Sidetracked

Good evening ladies and gentleman

I’ve always found curiosity to be a rather fickle thing. Certain people have it for certain things, people, ideas, thoughts, feelings and so on. Between that first moment of thought and until they find the answer to the question, until they understand the conundrum and can find their way through the haze of questionable information, general induction and through this gathering process, we understand more and the curiosity for certain aspects of life will fade away. However, to me, there are certain aspects of life that we are always going to be curious about, always going to want to learn about and develop understanding of- for it gives us more to be.

I have tried the best i can to learn more about myself through the numerous methods deployed since starting Thinking Evolution so way back when, with this hopefully being the start of a lifelong process. You should always try and learn i think, everyday, ask a question, have a conversation, debate, read an article, talk to someone, or even just listen to yourself. I feel like we have forgotten how to do that these days, we are so intent on dealing with so much, living through so much, intent on finding that point, the root of every perfectionist intention you have ever had all because of the temptation the reward of what we believe happiness and success should be. The biggest irony behind that being is that living this way seems like the only way to not find the happiness and success you crave so badly.

What i have found, especially recently, is an uncanny inability to pay attention on my part. I just seem to wander off, thinking about something completely irrelevant or in no way connected to the task in hand, from writing something down to going to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. It just seems like I’m not really all there at the moment. My body remains functional, as does a lot of me mentally, but just not for very long. What’s more confusing is i don’t know where i get these jumps from and never really remember them soon after the event has passed. It would make sense were the two streams of thought contextually connected somehow, but it all seems so utterly random.

I often wander with a lot of what i think about and a lot of what i write about is how much we are consciously aware of and how much is seemably “inevitable,” like its not worth thinking about, or even doesn’t really need your attention because either way you feel like it’s going to happen. Its as if the thought process has become so familiar, a  process repeated so many times we don’t even give it a second glance as it floats by. How much happens to us that we don’t even think about, that we don’t even realize were a bit of that day’s potential to be spectacular.

When you think about it, that could go some way to helping us understand a remarkable amount about the world we find ourselves living in right now, for there is just so much going on, both in the world and in your life too. Things you may do without thinking about, the things you have to take care of- everything is keeping us very busy, regardless of the meaning behind the actions or feelings we are experiencing. Being distracted is the key, because stop and you risk noticing what you’ve missed, the potential for pain increases almost exponentially and when all is said and done it creates a feeling of utter exhaustion, both physically and emotionally.

So, we choose to remain this way, even though its quite difficult to pin down what “this way” really is. I say that though, i wander how much conscious thought goes into remaining as distracted from the problems that we don’t really want to face? You don’t really put much effort into doing as much as you can to not think about something, it just sort of happens without us even noticing, to me anyway. You wander round, even walk to your own kitchen to make a cup of tea, only to return not two minutes later, without a cup of tea, or any recollection you went to make one. This process continues in a remarkable flashbulb moment when you remember what you were supposed to be doing and carry on.

We are distracted yes, but sidetracked seems a much more appropriate word for what I believe this experience to be. We might get distracted, but never really forget what’s happening, making me think its much more of an avoiding action. Even though we don’t seem to think about avoiding things we don’t want to feel, think about or do. Its like we have almost evolved a protective barrier to throw clothes, shoes, this ideal “retail therapy,” consumed by the idea we can do all we can to not have to deal with something, because through this, it might just go away. We persist, again and again, through meaningless connections, things upon things, feelings upon feelings ignored. It will build, it has to. The question then, is what happens when you get to the point where no level of distraction, no amount of becoming sidetracked can help you ignore- when the elephant in the room becomes so large your face ends up slammed up against the window? We are sidetracked in our ignorance of the inevitable, but you can’t avoid things forever. Its inevitable that what your avoiding will find you, eventually.

The question though is this-

What are you avoiding? What am i avoiding?

Yours, with love as always.
DR