drink from one of their contaminated rivers. After drinking, he, too, became insane. He now saw things from the eyes of his people, and they accepted him again.
The insane rejected the sane until he became insane.
i think I did a good job of recounting this story. It's from The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and it proves that people are only insane out of context.
There once was a king who was loved and respected by all the people he ruled for his fair and just principles. They adorned him with food, jewelry, and clothing. He ruled from within the gates of his own kingdom and had a private river from which he drank. His subjects drank from their own river. One day, the water that his subjects drank from became contamined and, after drinking it, they all went insane. The king, from his throne, had no idea. The people began to loath the King and they called him a tyrant and thought that he and his principles were insane. They stopped sending him gifts and began to rebel against his authority.
One day, the King decided to wander into the village where his people were. The walk down made him thirsty, so he dedcided to drink from one of their contaminated rivers. After drinking, he, too, became insane. He now saw things from the eyes of his people, and they accepted him again.
The insane rejected the sane until he became insane.
i think I did a good job of recounting this story. It's from The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and it proves that people are only insane out of context.
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