It Makes a Sound
For a bit today, I started thinking about the possibility of switching from what I know and believe and who I think I am to what others were saying. I went through this same thing over my winter break where I considered the possibility that I should just go with what I see as boring and be just like everyone else instead of fighting it so much. I soon decided, that day, that those thoughts were stupid and there was no reason for me to slip into the stream with everyone else.
I'm glad I did.
But every once in a while, I have these days where before I can recall my own self I actually listen to what others have to say to heart. They sneak up on me, and in my completely loose state it's not hard for them to make me disbelieve myself.
And I guess I was just getting to that spot again, after having my professor telling me how marketable and well-rounded I am and how cool she thought I was and me being glad to hear the positive enforcement on my personality today. But I was sitting on this picnic table I usually go to, at the Starbucks on campus, drinking a coffee and smoking a cigarette and I began to think that my negative views on people were wrong.
Fuck that.
I don't think I'm judgmental and I do everything to avoid "being" this concept but it's just little things like that that sneak into my mind unnoticed and make me doubt everything I stand for and who I am and what I think. I even started to think, as I tend to do whenever I finally start to really free myself from the world around me, that I was drifting too far from my environment. I always say people are the only thing that keep me grounded. But I think I need to take even more of a vacation from them; really stick to my guns and be as uncompassionate to their feelings as possible so I can reach the speed possible to escape their gravity that holds me so. Then I'll orbit them and their world-- held by their force but free as can be.
The other analogy I was going to use in my post yesterday was the idea that I used to believe: when a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it it doesn't make a sound because there are no organisms around to perceive the sound it would make. I now see that's bullshit in relation to me. I'm the tree that falls with no one around, but with the ability to get back up and continue growing. And one day when someone comes across me on a random excursion into the forest, I'll be there; tall and beautiful; only because I didn't wait for those sound waves to hit someone far off and for them to come running to see what I've done.
Something Free
I was thinking about the post I made yesterday and decided to evolve that concept today. Since I find nature as a good way to provide answers to the inner-workings of my mind (being created out of it and all), I went to the river nearby that was flooding the nearby roads due to all the rain we've had recently.
While it's good that I don't need a pat on the back for every new action I do, it's still too constraining on me to need people around to simply perceive my actions. So, how do I give myself this validation without actually getting the validation? I instantly realized that it didn't involve validation at all-- I just need to do things as if no one is around and simply enjoy it. At the time I related it to the river's water: the surface of the water looked as if it was a surface with this life that moved beneath it; this energy. And this energy that moves beneath the surface of the water and creates waves travels down stream, and from where I was sitting, into the shore. Now if I was this ball of energy that propels the waves to crash into the shore, I might be compelled--seeing the shore and my impending doom--to want to stop; to travel no longer.
But that would be boring. Stability is overrated in my book because nothing happens when everything is stable. So, following in the wave's essential footsteps, I would rather crash into the shore and enjoy the results. The wave moves back into the stream once it can go no further and those pebbles on the shore have been changed forever because of that wave's actions; everyone wins (me being the wave and the pebbles being other people).
That works. I can handle events such as these because that's what we humans live for; no event that doesn't kill me is truly "bad." But what about when I'm just in the stream? This is what I was struggling with-- no events are occurring, or at least not ones strong enough to distract me from myself. But I'm really traveling through the world; there are things all around-- near and far; and it doesn't take much to see it all when you know how to.
So finally, what am I if I don't need people to tell me what I am? I'm a floating orb of energy. By nature, I hit dead-ends and bounce off to go in a different direction; I go around rocks that block part of my intended course; I even pick up smaller rocks in my stream that I have enough force over, but I never really control them-- they'll always go their own route, just as I do. I'm alone but comfortable. In my instability I'm stable. Nature dictates the power I have over myself (infinite), and I get to enjoy it.
I like that.
What I Believe
This is a common question and a concept that tells a lot about a person. So, as if everything I write here doesn't already do it (obviously I wouldn't write it if I didn't believe it), I'll spell out what I believe right now, at this point in time.
I believe the universe we see, feel, hear, taste and smell, is an entity much like our own individual minds. Thoughts and life-forms go through the same cycles: everything grows. A thought is started by the perception of an outside force or idea, and it grows even when it can't grow anymore. A real-life example would be: anything you feel passionately about is something that has grown bigger than the other ideas in your mind-- a huge galaxy, if you will. And, as is the nature of our mind and more than likely the universe, this promotes more growth-- almost the most basic requirement of existence.
On the flip-side of this example, if you worry about being accepted by other people (other universes), you will do anything to make sure you are and even change your behavior just to make sure this happens. This perspective is interesting because it essentially creates a black hole; it can keep an entire galaxy of ideas in perfect balance around it. However, allowing this worry (about things that are completely out of your control) to completely engulf you will put the surrounding galaxy of everything you know out of balance and take it to another realm. I try to avoid black holes.
Another function of the brain is communication; neurons and axons and synapses, at the basic level. They form ideas that communicate to form new ideas which form new ideas and so on ad infinitum. So the universe communicates in the same fashion through energy. We perceive information visually through the energy in light; we feel through the energy of heat; sound, motion, even words (the most blatant form of communication) are broadcast through the manipulation of matter that travels through space fueled by energy. In other words, we exist in this larger "brain," which dictates that everything, including our own mind, behaves in the same way.
So. These thoughts would be useless without some kind of meaning to me.
Since I deal with my own mind more than I do with the universe, I like to do anything that makes me enjoy myself. I don't like to hold on to any one idea for too long, because there's no telling how long it will hold up before it collapses; as with everything in the universe, thoughts essentially "die." And when you don't hold on to things, the world seems to flow; instead of seeing individual snapshots over time and analyzing and hoping that each one stays, they all flash by you to form a moving picture that makes sense, in its simplest form. From your own universe's perspective, you get to look down on all your perceptions and thoughts and bask in your creation. And that encompassing and ever-present beauty keeps all instability stable and unlogic logical and, more than anything, everything simply makes sense without it "making sense."
And I like that.
Seeing the Beauty
I like to think of any actions I take as this: something is bound to happen. Anything happening is good (and certainly better than nothing happening). So there's no balance to maintain-- everything becomes worthwhile.
This goes along with constantly thinking positively-- seeing the beauty in everything around you. I just recently took an 800-mile trip to the midwest because I felt trapped at my parents' house in my hometown. It snowed in Ohio and Indiana. Normally I would be upset, cautious, etc. But I enjoyed the light dusting on the road, the slight loss of traction I would encounter at 60 mph as I changed lanes, and even watching a semi jackknife off the road and barely avoid hitting an overpass' column head-on.
It goes along with the idea that nothing bad will ever happen to you if you avoid viewing it as such. This world we live in is too perfect to view anything negatively. So when there's something like a bag laying in the road, it's almost a decoration-- instead of a black segment of roadway (similar to the rest of the road), it's a more interesting piece of road in the world because it now has a white blob there.
It's a different view on life. Something that has, for the past month or so, been bringing me back to something happy when the world around me isn't working out in the way that I thought I wanted it to. We're just a tumbleweed in the wind, it's literally you and the world. And everything in it is, in the right light, beautiful.
