Month: April 2017

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman

As you may have seen on social media from time to time, i find certain quotes from people that seem interesting, as well as posting them at the bottom of these writings.These quotes are an additional thought I feel like is connected to what we have been thinking about or something that is another interesting discussion point. They are interesting because they can be inspirational as well as connecting to something I’ve already written. As in many aspects throughout life, these quotes create thoughts, ideas and convince me of ideas. Its this individual based thought, this unique way of thinking that seems of interest.

As we come closer to the first anniversary of Thinking Evolution,  I find myself looking at the idea that you are forging your own path, to blaze through all the strange mediocrity of modern life and be that utterly magnificent version of yourself you always imagined you could be. That dream, that lifestyle, that ultimate phase of life where you feel like, just for once, you are truly achieving “life domination.” All of this, revolves around this idea that through all the stuff that makes us sad, angry, shake with fear, sink so far away from everything with such a sense of anxiety, we are all unique.

However, its this i think is the issue. This desired “uniqueness.” Its like we are concerned by the ideals of modern life and its manufactured happiness, thinking that new shiny car, the bigger house, that “key” promotion or whatever is currently on special for lunch is the key to a happy and successful life. I feel like at times, we all fall foul of this warped ideology. Why? Because its easy. Its a near emotionless, sedated experience that gives us just enough to not be totally miserable. That counter acting against the desire to be unique, to feel something new, to do something never done, to be somewhere not ever been and being something so much more than the insignificant speck in this giant absurd wheel forever spinning through life is a constant battle.

We fear being unique too though, for we think it will make us alone. If nobody can see the world as you see it, is able to think as you think, to love as you love and to even like similar music that you do, then that’s it. “I am, and always will be…alone.” We feel so unique, so singular in the way we think and feel that connections seem nothing more than a distant fantasy. Of all the fears and phobias in the world, modern or hundreds of years old, being alone, to me, is more powerful and effective at systematically destroying someone’s soul and the very essence of of what someone is. What i fear more of modern life is this systematic destruction of this uniqueness is  something we are consciously aware of, something we do in order not to be alone.

This just creates more questions though. What is being alone? Can you truly ever be alone, fearing life, love and everything in between if you have never experienced the highs these ideals can offer? Maybe in this age of TV dramas, binge watching and Netflix play a part in this supposedly relevant and real aspect of life, as we watch connections form and bridges burn in a number of hours, leaving us only with the pain of what happened, seemably as a result of that connection, of that beautiful moment. These moments that are so fear inducing, that the moments that make us unique so to create only pair and loss, a profoundly negative reaction to something uniquely brilliant.

It seems a rather endless circle then, a forever ending quandary that can’t be explained or removed from the forever evolving equation that is life. So- how do we go about living with this equation- how do we become more than a collection of x and y’s, to live life in our own way, while understanding and respecting fear of what we assume is to be alone. To live life not attached to the ideals of society and its manufactured happiness, to think differently and see the world through your unique perspective, not as the television says you should.

The problem is we can be greatly effected by the ideals of a society as we can see the changing of thoughts and feelings as forging connections more than losing ourselves. Its almost an intentional ignorance of the beautifully unique characteristics i choose to believe we all possess. This minefield though, it kills part of you. The free thinking, the opinionated, the respectful, unique, idealistic brilliant version of yourself that lives deep within you sort of falls into the background, insignificant, as you become a number in order not to feel alone. The death of your “uniqueness” changes you, makes you a harder person, living life in a much more fear inducing way. This, interestingly, is something we all live to, but doesn’t make any sense, for one very simple reason.

The vast majority of the population doesn’t care what your doing, what you look like, how you career is going, how much money you have, what car you drive, whether you get that promotion or how much your suit cost. People don’t care because they are busy worrying about what you think of them, rather than what your doing. Furthermore why would people care? We sit there fearful of what people think, of being seen as different, so alone, we crush deep down the unique characteristics that make us brilliant to the point we don’t really do anything. So this idea that people will form an opinion of you- living like that, what are we? Truth is, we really aren’t anything.

That’s the point i think. Uniqueness seen as this singular thing, this close to perfect idealistic way of living that means you’re doing your own thing and everything people are doing and thinking becomes insignificant, because “I’m doing my own thing.” This single view of what it means to live your life your way, to me, is where the limitations of being unique start to come in, because we ignore that we are all uniquely the same.

Throughout life, we are all trying to achieve the same thing- to live in a unique way. Everybody is trying to do this, in their own way. Away from the world and its obsessive ideals, if we can choose to live our way, and maybe inspire even just one person to live as they choose to and not to the ideals of this modern world, the ideas that we could share, the thoughts and feelings that could come to fruition would be incredible. If we collectively can find a way of living in a unique way, there are no limitations on what we could do.

If we remember this, i feel like we can live a little more peacefully and through this have a much happier and successful life, without the fear of being alone, of thinking differently and not seeing the world as society does. For this is who we are. And to live to the ideals of who you are is a truly spectacular form of life.

Yours, with love as always.

DR

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Good evening ladies and gentleman

So. I found myself a few days ago with my best friend, at a lake quite early in the crisp morning air, amongst the green of the trees and the wind gently blowing through the murky water- there in a simple moment in time I found something interesting. That the game is not anywhere as simple as any of us ever thought, more so than winning, losing, being successful or crashing and burning in the fire and flames of the next miserable end. It is so much more than all of this. This thing, this ridiculously confusing complex reality that we live in, the dreams we yearn for and the past we seem so haunted by bleeding through the gaps and molding together the personality of you, in this present moment.

I have, for many years, lived to this idea, this thing that life is a game and its being willing to at least play that is the key to a happy and successful life in a world that seems like it doesn’t want you to win. This game, this constant battle for dominance, the need to get ahead, to find that unique edge, to be the next big thing, to do this and that, to be with that person, to show them how much you mean to them, to have the means to articulate all of the thoughts and feelings flowing through your very soul, just for a minute. To be able to do any of this, we must first play the game and through hard graft, understanding and perseverance, we win. Then the game has been mastered and you won the trophy.

Play the game- throw the dice, draw the card, hook the duck. Win. In this quite basic scale, this is a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with stuff, with “life.” Scale this up though. Win the contract, win the job, win the woman, win her heart, to the point she is willing to give her all, to you. That by itself is an incredibly powerful thing for someone to do, to give you their heart and all that comes with it.

This world is not a trusting place in a time where you can find out everything from where someone lives, to what they drive to even what their favorite color is, all from a few taps across the internet on your smartphone. We are even offering up the most personal of information to the clutches of the digital world on dating sites for some idea that if we like the same stuff, then maybe we will have that chemistry with them and that rarely seen “spark” would make an appearance. So for her to trust you, as much as for you to trust her with everything you are, to become totally vulnerable to the point where ultimate destruction seems only a breath away is rare. Rare, because we dare not let this destruction get so close.

We all want to be the puppet master of life and be the one at the controls at all times. What is it though? This supposedly necessary control to maintain this society based manufactured happiness. To me, its resisting the urge to control as you give someone else the means to affect your mind, your heart and soul. There is so much bad in the world, so much pain. Its scary to become vulnerable, because in that second of weakness, in that moment where you give that person a chance, when you let them in and give them a shot at the controls, it could make for anything. I can’t help but think this is so much more than i thought, so much more than just a game.

Why? Because games are just that. Games, no more than blackjack, poker or hook a duck. They don’t matter. You have very little long term emotional thoughts and feelings for the more basic, considerably less meaningful parts of life. The key thing i think is that the feeling is temporary. Fleeting, one second of disappointment there, the next…gone- off to the next “thing,” the next “grand idea.”

Scale that up to something that can affect you so much more, cause such a seismic shift in your thoughts and feelings of life, love and everything in between is huge, for it takes us away from the familiar person you recognize when you look in the mirror every morning. I often don’t know how to deal with this thought, it vexes me for it cannot be explained or understood, or won. We treat the huger things of life as a game, then they don’t matter as much. We work so hard to anticipate all the steps we would have to take in order to mold ultimate victory to an obsessive extent.  We become so fixated on this game, on seeing ahead, on understanding, to the point where winning becomes all that matters and everything else, that brilliant, joy filled moment we are working to create becomes, in our crazy scheme, rather insignificant.

Through treating the bigger, scarier, more meaningful in your life as  “just a game,” means it shouldn’t matter if something goes wrong, if “I mess something up” or i missed something so critical that the whole game is lost. You can just work on a slightly different attack and then win. But then what? You won the game, you’ve hoisted the trophy aloft and celebrated your victory. Now what?

That’s the point. I don’t think we ever expect to win the game in the first place. Every time you lose, you have more experience in losing and it builds up. Eventually, the only path you see is the path to your “inevitable” failure. Which means you start wandering why you should even bother playing the game in the first place. Recently, with this bigger more shifting developments in your life, along with the thought and feelings they develop, in order to understand them and respect them for the power and magnificence they can provide- i think we need a slightly different approach.

Playing the game is just that. Playing. To “play” give a rather painless impression so when “playing with fire” and causing you and/or those around you a great deal of pain, anguish and misery its going to effect you so much more. You’re playing the game and  when you miss something, when you lose, no amount of obsessive predicting the steps, or seeing what is coming is going to stop the tinge of failure and the pain of loss.

Maybe this is a good thing though. A ridiculous thought i know, but what if it was? What if that pain, that thought, that vast expanse in your mind filled with nothing but pain could be a good thing. I have always believed playing the game gives our lives meaning and purpose, but i can’t help thinking its not that simple. Allowing yourself these moments, these connections with people who you love so dam much and that make you feel so good, these experiences that revolutionize your thinking, that allow you to see things you’ve never seen, to feel things you never thought you would feel.

Surely its this. Then as you lie on your deathbed, your family surrounding you in those final moments, a lifetime of experiences and memories filling your mind and the relationships forged in fire that were so powerful that they changed you forever. To live for this, for this to be life and your purpose- to own the stage, to give it everything you have, to put in 110%..

Surely this is more than winning the game. This is winning at life.

Yours, with love as always.
DR

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Good afternoon ladies and gentleman

As of recent times, throughout life and the way my thoughts and feelings have flooded through what we have been considering at Thinking Evolution, i have been somewhat obsessed by the idea of “the end.” A persistent thought i have been unable to shake off, curious and scared at the same time while i try to understand how best to come to terms with the idea that everything will inevitably end and no amount of preparation will have you ready for when it comes. It will always happen, for everything must end and when it does, it will always be sad.

Sadness, in loss of life, love or anything in fact is almost like a poison. It flows thorough you, touching the tips of your fingers down to the tips of your toes, leaving you thinking you will never feel anything else. It can come from loss, from desire, from a yearning, a long to be wanted, to need something so much more than what your feeling, what your doing right now. Combine this with the fear of that utterly beautiful instance in your life being taken away, or simply just ending and the result is more powerful than any of us can understand, like you almost become frozen with fear.

Nonetheless, this idea of everything ends and its always sad- it has a second line, perhaps a line infinitely more important than the last. While everything ends, and its always sad- everything begins again, and that’s always happy. There are going to be times of such darkness, such pain, even loneliness, whatever that means and i think at times we all find ourselves comfortable in pain and in darkness, so taken by the end. For something to end though, surely they have to begin again, more than sit in that existential loop. Somehow differently this time though, for you have learnt more about your world and about yourself, for if the pain that hurt so much, that loss of something that once meant so much can’t affect you on such a fundamental level, it makes for a number of difficult questions.

How much did it actually mean to you? and more importantly are you really letting it go by not letting yourself be sad- not being in pain? To go through and take on that pain is the key to the new beginning, and to me the key to finding a happier place in life.

It can seem like an impossible task though. As we spend time being sad, spend time living in the thoughts and feelings that an end, or even the feeling that an end is coming will give you, when everything feels so saturated in emotion and the confusion seems like it will never fade, like your almost floating, never expecting to be able to find your feet as the floor has been taken away from beneath you, like a tablecloth was pulled from the grand table, only for all the crystal glasses and ornate china to go crashing to the floor. Its a scary thought, and generally scary is not a positive thing. Is this is a good thing when it comes to your thinking evolution and the new beginnings that could be the make or break of who you are? Surely it should be the start of something.

I’m not stupid though, or not stupid enough to see that this idea, this need for new beginnings is always going to be tinged with the sadness of the last end and in the fear of the loss, of the pain and envious sensations of what once was. Its almost like we have a desire for our life to change, to be able to not need to defend and surrender to the desire, to the potential for pain and hope and trust that it won’t turn around and stab you in the back.

I am forever persistent though,  in my stubborn lack of faith in beginnings. We have all, in our own way, fought for domination over our own thoughts. We have hoped for new beginnings to be different, for things to change again and again to be left only with the sorrowful sensation left by an ending. It makes you wander about whether beginnings and the brilliance they can bring are worth the pain of their end. This obsessive awareness, this battle, that voice in your head, when all the good could easily come crashing down,  destroy your grand plans for life, it makes for a dramatic, hopeful desire to maintain a well filtered, manufactured controlled form of thinking. While this isn’t going to cause any pain, from loss or from an ending, its balanced by the fact it doesn’t really cause anything.

I guess its all down to risk. You put yourself out there before, you were there in a moment of your life where all that mattered was that instant,  just a minute of time in this forever hectic world you spent with someone who means so much to you, just a second that left such a mark on who you are to cause your own mental evolution. Then, for whatever reason, things happened and that change in your life, that beginning that was the green light for such a powerful thinking evolution was gone.

Pain, while it’s difficult to deal with, is always going to be a part of your life, a part of my life, a part of the world full stop. It will always be there, and it will never be pretty. Things will always end, and it will always be sad. More importantly simply not beginning anything to avoid the end doesn’t solve the problem, it just avoids the problem, leaving you concentrating not on living your life for those beautiful moments, but instead concentrating on avoiding the beginnings that could be critical to making you happy.

Maybe that’s the key. What if the pain of the ending is the way the new beginning makes us feel so good and brings us so much closer to being happy? More than the risk of sadness, of loss and misery in the face of the new beginning, what if you were simply learning? You were in pain, drowning in emotion not really seeing a way out. The beginning make its different though, you have a goal and its almost like a weight is lifted beyond the pain you feel. You don’t ever lose the pain though, you learn from it. You see what happened before, the path that led you to the ending that was tainted with such sadness and see that you have been able to get through that pain. You are stronger because of it, as well of the fact were a similar situation to occur, then you would have the means to do things differently.

We have always believed there is nothing worse than pain, especially the pain that comes with endings. If we look at pain differently though, use that pain and what we have learnt to continue to live the way we want to, for the outstanding moments in life that make you feel so dam special it cannot really be explained. If we can learn and evolve from pain, when you put yourself out there and trust that the good times will begin again, maybe, in our own way, we can live more peacefully. Maybe even be happy.

An interesting thought- no?

Yours, with love as always.

DR

PS: Talking of new beginnings I’m working on something for the fast approaching 1st anniversary of Thinking Evolution.

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Good evening ladies and gentleman

I found myself not two or three days ago staring down the barrel of a remarkably complex mental quandary, that led me to a thinking about something i am fairly confident we don’t really pay attention to, for its something so familiar, something just there, forever popping up throughout modern life, so fleeting in nature for the few seconds its there, in just a flash of beauty before its gone forever. Not faded though, for the lasting effect it can have, even though its so simple.

Let me quickly set the scene. Out with friends, buying drinks quite late into the night. Buying singles from the bar, only to find myself with the application of a smile from a beautiful woman, much more comfortable with buying doubles. Now I’m more than aware that i was totally suckered into buying more drinks by said woman, this i something I am happy to admit to. It happens and we could try and figure it out all night. She was beautiful, i had been drinking, whatever. I don’t blame her, she was doing her job and after the initial irritation i moved on and carried on enjoying the night. It did however, get me thinking about the power of a smile, in particular what it can do for you mentally and what it could do to you emotionally.

Now i’m not sure if this is true, but its something i heard once, that regardless of its truth is remarkably interesting. If  you ever feel nervous, maybe for an upcoming event, a meeting, a date, a concert, anything that was giving you all of those signs you were starting to feel the pressure. The hairs standing on the back of your neck, the clammy hands, the butterflies in your stomach, the slight tremor showing you that something is coming and you can’t be sure how its going to turn out. You are nervous, and its not feeling this sensation that scares you, but the element of the unknown, the element that has found its way into your life that in turn has created this “nervousness. To smile, to think of something good, something funny, something beautiful, something old, new, a moment in your life, a moment you treasure, a person you treasure with all your heart. As your face moves and the smile comes about, there is an idea that you are calmed and at least temporarily the nerves are subsided.

Regardless of the psychological or physiological nature behind this, i believe it is true, purely from my own experiences, something which to me is a remarkably good illustration of how positively powerful a smile can be. Its effects, while fleeting,  are quite an amalgamation of thoughts and feelings. When feeling low, down, miserable- whatever you want to call it, for someone or something to illicit a smile from what can at times feel like your broken soul is so beautiful. Just for a second, you become lost, not in all the noise, not in the fear of not knowing, of losing, of feeling, just in the the warm sensation of the memory, not in the details, just the joy you felt, when in the present moment you get the feeling that the pain will never fade. Even though in our own way. For a smile to cut through that is outstanding.

Back to the example we were talking about earlier, what i found interesting is my initial reaction to something as simple as seeing someone smile. Away from the obvious result of spending more money, the fact she smiled caused me to smile too, like in a way saying that smiling is  infectious. Her smiling caused me to smile and this, even if just for a second, a blip in the timeline of my forever tumultuous and often questionable life decisions seemed as close to perfect as possible, for there in that moment, all the noise seemed so meaningless, like seeing the sun pop back up from just over the horizon as the inky blackness of night disappears, as you see someone you love for the first time in so long, as they laugh with you at the world as you share something so brilliantly unique.  I guess, in fairly simple terms, smiling, and seeing someone else smile makes us…happy.

Away from feeling nervous about life and love, of all the rubbish and bullshit it can seem life is constantly hurtling at you, trying to drag a good mood through the bushes, to win the good fight for your mental independence in some warped desire to confine you and your wonderful thoughts and feelings to a box that can be molded and manipulated. Then take something as simple as a smile and all of this seems to fall into some odd level of insignificance. With everything that’s going on in the world at the moment it can seem like the easiest thing to do, the best thing to do is to back down, to admit defeat in the fight, to surrender to the desires of an easy life and let its power wash over you. I think we should try and surrender more, but not to defeat, to something far simpler and something much more beautiful.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, as I’m sure you know. I made a mistake, in my judgement of that smile. I jumped immediately to the conclusion i had been played, and as soon as the “falseness,” the manufactured happiness i have a natural loathing of had dictated the way i behaved, it lost some of its beauty. Now I’m not saying we should ignore what is an obvious reality, but take things more as they are. There was a moment, and there was a smile. It was there one second and gone the next. If we surrender more to these moments and you let them flow throughout even the darkest part of your  mind, then maybe, just maybe, we can have more of these moments where we can feel so fucking brilliant, even if just for a second.

Furthermore if we are all for learning of life, love and everything in between, then maybe through surrendering to the simple beauty of a smile, be it from your or as part of a moment you share with someone, it might give you confidence, give me confidence, to put yourself in unfamiliar situations, in places where you may not now the result, where you may feel good, you may get to smile, to laugh and to be happy. I think we all have this natural awareness, this fail safe to avoid situations that may make you feel “sad,” feel lost, miserable or envious of someone or something. However, if we can feel so good, even if just for a second because of a smile, maybe its worth the risk, for the power of the smile can do so much more to us than we could ever imagine.

I feel like it could be worth the risk, because it could make us so much more. All through the power of a smile

What do you think? What does the power of a smile do to you? Let me know through the usual social media or comment below.

Yours, with love as always.

DR

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