Late Night Fiction It’s all in your mind

11Mar/100

A Big Change (in self)

When I most recently decided to stop smoking, I realized something I never saw the 10-something other times. Sometimes we willingly make a large change. It's easy to live in hypothetical land ("this option is good because ... and bad because ... "), but the real strength comes out when you actually decide to go with one or the other. Then a step above that is actually sticking to what you've decided and going with it 100%, whether it's right or wrong. This is what makes confidence; and you a person.

So I've fought going to the store and buying a pack these past few days; this time it wasn't as easy simply dropping it as it has been times before. Right now I'd love to have some to smoke as I drive around with the sun setting (as it currently is) and all the windows rolled down; something I'm used to doing in this nice weather. If not that, I'd like to go stand outside for 7 1/2 minutes while I smoked one, just to be out of the house.

But my blind stubbornness is keeping me from doing that. Stubbornness usually gets a bad rap when it comes to other people, but when it's internal it is an important element for your own growth. And so what am I left with? Well, since I'm not so fond of feeling like shit (for any reason), I need to adapt. Since this new cigarette-less environment is my current one (and I don't want to be a miserable bitch), I might as well get used to it and see what I can do with where I'm at.

And on the larger scale of things (since I like the big picture), this is an extremely fundamental element for life. Change is what keeps minds, countries, planets, the universe moving. If anything remained the same for some amount of time, it would die (in some way) because it no longer has any use to the environment it is in. Atoms constantly move; stars that seem so far away are moving even more so; galaxies are forming; people are thinking; and when the forces that keep these things going cease to exist, the universe outside of it will as well.

Upon accepting what "is," whether in or outside of you, it becomes easier to move on; to keep the forces within you moving and ensuring you don't "die" from a lack of expression or stimulation that otherwise keeps your mind (and you) going.

I think I'll go for a drive.

4Feb/100

Something out of Nothing

Going along with my earlier thoughts about cultivating the growth of my mind, I started wondering of a way to come up with new ideas without the need for an external idea, such as that from another person. I couldn't think of any way to create something new in my mind, large enough to grab onto and run with. I also can't think of any idea I've ever had in my life without some kind of knowledge about something else that helped me formulate this new idea.

And then I posted a tweet where I was about to go on a tangent about something and I realized that by writing an idea down or otherwise outputting some kind of information from my mind, it becomes a new piece of information from which new ideas can be formed. This recursive process can help new ideas based on new ideas etc. etc.

This says a lot about the mind. If the mind was the only thing in existence--no other minds, no trees or planets or universe--it would have nothing to do, no way to grow or develop or establish new things and, I think, it wouldn't even exist in the first place. It seems like the mind works in twos. Alone it just is. No growth, nothing new, just a single speck. With another thought--something as simple as a sound--a chain-reaction is set off and new ideas are created. Over the years, the very thoughts that created what we currently know at an older age become buried by the constant events that are happening right now. But they all started somewhere. And future ones will do the same.

28Jan/100

Space

Today I spent a lot of time reading about the new things Virgin Galactic will be doing with its commercial trips to space and how badly I want to go there. And I thought about how if I could look down upon the earth in the darkness of space, the world would seem so small and insignificant to what I was experiencing. And how much I would love it.

Then I thought about how I wouldn't think of people, I wouldn't think of the issues that plague the world or my daily concerns; only this blue marble that I could stare down upon. And how if I went out farther to look upon our solar system it would be so small; farther to look at our galaxy and how small and remarkable it would be; and then if I went to the edge of the universe, it would all be so small. And I feel like if I took one step further to the outside of our universe, it would all be contained in this tiny ball that from my view on earth, to me right now, looks so vast.

And it would look like what's inside my head. When viewed from a spot where everything is small, nothing matters. It is all contained, small and insignificant. And well-- I don't know how else to express the kind of relief and tranquility that would give me. If my mind is that small, viewed from the right distance, and my environment as well, nothing matters so much that it must be overly-contemplated. When I think so much I zoom down to a small level on an Earth of thoughts which isn't even at the most basic level to understand everything that occurs. I feel like if I could look down at the entire universe and could understand what that meant to me there, I would be able to understand what it meant on this relatively micro level.

20Jan/100

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.