Month: November 2017

Good evening ladies and gentleman.

Not to start slightly strongly, but I’ve always hated that phrase- “forgive and forget.” The modern day connotations it has to being alright with everything, being content with things going wrong and people screwing you over or acting in such a way you end up down so low in the inky blackness of your own personal darkness, you almost forget what the light feels like. “Time to forgive and forget” people believe it so intently. Does anybody really forget though- to move past something that happened, something you may have lost control of and ended up hurting someone, or even worse, convincing yourself you had caused someone you love any form of pain or anguish, without them ever really knowing what you’re putting yourself through.

Thing is though. I sit here writing about forgetting, but have so much trouble forgetting what I’ve done, as I’m sure you have done at times. Once upon a time, I worked to the idea, or theory if you like, that I shouldn’t forget, that forgetting is bad, because it gives me a backlog, an archive of information where things didn’t work, or something didn’t go the way I expected them to. This could be from anything, an exam, a failed friendship, a failed attempt to even understand what someone means to me, or I them. Even something as meaningless as being swayed in less than noble circumstances, someone smiling taking an edge over logical thinking, even if only for a second.

As it stands, I have so much stuff archived that the mental hard disk is full and would like to delete some stuff from the   darker areas of my memories. I’ve seen people move forward in this way before, just deal with what they did in their past and somehow not letting it directly affect their future.  They don’t avoid these situations because it caused them pain, but they don’t forget what happened either. They respect what happened and move on, so why does it seem so difficult? I like to think I’m not the only one having these complex, often awful thought process more than once, but the process always seems to go the same way, for one very simple reason.

I am so scared to forget. I just…can’t. Take life purely from a logical, rational perspective, just for a second. If something was to cause you pain, anguish, misery, envy, depression, to do as much as cause a tear to roll down your face as the motivation you were once so full of starts to drain away, leaving you bare, not feeling like half the person you were when you woke up that morning. You experience that sensation and it’s that feeling you hold on to, for the event itself is just another blip on your timeline. The pain and anguish you felt, the anger for letting yourself get to that point, the fear of it returning and impaling you on that same darkness, as next time you’re not sure you’re going to have the strength to haul yourself back up again.

While the mistake archive you once treasured seemed useful, it keeps you awake now too. Your sleep deprivation making you think about what could have been, what might have happened if you didn’t “screw up.” Your anxiety for screwing up feels like it almost owns you, because you daren’t think about anything else.

In my experience, when I work so hard to avoid “screwing up” again it’s a soul crushing, misery inducing way of living. More ironically though, is I’m not sure that any of us screw up half as much as we are convinced of. If you become so in tune to “screwing up” as much as you or I have done over the years, you start to think you know how every situation will end, without seeing the irony of the fact the only thing causing these mistakes, is you. Why do you assume things always won’t go your way? By thinking like this it’s like assuring this is the only way it can go. When it could be so much more.

What if to “forgive” was related to forgetting but they were not directly connected to one other? If this is the case how do we go about moving past the archives of mistakes and paralytic fear of making those same mistakes? By understanding that through it all, the way we see the decisions we make, the events that happen and the emotions we feel are a choice, for we become what we thinking about.

Above anything else, beyond any elaborate idea of eccentric metaphor I could pour onto this page to you- the most important thing is to forgive yourself. The smallest of mistakes you made on that day, be it 12 hours ago or 12 years ago is gone- the moment has passed. Whatever you did, or didn’t do, is done and the moment is set in stone. Think about how fast the world is moving, constantly moving forward, we can’t go back and change the past, so why not treat it as a lesson, a way to understand and overcome a barrier that has the potential to stop you living your life? Then maybe, we can live again, as purely and brilliantly that brings a life of happiness and success I believe we are all working towards.

I’m not saying forgiving yourself is going to be easy. Tell you the truth I’m not sure I can forgive myself. Understand what has happened and that you have the means to do something about it so you don’t make that mistake again. Through the way you choose to feel.

What if we could take these mistakes- and in a way, be glad we made them? Look at the mistake, understand that you screwed up, ask for forgiveness, be happy you got it at such a low price and allow yourself the privilege of continuing to live while becoming this new person. Learn from your mistakes, now a new person, with a different perspective from the same point of view. These archives, these mistakes will only affect us negatively if we let them overrule us so we stop living. The only thing you or I limit by living this way is ourselves and it’s up to us to change it, to choose to feel better feeling thoughts, for you and for me too.

Forgive yourself, but never forget the event. By forgiving yourself you let the negative emotions go, but respect what happened and learn from it, because this is life. You limiting yourself doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, it means nothing will ever happen, and if it does your far more better equipped this time. Tell people how you feel, tell your beautifully brilliant friends for the people you least expect could be your biggest asset through anything.

Through this, maybe we can all go on living. And I hope, be part of a Thinking Evolution.

Yours, with love as always.
DR

 

Good evening ladies and gentleman

As i hope you have previously seen, i have spent a lot of time thinking about loneliness and what it means. Further on even from understanding what loneliness means there is a way of thinking, a way of capitalizing on what is, for the most part, an incredibly negative and dour situation to find yourself in.

We are forever being told in these motivational speeches and seminars, as glistening , rather loud, quite peculiar people shout their opinions at you like there’s a  form of fact we are top of the “food chain” in this world and because of this we should generally be capable of doing anything we choose to. However, I’ve always found this solitary style physical “shout to be heard” style thing difficult to fathom. I have never been a fan of motivation, because it gives like a set list in how to live your life. “Think like this,” “Act like this” and through living like this you will be successful and happy. People are compulsed then by the opinions of talkers and writers who seem to talk sense, as they flow over the stage seeming to just state the obvious.

Living, living is much more complicated. A unique, eviscerating, beautifully brilliant experience when you find your flow. The idea of living, as purely and truly to yourself as you can is what makes loneliness so important, and motivation not half as simple as some parts of the world would let on, to me anyway. I’ve always believed motivation is a universal thing, where truly inspiring is a personal thing and so fucking powerful. So beautiful, so brilliant, an intensely powerful emotional experience. To inspire, or to be inspired, to find someone living so purely themselves, truly doing as they like and being who they want to be, regardless of opinions, ideas, or manufactured societal ideologies of happiness and they way we are supposed to live. Those who live as they choose to, not because they seem trapped. Those who seem truly happy, in their own way are more inspirational than any amount of motivation can ever be to me.

These people are not always happy, these people have not always been successful. The path they had to themselves, to a life of love, of joy, of wander and beauty and happiness is supposed to difficult, supposed to filled with stuff to make you want to give up, that means you don’t want to keep fighting against the enemy within. For among it all, the choices you have made, the paths you have walked, its all who you are, the voice in your head pushing you down the paths your “supposed ” to stroll down is all you, the fearful you that lives within us all endlessly asking “what if?” as we endlessly listen. This is where things like loneliness and fear wins, when we have to choose, but no choice seems like a good one.

So when all is said and done, if universal motivation isn’t the way to do it, if we aren’t going to be motivated by someone telling you how to think or feel, how do we get back up? How do we keep moving when all you can think about is hiding away, How do you, to not ignore the dreadfully overused cliche for a second- keep calm and carry on? Through the loneliness, difficulty, pain, heartbreak, envy, jealousy and a million other ways of feeling just awful. Easier said than done, but i do believe we are all powerful enough to battle this.

How do you deal with it? Because you are you. Look at yourself in the mirror. Look at you. Look past the body you live in, stare through the blue of your eyes into the darkest parts of your soul and into the depths of your beating heart. See yourself for everything that you are as you stare into the abyss as if looking at someone you love more than life taught you was even possible and see your soul scream in pain as you do it. Your fighting a battle against you, and all i can ask for from myself as DR and Thinking Evolution is to keep fighting, because your so worth fighting for. Life could be spectacular if we just gave it the chance, if we seize control from the emotional and controlling elements of it looking to drag us down into the dirt of mediocrity, living a life you find so uninteresting, but are so utterly convinced is the key to success. As those who want to live purely and beautifully we live a mission, to fight the good fight. Me in this guise as the eternal optimist I believe  we can all do this, and simply trying is the first step.

Life isn’t supposed to be easy, filled with perfect choices that always work out for the best, endless good times and a constant stream of positive vibes and high level beauty. Frankly, i believe life would be utterly exhausting if it were like this. Furthermore, the world convinced that a permanent state of some strange almost sedated euphoric happiness  is the key to a successful life makes no sense, simply because its not true. We need the bad times, the times that make you feel as if the only sensation you can feel in life is a dark cloud of misery forever looming over you. They make the good times, those time where you laugh until you cry, do things you would never normally do, be in places you would never normally be, the moments that make you so fucking proud just to be there so much more.

We are being challenged you see, by ourselves. The voice inside your head, that little niggle in the back of your head, the leak in the system of your mind and soul slowly dripping doubt into every corner of your consciousness. The world often seems a broken and heartless place, and we are the only way out. You, I and everyone else need to be the author of your own story, for it ends however you want it to. Not the world, not other people, your fate is not decided by society, your destiny is so far from predetermined. It is how you see it should be. You should be lonely sometimes, its good to be sad, it makes us human, makes us emotional.

However, it also gives us power, to overcome adversity amongst the greatest of odds, when the battlements are down, the enemy is getting in and victory, survival looks impossible.  Its not easy to see, but if we can believe that we are capable, then i truly believe when all is said and done-

We will prevail.

Yours, with love as always.
DR

 

Good evening ladies and gentleman

As previously mentioned, i am finding my attention drawn away from the task in hand lately, whatever it might be. Its as if i’m always sidetracked to doing something else, completely meaningless and unrelated to what I was trying to do. Furthermore, i feel like the world and the societies we find ourselves living in, these almost alien voids where individuality and any form of creativity, conventionally artistic (as if there could be such a thing) or any creative outlet that creates that feeling of wander like nothing else can. You are human, and this is what you love doing. Through this medium, you become who you are. It gives the world meaning to you, and that, to me, is the most important thing that we seem to not want to notice, that we almost try to ignore.

Hence the persistent, consistently confusing problem of being sidetracked from whatever you might be thinking about or trying to achieve. It bothers me so much because the distractions all seem so pointless, just wastes of time so you aren’t focused on something. Whether this is something we consciously choose to do, to remain off on a meaningless sidetrack, or as a fail-safe style defense mechanism remains to be seen, but either way the question of what we are hoping to stay distracted from remains. What are we avoiding to even think about so badly? What is so bad, that I do all i can to remain so sidetracked?

I think it all starts, in this modern technological world of 2017 in the piece of metal and plastic sat next to you, that has a consistent residence in your pocket or even in your hand as you read what I am writing to you right now. Now it would be obtuse and extremely narrow minded to say the least to conclude the idea the smartphone was a poor invention, because for all of the doubters, all of the “death of conversation” complainers, to the real world becoming so less relevant as we look to Instagram and the photoshopped idealistic standards of the world to be the gospel in the way the world should be, as we become consumed by this idea that the key to happiness, the key to what is missing in your life resides among the likes, comments and re-tweets of social media. What if there was more to this giant of the modern age, what if it could be so much more.

For all the doubters in the way the world is going, there has to be so much more to say, more to see than we ever could have seen. We can forge connections to parts of the world we would never be able to see, have friends on the other side of the world checking in and sharing beautiful experiences with you, as you do them. We can create challenges, revolutionary ideas, business that could shape the world as we see it, inventions that are moving the world into a technological age the world would have never even considered possible a few decades ago. The world has become so much more connected, in theory, then why does it seem a much more lonely place? Why is it that being lonely has become so much more frequent, a demon more and more people are not wanting to face up to?

This is why I believe we have this persistent need for distraction, to remain sidetracked, because then we aren’t concentrating on this fear, real or not, of something so all encompassing it feel as if it might swallow you up. Loneliness is the most predominant problem among the plethora of emotions and idea through this, for I feel like you could easily drown in loneliness. I maintain from something i wrote a few months ago that to be lonely and to be alone, are two very different sensations, with themselves a different set of emotions and ideas. We are all perfectly capable of being alone, you can walk down the street, go to the shops, watch TV and cook your food by yourself no problem. Its perfectly possible to go 24 hours completely alone, left with your thoughts to rest, look at what you are and what you want to be, learning and understanding the way the world is and the way you are. Periods of being alone are good.

However, these periods of being alone can also be a fundamental weakness, something that can work so very hard against you and against what you want to be. Why? Because being alone can be an emotionally numb, almost comfortable experience, a perspective into your world devised by logic and order, where everything has its place, where we strive to understand what is happening and what has the potential to go wrong. There is no surprise to being alone, literally and emotionally, which means there is less pain, less sadness. I think we all struggle to let people into our world because of how comforting alone can be. Like everything, being alone in moderation is good,  a powerful mental force that can reset and refresh a tired mind, offer a fresh perspective on a previously perplexing question and save the the tired mind from the saturated sensation of exhaustion. When you get a taste of the pleasure of being alone, the effects can be profound.

Too much though and being alone can rapidly become lonely. I think we are always supposed to let people into our lives, a select few into the often unhinged personal world you live and the rare encounters with truly beautiful people into your heart. If you, if I am ever going to get to that next level of a world so interconnected by Instagram, Snapchat and so many other ways of showing the world what you believe to be you, then personal, meaningful, emotionally powerful connections are the key.

Now i’m not even saying this should happen right away, or even at all at times, for one to live and think in this positive way doesn’t require consistent need and desire for action, to constantly be doing or trying to be at the next level of life, be it in the connections we share with people, the love you have for someone or just the place you are in your life, but just being aware of what could happen, being open to the possibility that regardless of how hard we try, if we truly want to live- we have to be aware that sometimes life will hurt. You will feel tortured and pained by things you do not understand, confused by your low mood, the ignorance of life leaving you so lost on the rare occasion life  happens to you that being alone can so rapidly become lonely. If we aren’t even open to the possibility, what are we really doing? Is it really living?

I feel like wherever any of us are in life, to whatever capacity, there is always another level we can reach, another target, goal or beautifully brilliant idea to work towards. Its what we fill the journey with, the work in heading towards the destinations is what really matters. The moments that make you smile, laugh and wander why you ever felt so low, the moments that make you sad, feel something so soaked in misery all you can think of is being alone, when in reality all you wanted is someone to hold you, someone to talk to and say that you will be okay. This is life, and sometimes you’re supposed to be lonely. And you will always be okay.

We should even embrace loneliness at times for these tests show us the nature and character of who we are and who we want to be as people, as individuals in a world who would rather we stay sidetracked on “The Perfect Selfie” or some upcoming television show.

It’s not supposed to be easy, admitting to being lonely. Its even harder to know how to deal with it without distraction, simply because and i know this seems obvious-

I really, really don’t like feeling lonely.

Yours, with love as always

DR