The Show

Good evening ladies and gentleman

“Do not go gentle into that goodnight….rage, rage against the dying of the light….”

I found this phrase many years ago and have since used it as a fight against loss, being defeated and most importantly against the idea of “giving up.” Recently it has come round again and the more i think about it, the more i realize how incredibly powerful it is. For, in many ways, its how we live purely, become the ultimate version of ourselves and in our own way truly “master” life.

However, more recently i have found myself…detached. Detached in the sense that the connections that mean so much are nothing more than distant fantasies, ideas dying before they have even began, feelings no more than distractions to the overall goal. Not just through my writing or Thinking Evolution but through all of my life, in love and everything that comes with it. I don’t even know what the goal I’ve been driving towards really is, all i know is that I don’t know.

That phrase. That dam phrase.

I don’t know

I don’t know

I don’t know

You cannot begin to imagine how many times I’ve said that in the last few days. Again and again. Its almost like i don’t know where i fit in to reality anymore. It’s as if I’ve created a show for this person, showing the world this version of me, this hateful, bitter, angry man, fearful even of his own reflection for how it would judge him for being such a fool, watching opportunities float by and being glad to watch them fall over the edge to the abyss below, moments lost to misery.

I feel like this, so happily lost in the miserable familiarity, because i have always believed that I’m really good at it. Through this man, this version of myself that truly loathes people and all they can be, the man forever looking for flaws in people, pointing them out as he “sees so much” for the fear of looking at himself, at myself. I have convinced myself over the years that I don’t need people, that they don’t matter, just people living normal lives, to the compulsive standards of a society that just wants them to listen to anything but the heart and soul that drives them. The part of them that is truly “raging against the dying of the light.”

I know this man. For many years, i have been this man. Right now, from where I’m sitting, I’m not proud of the show that i have created and especially not of the person i have become. Being him just for a day is exhausting and I’ve been doing it for years. Compare this person, this fool, this scared, uncomfortable, worried, ball of anxiety, anger, rage and stress, to me, as you all know me- to DR. I am most at home with you, most at home being this person when I’m writing, when I’m so deep in thought about a certain subject or idea, a thought or feeling that creates such a unique feeling of brilliant wander and excitement. Its like electricity surging through me, the energy i feel as this version of me, the truly pure me is let loose.

No show, no pretense to keep up. Just me, sat in front of a screen, tapping away at the keys, trying to do some good for the world and the people who are living here, for if somehow, somewhere, someone sees a part of their world, a part of their darkness a little differently as a results of my random thoughts and emotions and maybe even feel a little more positive about life, love and everything in between, then maybe i would be doing some good with my time.

I like this version of me more, because i guess i am disconnected from these standards i have been living to for so long, this need for perfection, forever living to the ideals and morals of those around me, living to the opinions of other people and not to myself. Playing a character in this story i have written so well for myself, in the show I’ve been a part of for so long now.

That makes it sound like we are different people. We aren’t. For the first time in my life, I am owning what i am and the person i have become after all this time. I have been hiding from myself and what i want to be for so long now, running this show, playing a character for so long I’m starting to wander who i really am. Even to my dearest best friends, those who have been watching me destroy myself again and again are seeing what I’ve become, this showman. I have been, for too long now treating them as part of the show, as this piece in my grand puzzle of life that means i somehow win. How is this winning? A loss of beautifully brilliant powerful connections with people i love so dam much to the point it makes me forget how much i hate myself, never expecting to reach or exceed the forever growing standards of myself and the and thoughts of everyone else.

For a long time now i have been feeling like i am missing something and I feel like i may have found at least part of the answer, the missing link, the last brick on the path to my own Thinking Evolution. I am hiding from the world behind this screen, from my own standards, so saturated in negativity, in pain, anguish, rage, irritation, anger and jealousy. For so long, i thought i was being the person I was supposed to be, the person that would fit into the world the best, that would be liked, get along with people and find the real meaning of love and life.

Not realizing that in being who I am, seeing the simple beauty of living for the experience rather than the theory, living in the moment, right then, in an instant that feels so good that no ridiculous ideals, not out there standards of perfection are ever relevant. For in that moment, there is no show and there is nobody to impress, nobody to show how great i am, just me, here in what feels like this perfect moment.

How am I ever going to know what life and love truly feels like, living in this single perspective, working only for theory and not feeling it, experiencing all the beautiful wander the world can offer? if i remain in this single perspective mind, scared of what has been, what is and what might be, for it could make me look less than i’m “supposed to be,” scared of what i want to be, then I’m not really living at all, choosing to remain in the dark.

Its at this point we find ourselves back where we started and to “rage against the dying of the light.” For so long now, i have believed i am the character on the show, my life is the story i have created to fit a script i want nothing to do with.  I have been raging against the dying light for so long, choosing not to see it- for i am DR, I always have been. The character is who I’ve shown to the world for so long now, I had forgotten who i was, not seeing what is so obvious.

I have been hiding from myself and these perfect expectations, while not really wanting to live truly as me. It seems  about time i gave myself a chance at the reins in this complicated world i find myself in. Its not going to be easy, its not going to happen immediately, but this is truly my Thinking Evolution.

If i can accept who I am, through the fear, the adventure and the choice to think better feeling thoughts with the help and support of people who I’m closest to, then maybe, just maybe….

I might just get to be happy.

Yours, with love as always.
DR

Chemistry

Good evening ladies and gentleman

I have always been infuriated by this idea of “OK, that’s the way it is.” What’s the point of being able to think freely and without bias if we aren’t actually going to use this brilliant skill we have to the biggest advantage we can.  As times and societies have developed, this ability to change, to evolve and be so much more than we are right now, to run, to work, to graft so much to get to that higher point, to reach the very peak of that mountain and give yourself a reason to be so much more is forever growing, and forever coming up against more formidable opposition.

I feel like we don’t like to be surprised, to live for the moment as you cry with laughter, to cry with sadness, to love so powerfully, to run so fast, to feel an icy wind bracing against you in the vast “colorlessness” of a snow covered landscape, to feel the sun baking down on you as the waves lap between your toes on a beautiful beach, to have amazing, soul connecting sex, to connect with people to the point you feel so much comfort just hearing them breathe as you hug them. This is the challenge- but the question is how do we challenge the world to get to that point? Through change, yet i find its something we have all feared at some point.

I have always seen change as this daunting thing, this huge deal that we always brace for, as we never really know when its coming. You don’t know what’s going to happen, so how would you ever know how to deal with it? You wouldn’t until it happens. This “not knowing” pushes people to avoid change and find comfort in reliable familiarity, from the job that doesn’t fulfill you, to the things you hope will make you happy and at times the relationships we fail to maintain as the spark that once held you so close to one another seems nothing more than a beautiful memory, now a distant fantasy.

What if we are always changing, always evolving in some way and this fear of change is us just putting a block on what we are told will be a problem- what we have been taught might not necessarily be acceptable? Be it by other people or even by ourselves? Take the connections and relationships we have throughout our lives, they are all different, from the relationship you have with your mother to your father, to your friends and enemies, current partners and those you have longed for in the past. Each relationship is different on a most fundamental level through the chemistry you share with this person.

What is chemistry? Chemically speaking, its taking two raw materials and reacting them together to get something new and in the vast majority of cases, better- a more improved version of the materials if you will. This positively high school definition is something that can be taken to the connections and relationships we have had across our lives up to the present moment in the connections we share now, for the impact they can have on your future is truly enormous.

I have been unable to understand this idea of chemistry between two people for many years, confused by the idea of relationships having a “spark,” where this people share good “chemistry” in order to be closer and have a deeper, more meaningful relationship. Even in the endless television and film reviews where the main characters of the story “shared good chemistry.” These phrases just seemed really odd. When you sit down and think about it though,  chemistry is so important to our development as people, critical in how we evolve through time and grow to the people we have become and as we continue to grow in the future.

Take a recent conversation with a close friend of mine. She says that the key thing to her ideological relationship, even to her ideological friendship, is simply to understand her. Now for the many years I’ve known this fabulously oddly wonderful person, to start with i didn’t see it- quite frankly when I met her, i found her positively infuriating. I have grown and developed ( I like to think) since this period in my life and now it seems to make more sense who she is and what she wants to be. She doesn’t connect with people well, for she doesn’t really know how to, so the outlandish”ness” in her was a way to be noticed, to stand out, even thought there is far more too her.

So as i have developed, she has too, and through the admittedly complicated, often very emotionally, negatively charged, rather exhaustive chemistry we once shared, our relationship and the resulting chemistry has evolved. The result is this- i sort of understand her and she sort of understands me. I will never claim to understand everything, especially her, but i remain steadfast on this idea that we have a chemistry of sorts, a spark that means we are happily comfortable around each other, to talk and think freely without being judged, to talk and share opinions, hopes and dreams, to be there for each other when being swallowed by darkness and in the dizzying heights of the bright lights.

I’m not saying this is purely based around her, for this is far from the point i’m trying to make, more  how the timeline of life can recreate and remold the chemistry you share with another person, away from just “knowing someone,” away from online dating, random encounters in bars, fleeting passing of strangers in the street, from the guy helping you try on shoes, to the girl serving you in your favorite restaurant. Its more the smile you shared with the waitress in the bar, to the dinner you shared after the droves of rubbish on the internet with someone you felt like you’d known for years and the deep conversation you had of life, love and everything in between with a total stranger in the bar. These encounters all create a form of chemistry between you and that person. As for what might have been just a second, you shared a deep, meaningful connection and in just that fleeting moment, nothing else mattered.

Maybe that is the whole thing with chemistry- the ability to be in the moment when you are with that person. When I’m with my friend and talking about whatever random subject is occurring at the time, I am there, as present as i possibly can be, without the bullshit irritations and limitations that are forever thrown at us in modern society, forcing labels and categories upon you, like somehow everything has to be labelled and quantified, therefore it will make “sense.”

Why does the chemistry you share with someone have to make sense? I don’t think these connections will ever make sense and can never really be understood, nor should they be. Even more so  in those i am close to,  in that they seem comfortable in a way not many people are around me, willing to talk and understand through the most complex of ideas, be there to show me the path back to the light and there to laugh with me while we are there. This, to me, is because all three of us gave the chemistry we now share a chance, however weird and brilliant it is, to simply “happen,”  with this the resulting connection we share.

Proof then, if we ever needed any that sharing chemistry with someone is true power, bringing about change, an evolution of your thinking in life, love and everything in between.  It could create passion, power, desire, love- feelings that feel so incredible if we can embrace them and treat them simply as they are, if we choose to allow ourselves the privilege. It is chaotic, it is scary, but that’s the point- its supposed to be. Without it, you lose a critical part of yourself, the part that makes you unique, that part that connects with someone on such a level that the relationship you share is so special, your lives are forever to be intertwined in the chaos.

It makes for something you don’t understand, but being there for them through it all isn’t something you would miss for the world.

That is chemistry at its finest, to me.

Yours, with love as always.

DR

Side Step

Good evening ladies and gentleman

I have said a number of times before over what has been more than a year now, we all have someone that lives just beneath the surface of who you show to the world. I choose to believe we all have this version of ourselves, an ideal lifestyle we wish we could truly live everyday- a life without the “necessity” of mediocrity.  Like an iceberg just below the surface of the cold icy waters of modern life, i feel we all want to be so much more, be all we could be, so much more- the adventurer, the traveler, the creator, the lover. Above all else, its the part of you that is “you” in its truest form. It is you in your purest, most non-diluted fashion.

Its difficult in modern society to live to the ideals of that person though, to live like you truly want to and do all you can to live in the purest way that you can. Through all the noise, the obsessive need to tell you how to be “happy” and the materials required to live for this perfect social ideology, the path we are told is the key to happiness can often seem so much brighter than everywhere else. Its this that can make it seem so appealing, yet as you start down that path you end up seeing it really isn’t anything worth doing, just another case of the supposed manufactured happiness that is becoming far more commonplace across the world these days. Its this that has led me to my current state of almost exhausted confusion.

Its a peculiar sensation, that path, because it often seems like that it never leads anywhere. While you feel like its not moving you backwards and further away from your dreams of being that person, it brings you no closer. In the end, you just seem stuck. Running in an endless circle, doing the same thing each day, week and month. Not progressing, not losing, not feeling anything more than you have to in order to get through the next Tuesday, similar to last Tuesday and probably very similar to the following Tuesday.

While I’m able to admit some routine is good, the monotony of it all can sometimes get a bit much. I guess you could liken it to is going eight rounds with Anthony Joshua, thinking your holding your own until you get cracked with a monstrous uppercut out of nowhere. Beyond that, everything just seems fucked.

Despair is interesting because when things get to that point, in my opinion, you have to make a decision. There is no other way of moving through this intensely emotional and very negative period of your life. You can carry on, accept your situation and let the version of yourself you desire to be, the one living below the surface carrying on doing just that. Leave you hoping that something will happen, a chain of events will become the catalyst for a transformation where that supposed “necessity” becomes much less necessary. The alternative though, seems much more appealing and much more effective than simply “hope.”

Hope can feel like a punishment when no action is being taken. Its like wishing to win the lottery, or that person will notice you, without buying a ticket or even saying hello. The harsh truth of life is- its not going to happen. You sit there and do nothing and what should any of us really expect to happen? Nothing- obviously.

Question. Your sat in this persistent, dreary revolution- your stuck. That path is consistent, irritating, comfortable, familiar and just makes you feel so much nothing. How do we become unstuck? Take a side step. The path you find yourself on isn’t working, you clearly feel stuck. This obsessive progression that modern society has been suffering with for so long now can make anything other than forward movement seem like such a dramatic failure, like your wasting your time, purely for the fact you aren’t moving closer to where you want to be, not necessarily moving closer to “life domination.”

Why is that a bad thing? The fact your moving at all is truly spectacular, an amazing mental feat all by itself for all the fear it so easy to be controlled by. We can often feel stuck on this path we have chosen, often lost in the emotion, the misery, loss, the “how much time am i wasting doing this” sensation you find yourself waking up to. So build a platform, and take a side step. The angle of the current attack isn’t working, so the issue, the dream, the “iceberg” self needs to be attacked from another perspective.

As usual with a lot of what i write this is  much easier said than done. The path you find yourself on can often feel so limiting, the choices so restricted that you don’t really know where to turn. I guess you could say its like staring at a brick wall, a wall that there seems no way through, stopping you being happy and reaching those dreams and heights you are forever imagining yourself getting to. The choices forward seem limited, so what if you take a step to the side? There will be delays, but in the long term, you are getting closer to the goal.

It makes no sense to do this, but what if you could? If you change the way you see your current situation, not a roadblock stopping you from where you want to be, but information that a side step is required. A side step, a change in tactic, a slight modification in the way your thinking and feeling about the present moment in this forever random changing smorgasbord of emotional thoughts and feelings we call modern life.

Its natural to assume taking a side step doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t take you any further forward. But what it could do, in my opinion, is make you so much stronger, so much more independent and powerful as a person. It’s something that’s going to take perseverance, confidence, belief in yourself and faith in what you are capable of. For a while there may be no results, but a slight jump from where you are could create  a world for you so much more than your currently experiencing, if you let it. If you can move past the fear of losing the familiar and the belief we must always progress, believe and perhaps importantly, hope. Be confident and powerful in your positive thoughts to overcome the potentially destructive qualities of hope.

The side step could do so much. Its through the choice to think and feel better feeling thoughts that could truly be our Thinking Evolution.

How do you feel about the side step? What about this strange need to almost constant progression in modern life? Feel free to comment here or on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Yours, with love as always.

DR

Random picture.

 

Proud

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman

So, come tomorrow (May 3rd) Thinking Evolution will be celebrating its first anniversary. Quite frankly through all the trials and tribulations i have a habit of putting myself through- its remarkable we made it this far. Nonetheless- let us go back in time for a while and see how we got here.

Many moons ago, i realized a lot of the world made very little sense to me. Ideologies, behaviors, thoughts, feelings and everything in between that made this forever changing world keep hurtling through time at a forever increasing speed has made it more and more difficult to keep up. I am forever curious about life, love and everything in between. Its this curiosity and this confusion that led me to writing and subsequently, led me to starting Thinking Evolution.

I think a great deal about a vast number of topics and thoughts, writing and considering how we can learn and understand, in order to bring about a change, a connection across the world that creates sharing information and understanding, where we can learn how to think and see we can choose to think better feeling thoughts. For if we can see there is a choice, we can choose to be positive, we can choose to feel good and even see the bad negative aspects of life as something we can use to our advantage in the development of what is essentially, our own uniquely brilliant Thinking Evolution.

When lying at death’s door, waiting for the inevitable end, if what i write and what i have done can create discussion and understanding, the development of ideas and connection where people can choose to feel good, then i will have done something good with my time. Its not been easy though, as I’ve said nothing worth while, nothing “evolutionary” is ever going to be easy. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing. Even if i have a strange capacity to become distracted, to become lost in my own distance, to feel as if I’m fading into the noise of modern society and the ridiculous idealized manufactured happiness. I always believe though, I must maintain resolve and remain focused on what, as a collective, Thinking Evolution is all about.  For i hope, i truly hope, it will be magnificent.

I am this person, I can’t hide from you. I’ve changed my name, but beyond that the world is a forever confusing amalgamation of ideas and fear inducing thoughts. However, i persist. I dream of creating something beautiful, brilliant and bringing about an evolution amongst us where we can share, connect, learn, choose and understand. This way, you and I can truly start living.

So when i started this, i took the first step i like to think to achieving that dream, to making the world at least a little better. Without this i would carry on existing in a job, knowing people and to me, not really achieving anything. I took the first step, now 364 days later i find myself at this point. I won’t claim to know or really understand what I’m doing, I’m working as hard as I can to learn about what needs to be done, to develop us, to develop this and develop myself. We are all here to learn, and for the past year i have been motivated by what we could as a collective do together.

I keep in mind what i have planned for Thinking Evolution and the constant thirst for knowledge and understanding of how we can get there, through writing, through life, love and everything in between. I feel it takes a lot of trust, a lot of faith and a lot of creative intuition. But thus far, in what is the early stages of what i hope to be something amazing, i feel i can be proud of what has been achieved.

Yes, that seems the best way to describe it. Everything is changing and as we learn, write and understand, we grow. I have grown so much as a person since reading the articles and blogs that Thinking Evolution has allowed me to find, the comments that people have left sharing their thoughts and ideas. Its truly something i’m happy and privileged to be a part of and it makes so proud where things are and where i hope they are going.

Its not over yet though- this is is just the beginning. For the next 365 days and for many years after that, we will grow, share ideas and thoughts of life, love, fear, curiosity, pain loss and envy as Thinking Evolution continues to grow. This is the point of life to me, to be here, in this moment, learning of life, love and everything in between. Thinking Evolution will forever be growing, we will create more, be more, show you more and you know what?

I feel like I can be proud of how far its come- how far I’ve come.  Whether you’ve been here from the beginning or just turning up here now, thank you. I hope you stick around.

For to quote a random version of the Joker- “you ain’t seen nothing yet!”

Yours, with love as always

DR