Ah time, that thief of my life

I relate to the world through a rich inner thought life. Thoughts stir around in my head all day, some mundane, some poetic, all of them almost always lost in the shuffle of my everyday busy life. Sometimes that is quite discouraging because it feels as though I am a shell walking throughout my day doing my work and existing in each moment reduced to a robotic routine, the meaning of life distilled into droplets of interaction with other human beings and there is a deep hunger there. I am interested in people, I want to sit down and probe the depth of their thoughts and find out what makes them tick. I tried to do that with a friend as we took walks together but I found that she held a shallow pool of interesting thought and didn't seem to be driven like I am towards constant improvement and seeking after knowledge. This was discouraging to me and though I am still good friends with her, I still find myself lacking a thought partner, something that I am used to though so I've retreated to the familiar territory of books and TED talks, anything that gets me to think outside of the ordinary humdrum of life. I find that when I read I analyze the way that the author has set up the book, how they are developing their characters and plot. Though without the time to work on my own book I despair at ever creating my own work of fiction. I'm not uncaring towards people, however I find it hard to maintain relationships with the depth of friendship that I prefer because the demands of time on my life make that possibility low. I am selfish a lot of times, I know. I am also frustrated because of the many things I want to do with my time that I cannot because I am a responsible adult type person. Well, I've got more to write but I am being called away... goodnight.

SG

The Flickering Spirit of Christmas

My thoughts this year as we gathered for Thanksgiving centered around the way that our traditions as a society have morphed over the years.

As a child we are questing out understand how things are. There is an unquestioning acceptance of things as though the way things are is the way they've always been. We do see that in the past our parents and grandparents didn't have the same kinds of things that we have, less obvious is that our parents and grandparents had different types of traditions than what we have. 

The feel of the season vs. what it felt like when I was little

Distance 

Business

Agriculture and commerce vs. big business

Simple decorations vs. opulent, chintzy decorations

Expectations for our acceptance in society now vs. then

Habits that are valued now vs. then 

Corporations and commercialization has taken over the 

Authenticity

It is one of the great mysteries of life that we try so hard to predict what the future will bring yet fail so often at our predictions. Or we cannot fully see what the signs and portents of things mean and we are ever questing out to have certainty in our lives but certainty is a thing that none can have. 

I've always sought to have authentic relationships with others. To be myself and let others be themselves but there is a part of me that isn't satisfied with that. When I was young I yearned to have the acceptance of others, yet part of me wanted to control others as well. I wanted on the one hand to let others be and on the other to help them change in ways that I thought that would be good for them. So that was the paradox of my own identity, to be myself, to resist to change when others wanted me to change and yet to want to change others if I thought there was something better for them. As a mother I find that I want to help my children find their paths, yet part of me wants to stand back and let them find their paths on their own. There is a balance, how much should I interfere, how much should I try to guide. Where do I draw the line.

I see that life is not the way that I want it to be, I see society faltering in the whirlwind of capitalism, consumerism, by the will of other men and they are the ones guiding the path, they are the ones directing the choices that we can make, taking away other choices because competitors would take profits away from them. I feel the squeezing on all sides, and I look around and find a uniformity of things, a narrowness of mind and a sameness of people. What is sad is that we don't realize this, all of the world is trickery and gimmick. Perhaps it is the pattern of our brains, our hard wiring to imitate what we see and to do what we think is expected of us and to content ourselves with it. 

I seek to write more than the mundane, to be more than the tarnished image that I have of myself. To be better but not judge myself harshly. 

Seeking purpose

Some thoughts that have been plaguing my mind lately revolve around purpose in ones life. I watched a documentary about some Hasidic Jews who are trying to leave the community they grew up in, turning their back on the beliefs and traditions of their upbringing. The Hasidic Jewish community living in the New York area, as described in the documentary, keeps their members tied to them by issuing a strict set of rules for the community members to follow.

These rules effectively keep the community members in ignorance of how the rest of the world functions and limits the ability of members to make decisions other than those handed down to them from their leaders. The people that were highlighted in the documentary (on Netflix) outline their struggles and reasons for leaving. They have valid reasons (in my opinion) to leave and seek out a different path but in the eyes of their community they are damning themselves and would lead their children astray if allowed to do so.

One thing that stuck with me, besides the difficulty of leaving something that you have always known, is the difficulty in finding purpose. I too struggled with finding a purpose to life when I left behind many of the beliefs I grew up with.

People speak of purpose as though it is something to be found, handed down to us from a sentient being who designed the world to have meaning. They hope that if they can find their purpose then their own lives will have meaning. I don't fault them for trying to find meaning or purpose in life, only I believe that when these things are not readily apparent to us then it can cause anguish, as though finding peace comes from finding purpose.

I propose a different way to regard life and our purpose. We let go of the need for an explanation for everything, we don't need to know why in some cases, we just need to know what is.

I heard this concept from a Ted Talk, I believe, though I can't find it at the moment. We spend a lot of emotional energy trying to figure out why something happened when a lot of times even if we understand why, it isn't going to help us find peace.

Accepting that you don't have to have all the answers frees you to move forward and choose to be happy in spite of everything.

Just a few thoughts for the day...

SG