Shining Thru

Intellect?  Where does it get you?  How can you puzzle through relying on blurry thoughts and logic? 

What causes someone to lose sight of what’s important?

To allow things to become hazy and confusing?

Not knowing where your life is going or what road you’re on…

In a sea of colorful balloons that explode in your face when they get too full….

Emotions that can only take on so much, a heart that is tugged at too often…worried and stressed…

All of your thoughts begin to hover in the air until they need rearranging…but what happens when you can’t latch onto them in time to get a grip on what they are?  What happens when you can’t even recognize your own thoughts?  Glimpses of clarity provide hope….Moments of loneliness and worry provide reality. 

What happens when your heart is torn in two?  Knowing that you are so happy with your traveling companion on the road of life, but also knowing that the stress is having its toll and proving plenty of detours and potholes.  Interrupting the smooth ride with the swerves and bumps. 

Maybe that’s what life is…an impossible logic puzzle.  Something that no amount of intellect will be able to uncover.  Sometimes you just have to go with it and hope for the best…..If feelings lie and intellect isn’t enough…what is left to go on except hope?  The knowledge that at least you know when you’re happy

Feeling lonely and forgotten

helpless at a distance

No understanding of how everything is chaos

Spinning helplessly out of control

One more thing is too much and tips the scales

The build up pours forth like a dam that has been released, or broken

Flooding over every inch of your being

Not able to stop, the tears flow and the thoughts spin

Jumping from one to the next to the next

Not able to stop, you wish you had the brake

A pause on life so that you could get your bearing

Figure out where you are and comprehend

But nothing is there to help you regain your balance

A smashing ending to the ride as it crashes and pieces fly

Nothing to grab or lean on

Nothing to comfort and sooth

Alone, Lost, Aching for comfort and understanding

You wobble and step, never in the same direction

Can’t find the answers when nothing will hold still

Can’t hear the answers when you’re too afraid of losing

Worried about everything and nothing

No thoughts to grasp, only spin and spin until they blur

Moving so fast, thoughts you know where there but thought were locked up

Thoughts you never wanted to bring into the light

Explode and show all of their colors

Your dreams, your fears, your life.

How do people control other people?

I think that we see this in action the most with parents and their children….even though some children seem to have reversed the roles while nobody was looking.  Sometimes parents control their children with fear, bribery, encouragement, logic, mind games, etc.  I think that most people take their own approach when it comes to parental control….just as I think children find their own ways of testing their parents and trying to get their control…

What is it about certain things that create certain reactions within us from another person, especially from someone close to us.  Screaming tantrums often get their way in today’s society; although I know that type of thing seems unbearable at times, is it really benefiting anyone to reward such behavior…what reaction within us causes us to lose our logical side for a moment?  Although it ends the screaming now, what happens the next time a kid wants something their way….or the next and so on and so on? 

What is it about guilt that seems to control all sorts of people, especially people that know you care about them?  I know I can be manipulated by guilt, as I am greatly affected by it and it can cause all sorts of stress reactions….I wonder what it is about that particular emotion that can really get to people?

Some people are easily persuaded to change their minds or open them up to something, or close them to something by the people that are around them, or opinions they are exposed to in the media on a regular basis….some people just buy into everything that they hear if it sounds like there is a good case behind it, even when there are no facts to back it up…while others cannot be persuaded even when fact after fact is laid out right in front of them….

So what is it that people give into?  Is it the people closest to them?  The opinions and values they are raised with?  The media?  Or something else completely?

Do you ever feel like you ruin everything…that you are undeserving….that you’re tired of feeling guilty and sorry about everything that happens? 

Sometimes situations present themselves as if they could have been totally different IF only….

If only I hadn’t said that and ruined the mood

If only I hadn’t done that and scared them away

If only I had gotten there five minutes earlier

If only….

If we counted up the if only’s of the world, I think we would be wasting our time, just like we are when we can’t stop thinking about the IF ONLY’s…..It didn’t happen that way, you didn’t do what you think you should have done with hindsight, you didn’t get there at a different time, it happened the way it happened….why is it so hard for us as humans to accept the reality that we have created?  It seems like so much of the population spends their time on regrets instead of moving forward, learning from it and moving on….I wonder who much we could get done if instead of think about the what ifs and regrets of the world, we spent that time being productive and moving forward into the future…I realize that statement is slightly contradictory, but I think that it illustrates the point quite nicely. 

If only we spent less time thinking about and wishing for the IF ONLY’s…..

It’s so hard to know that you love someone that you may never be able to be with.  I don’t know how to accept the fact that I have no control over the fact that I have found the love of my life and don’t know if things will turn out for us to be together or not.  What makes it even harder is knowing the alternative…knowing the choice that needs to be made.  Knowing that I am asking a lot of the man that I love.  But I can’t help the fact that I love him and when I’m not with him I feel a slight emptiness and miss him very deeply.  He has become a huge part of my life and I love everything about him.  I hope that just this once things can work out, I want to spend the rest of my life with the person that I love.  I want that person to be with me because they love me and not be in a relationship out of obligation.  I think that everyone deserves to be with someone who loves them as much as they love that person.  I know my love is pure and will never cease to be, I’m terrified of what will happen if there comes a time when I will not have permission to show my love any longer.  I don’t know what I will do with out the touch and kiss and long conversations….I love our intimate moments as well as our silly ones, I don’t want them to stop and simply be memories, I want it to go on for the rest of my life, as I know that the love that I feel will continue to go on for as long as I’m alive.

For being something that nobody has ever really defined well for me, most people in the world seem to crave and seek power.  But what is power?  Is power having some amazing abilities, or conquering and enslaving people???  Is it money and materials?  What exactly is power? 

We all seem to know what super powers are.  But what is the power that every day people seek all their lives?  Even most people who don’t realize that they are seeking it, perk up at the thought of having power…power in a company, or having influence, maybe just having someone near by who has to listen to you, “being the boss”. 

What is it about power that has engraved itself into human nature to the point where some people go crazy over the want of it.  I realize not everyone is after it, mainly because I don’t believe in absolutes.  But I do think that it is fair to say that most people would jump on having power if they could. 

Throughout history many wars have been faught over the thought of power, many graves have been robbed, many people have wasted their lives looking fo the key to being all powerful.  I think in these instances the people wanted to be in control….is control power?  If power is simply having control, I think it is easy enough to see why so many people say that power corrupts, or goes to a person’s head.  I wonder what it would be like to have real power…would I even want that responsibility?  Would I want to be responsible for what happens to other people?  Is control in fact the key to having power?

I think it’s interesting to learn the way people work…everyone has different emotions, different reactions, and different things that motivate them.  Have you ever gone to the mall or out in public and just sat and watched people?  Everyone is motivated by something different, and I find that I like to guess what that is with complete strangers.  Some people just appear completely obsessed with something:  looks, money, love (lust), being the best……everyone has something that motivates them, the key is to figure out what it is when you are dealing with them.  I think this is a hard thing to do….it’s hard enough just to figure out what you are motivated by.  I think it’s an important aspect of self evaluation because if you don’t know what motivates you, how can you know if someone is trying to use that to control you, or at least an aspect of you???  Something to think about anyway.

“Forget Regret, or Life is yours to Miss.”  I really like this line from the musical Rent.  I think it says a lot about how we should all live our life.  I know that I have gotten caught up in personal guilt, worry, regret, and wondering “what if”….We don’t have time for all of that.  We have right now, and right now is a result of everything that has happened in the past yes, but how we live right now is what makes up the future so why screw up the future by worrying about what you did in the past….it’s in the past, this is now, this is what we need to concentrate on. 

No one ever guaranteed us tomorrow…..so we can’t worry about what will happen in the future, just as we can’t worry about the past…if we spend our whole life worrying, we’re not living.  Let yesterday be, because it’s in the past, and take care of tomorrow when it’s today.  No need to worry about tomorrow when you need to live today, you need to make decisions today…yes those decisions may affect the rest of your life, but if we spend so much time worrying about the consequences of one decision, we’ll miss out on the opportunity all together. 

In an effort to not think about the situation that we are in some people avoid thinking too deeply by living in the past,  walking down memory lane all of the time, or dive into one aspect of their life like work or a hobby…just to avoid thinking about whatever thing they don’t want to acknowledge fully in their life…most of us have something. 

Living in the moment seems like a simply theory, a great way to live…but we all know there is more to it than that.  I wish it was that easy.  Unfortunately most of us are aware that our life is linked to many other lives and that our decisions have an affect on all of those people.  It’s also true that sometimes we can’t control the “what ifs” that go through our minds.  But we can control how much time we dwell on these things…sometimes we need to look ahead or remember the past, but we can’t forget to live the right now, right here….

Can being too open minded be a bad thing?  When your thought process is fluid and you’re completely open to at least hearing new thoughts, even if you don’t take them on yourself?  Or is it what we should all strive for?  I think that one of he problems that we may run into if we are too open minded is being too easily influenced by the things that we encounter, media of all sorts for example, news reports, radio, TV, books, magazines…all of these things can influence you to the point where you adopt a pattern of thought or some outlandish idea because it is new and you want to explore it some more.  So you go on, thinking and living in the new idea and maybe even a whole mindset that you have just been introduced to, not realizing that it’s not part of your personality at all…that you might not even agree with it….I suppose that is the beauty in a fluid way of thinking, it might not be safe or fail proof, but it is intelligent and without risk we would never have discovery.  I think that the fear comes in when you lose control of how open minded you want to be….If you allow too much from the media inside the inner-workings of your brain, are you still thinking for yourself or simply absorbing all that you are introduced to , testing it, exploring it, and then discarding what doesn’t fit into your life at the time?

Words are a powerful thing…I think that most of us have heard about the power of words at one point or another in some degree.  Have you ever stopped to think about the difference words have made in your life; somebody saying one simple phrase and having it stick with you for the rest or your life?  If it was a positive or negative phrase is irrelevant, the important thing is that you remember it, and because it stayed alive in your mind, and stirred some type of feeling, it’s power came to life, when it influenced who you are. 

Words can do the same thing to the masses.  Words are what make people fear, argue, agree, or ignore.  The way words are spoken, the connotations of the words used, the jargon that is given out freely by the media.  Words can also inspire an entire group, generation, or nation.   Look at the influence of all of the different ways words are delivered, from the nightly news to the newest song played on the radio.  The words that we surround ourselves with have a big influence on who we are.  Having the right words at the right time can be amazingly powerful, you can change someone’s day, or outlook on life, or start a revolution by influencing the masses and convincing them that it’s time for change.  Change comes through words.  This philosophy is demonstrated and and pondered in the book that I’m currently reading, Ender’s Game.  Like 1984 and The Giver, the book uses some sci-fi type qualities to make some very real, current, and relevant points to our world today.  Think about how long books and poems stay alive in circulations, in libraries, in homes, in classrooms, etc….continuously being interpreted and influencing people.  Or at least some books are treated with that reverence….some are never even published.  It’s all about having the right words for the right group at the right time.  Some people have a gift for writing that reaches many people over centuries, generation after generation, the words are valued.  But this gift is rare….

Think about how revolutions throughout history have began…with words.  There is always someone from an intelligent and more experienced group that rallies the masses with WORDS.  Pamphlets, speeches, songs, whatever it takes to spread a common message and influences the masses that are needed to really make a difference.  If the numbers aren’t there than the intelligence is just going to stay an idea in one person’s mind and maybe be discussed on a rare night when nothing else is happening….but it never goes beyond the circle and into the masses if it’s not delivered at the right time. 

Word choice is extremely important if you want to use your words to control, then they need to be considered with all of the connotations(associations) as well as the denotations(definition) that come along with words.  The media has a lot of control over the masses because of their word choice.  The media has the power to scare or reassure with pretty much any story that they put on television or run in the paper.  Either way, word choice is key. 

The internet makes the spread of words amazingly fast…we have advanced now to the spread of video.  In a matter of minutes an entire school with have a video clip that someone took on their cell phone of some unfortunate or fortunate student or teacher…..Think about how many people from different backgrounds, cultures, and countries read the same passages on the Internet….even this blog is read across the world…which is amazing, at least to me. 

Words are very powerful things, they can be used to inspire or knock down….the thing about words, especially the written word, once it’s out there, it’s almost impossible, if not completely impossible to ever get them out of circulation, out of people’s minds, especially with the wonderful world wide web.