...with a silly icon to lighten the mood
I haven't written much lately, but...oh well.
I wish that I could think the way I used to. I wish I could spin tales the way I used to. I wish I could...gods, I wish I had something of meaning to say.
I'm grasping for it, constantly grasping. All of the late-night conversations, the pontifications, the thoughts on this or that news article, melodrama and empty politics... Did any of it really have a point? Did I arrive at a higher understanding as a result of any of it? Did I come closer to accessing the truth?
I do not think that I did.
I read things that I once wrote, things that once filled the pages of my old paper journal, and I long for those days of strange and nebulous thought. It seemed that all I did in those days was think, think, think, and now I find myself impatiently waiting for the moment when I can stop thinking. I throw my head into school and into schoolwork, but then I let it idle, because I think that I am entitled to such.
But we are never entitled to rest on our laurels. In those moments when we wish never to have naught but a pleasant thought again, we doom ourselves to meaninglessness.
I am reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at present (thanks Olivia! I'm sorry it's taking me so long to read; I've just been very busy, as have we all), and there is something that one of the characters says, something that strikes me the way reading online debate once used to strike me. May Kasahara is talking about death, as usual, and she makes the point that, if we could live forever, we might never stop to think about all the things we do. We might never stop to consider the nature of our existence. Somehow, that encapsulates everything I feel in this moment.
Our lives are finite, and that itself means something. We are meant to accomplish in a manner unattainable to one who possesses the ability to live forever. That brand of being breeds laziness, complacency. A being who dies cannot be complacent, for tomorrow might very well be the end, and so should truth not be found today or any myriad number of goals not be achieved today -- well, you may very well have wasted your chance.
It's about seizing the day. Thinking, searching for truth, is the essence of seizing the day, for it is that search that keeps us going. It is that search that gives us fulfillment.
I feel I should address Buddhism herein, but...the words escape me at the moment. I shall do so at some point, however. For now, I'd only like to say that I love it more than I ever have, and I think that I might just go ahead and accept precepts transmission during Vesak this year. That said, I believe there is some incongruence between my love for this philosophy and the thoughts I have expressed above. We shall have to see later, when my head has cleared enough that I can draw something coherent from this.
I wish that I could think the way I used to. I wish I could spin tales the way I used to. I wish I could...gods, I wish I had something of meaning to say.
I'm grasping for it, constantly grasping. All of the late-night conversations, the pontifications, the thoughts on this or that news article, melodrama and empty politics... Did any of it really have a point? Did I arrive at a higher understanding as a result of any of it? Did I come closer to accessing the truth?
I do not think that I did.
I read things that I once wrote, things that once filled the pages of my old paper journal, and I long for those days of strange and nebulous thought. It seemed that all I did in those days was think, think, think, and now I find myself impatiently waiting for the moment when I can stop thinking. I throw my head into school and into schoolwork, but then I let it idle, because I think that I am entitled to such.
But we are never entitled to rest on our laurels. In those moments when we wish never to have naught but a pleasant thought again, we doom ourselves to meaninglessness.
I am reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at present (thanks Olivia! I'm sorry it's taking me so long to read; I've just been very busy, as have we all), and there is something that one of the characters says, something that strikes me the way reading online debate once used to strike me. May Kasahara is talking about death, as usual, and she makes the point that, if we could live forever, we might never stop to think about all the things we do. We might never stop to consider the nature of our existence. Somehow, that encapsulates everything I feel in this moment.
Our lives are finite, and that itself means something. We are meant to accomplish in a manner unattainable to one who possesses the ability to live forever. That brand of being breeds laziness, complacency. A being who dies cannot be complacent, for tomorrow might very well be the end, and so should truth not be found today or any myriad number of goals not be achieved today -- well, you may very well have wasted your chance.
It's about seizing the day. Thinking, searching for truth, is the essence of seizing the day, for it is that search that keeps us going. It is that search that gives us fulfillment.
I feel I should address Buddhism herein, but...the words escape me at the moment. I shall do so at some point, however. For now, I'd only like to say that I love it more than I ever have, and I think that I might just go ahead and accept precepts transmission during Vesak this year. That said, I believe there is some incongruence between my love for this philosophy and the thoughts I have expressed above. We shall have to see later, when my head has cleared enough that I can draw something coherent from this.