not a fan of the cat

Funny entry, courtesy of monastic mumblings.

on truth

I had an interesting talk on msn today with an individual who contends that what a person believes to be true is indeed true for that person.

I have to say, this makes no logical sense to me.

All of humanity observes certain physical laws that govern our universe, and an observant person can also observe spiritual patterns that affect how humans interact. An example would be gravity. it is accepted as a true thing that actually exists and has power because we all see it working in our lives. Sometimes we appreciate it, and sometimes we strive against it, but we never question its existence. For me to say, "I don't believe in gravity so I'm gonna jump off this cliff and fly to the sun" would be totally moronic and regardless of the degree of my faith, I would be jumping to my death.

Likewise, take a more subtle spiritual "law" such as that of sowing and reaping, or karma, if you will. The fact of the matter is that sooner or later we all reap the consequences of our behaviour. I acknowledge that as truth because I see the effect of it on my life and the lives of the people around me.

So this "truth is what I believe it is" seems to me like an excuse to ignore the whole concept of truth altogether. and if you're going to do that, why not just be straight with me, and tell me that you don't care about truth, you just want to do your own thing? I can accept that. I don't expect everyone to go running around on a quest for truth. You don't have to come up with a highly illogical run-around to convince me that your position is valid.

More and more lately I'm learning just how much I appreciate clarity and honesty. Not just honesty about what you think but honesty about why you think you think that.... if that makes any sense.

One thing I learned about myself today is that I believe in Truth... with a capital T. I believe that there is a spiritual reality out there that I can never completely grasp, one that I could always be wrong about, one that embodies paradoxes and therefore seems to contradict itself.... but I think it's there, and that some people see more of it than others.

So.... I've got that settled then. I can go to bed.

seeping

I don't have anything new to say. My brain has been slowly and methodically chugging away at all the fresh information and angles..... I think it's important to stop and allow ideas to soak into my psyche, allow them to change me and offer their own applications.

After all, if it doesn't somehow alter or improve my experience, it's only information.

One thing that I don't want to do is be angry or bitter towards the well intentioned perpetrators of my indoctrination. I think that would be counterproductive to what I'm doing here. And I think that if any idea led me towards divisiveness it could not be true. I think that Truth ought to unite people and transcend boundaries, and the inner result should be joy and peace.

The other thing is that I don't need to advertise my disagreements with people, because they simply don't matter (the disagreements, that is). Why should I feel the need to inform people that I no longer believe as they do, unless that devious intention to win them to my side has reared his insolent head. I think that deep down we all want people to agree with the way we see the world, but the fact of the matter is that our efforts in that regard seem to create more harm than good.

The last day or two have been markedly dismal.... to say it plainly, I'm just in a shitty mood. No biggie, but I sense something underneath it.... it's as though I've begun a good book and can't find the time to finish it. Or like everytime I try to get back into it, someone interrupts me, and so I've been stuck on the same paragraph for.... like..... ten minutes. That's analogy-time.... the translation could be days or weeks.... I don't know. What I mean to say is there are unfinished thoughts.... and I wish the week would end quicker so I could devote myself to contemplation.

So, I will be grouchy until friday afternoon. Except for lunchtime tomorrow.... it's chicken finger day. And friday is chips and pepsi day. Funny, if I can only make it through wednesday, the rest of the week seems so manageable.

Throw me some thoughts about reincarnation. Someone brought it up the other night and some interesting ideas popped up.

say what you mean

Don't mince words, mr. president.

yearbook

When my parents came to visit a couple weeks ago, they brought a box of my old things, including my high school yearbooks. Flipping through them has put me in a somber state of mind. I'm not exactly sure why.

It's funny that I was always wearing camouflage, because it seemed that I was truly invisible. Now that I think back, I realize it's not true. It is true that I've always had an ability to disappear, but in retrospect it may have been a talent I developed out of need.

In my graduating year I was the president of the Inter-School Christian Fellowship (how far I have fallen) and as such was in charge of leading meetings, performing administrative tasks and attempting to keep people pumped about Jesus, so to speak. Some of you know exactly how suited for the job I am NOT. But you know, even on the pages dedicated to the club, I am hard to find. Always behind someone, or face hidden. The only clue that I am in the shot is a camo-clad arm, or the back of a shaven head. It always seemed like people wanted to put me in front, but I wanted to melt away into the crowd, and for the most part I did. But now as I remember those people in school.... the people I was afraid of, or intimidated by, and I remember their faces as I passed them in hallways, I realize that it was not derision or contempt that I was seeing, it was something.... attentive.

As teenagers go I was probably more self-realized than most, but not so much that I was able to rise above my self consciousness. And what a strange thing, to be a completely different human being, paging through this book full experiences that I couldn't wait to be rid of. I hated high school about as much as I hated anything at the time. My strategy was to drift through like a ghost and materialize on the other side, only a vague memory in anyone's mind, the one whose name escaped recollection.

The reason I bring these things up is because it has something to do with the things we believe, and the way it affects how we live. As a teenager I had a lot of very deep and negative beliefs about myself, rooted in my parents divorce. I truly believed that I didn't matter, that I wasn't just capable of disappearing, but that people WANTED me to disappear. I didn't have any idea about just what I was doing, but I did indeed fade away.

The reality of the situation was that I was not invisible, nor was I meant to be. In fact, I probably had the ability to speak to a lot of the pain and hurt in my fellow students, if only I had seen my own worth. This is how our false beliefs about ourselves rob the people around us.

I'm sure that there are still similar beliefs festering in my insides, but I don't know what they are. But I will tell you one thing, the path of self-realization definitely leads to some hot destinations.

I'm trying to figure out where my brain is at. I can't believe that in just a couple years I'll be due for a 10 year reunion, in the event that they can track me down, and the thought fills me with an old, familiar apprehension. I'll just be the unmarried, childless, dead-end job crazy dog lady with not one published book to her name. "So, what have you been up to the last decade?" "Oh, I've been using all my evenings at home alone to cultivate high-resolution wordy relationships with complete strangers I'll never meet while achieving barely passable mental health."

Beat that.